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of Canada, where he displayed great talents both as a seaman and engineer, Returning home on peace taking place, he obtained the rank of post captain. He devoted his leisure to the improvement of naval architecture, and in 1793 he published a treatise on a method which he had invented of navigating vessels in shallow water by means of sliding keels. He contributed to the foundation of the society for the encouragement of naval architecture, and in 1794 he was nominated agent of transports. He subsequently was employed as an engineer in superintending the defence of the eastern coast of England. On the establishment of the Transport Board, he was made one of the commissioners; in 1805 he was raised to the rank of admiral; and in 1822 to that of admiral of the blue. His death took place at Dawlish, in Devonshire, in February, 1823. Admiral Schank distinguished himself by several ingenious inventions, and he wrote some works on ship building.

HON. PETER RUSSELL

Or this gentleman, upon whom devolved the government of Canada West, on the resignation of Major General Simcoe, in 1796, nothing is known except that he came to Canada with General Simcoe as inspector-general, and became a member of the first Parliament of that section of the province, and also of the Executive Council; and subsequently as the senior member of that body, took Governor Simcoe's place, the duties of which he fulfilled until 1799, when General Hunter arrived as duly appointed suc

cessor.

During his administration, several sound and healthy measures for the province were passed in the Legislature; and among these may be enumerated the act incorporating the legal profession, and that for establishing trade with the United States.

*He built at Quebec, and commanded the Inflexible, 18 guns, and fought her against the revolted colonies on Lake Champlain, October, 1776. Many of her upper timbers were quite new, having been growing in the forests only ten days before the battle.

SIR JOHN HAMILTON, BART.

ANOTHER name which deserves to be honorably mentioned in connection with the early history of the province, and whose owner was raised to rank and affluence through such connection, is that of Sir John Hamilton, an able naval commander, and who during the defence of Quebec, in 1775-6, in command of the Lizard, displayed such bravery, skill and energy in repelling the American invaders, and in assisting Sir Guy Carleton in doing so, that the king in 1776 conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, which he long enjoyed.

JOSEPH QUESNEL, Esq.,

A CANADIAN poet, dramatist and composer, &c., of some repute, was born in France in 1750, and died at Montreal on the 3rd of July, 1809. He obtained letters of naturalization from General Haldimand. In 1788 he produced "Colas et Colinette, ou le Bailli Dupé," a comedy in three acts, printed at Quebec, and performed at Montreal in 1790; " Lucas et Cecile," a musical operatta; "Les Républicains Français," a comedy. In 1805 he wrote a treatise on the dramatic art, for the Quebec amateurs; and, at different times, several musical compositions, all of more or less merit. These pieces were extremely popular with, and widely read by the French Canadian people.

His sons made some figure in the political history of the lower province. The Hon. Jules Quesnel, who died in 1842, was one of the chiefs of the opposition party before the union, and became a member of the special committee; while the Hon. F. A. Quesnel, Q. C., was a talented pleader at the bar, and a member of Parliament. He opposed the union in 1823, and, in 1848, was appointed a member of the Legislative Council.

SIR CHARLES DOUGLAS,

AN eminent naval officer; he was a native of Scotland and first obtained employment in the maratime service of Holland. This circumstance operated to his disadvantage on entering into the English navy; however, at the commencement of the American war, he had the command of a squadron destined to act in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His conduct on that station, in 1776, having forced his way up that great river, in the spring of the year, when nearly filled with drifting ice, to the relief of his countrymen in Quebec, procured him honors and promotion. On the prospect of a rupture with Spain, in 1787, he was raised to the rank of a rear-admiral. He died in 1789. Independent of his merit in the practice of the more immediate duties of his profession, he deserves notice on account of his important improvement in the mode of firing guns on board ships, by means of lock instead of matches. It is said that he was acquainted with six European languages, and could speak them correctly.

His grandson is the present General Sir Howard Douglas, G.C.B.

COLONEL DE PEYSTER.

COLONEL ARENT SCHUYLER DE PEYSTER, a name well known in Upper Canada, having been connected with that province in its infancy, in various ways, but principally in his profession as a military officer, was the grandson of the celebrated Colonel Abraham De Peyster, and was born in New York, on 27th June, 1736. He entered the 8th or King's Regiment of Foot in 1755, served in various parts of North America under his uncle, Colonel Peter Schuyler, and commanded at Detroit, Michillimackinac, and various places in Upper Canada, during the American revolutionary war. The Indian tribes of the north-west were then decidedly hostile to the British Government, but the judicious measures adopted by Colonel De Peyster, tended to conciliate and finally to detach them entirely from the American cause. To his influence over the Indians, several American missionaries and their families

were, on one occasion, indebted for the preservation of their lives. Having risen to the rank of colonel, and commanded his regiment for many years, he retired to Dumfries, Scotland, the native town of his wife, where he resided until his death. During the French revolution, he was instrumental in embodying and training the 1st Regiment of Dumfries Volunteers, of which Robert Burns was an original member. He was on terms of friendship with Burns, who addressed to him one of his fugitive pieces, and with whom he once carried on a poetical controversy in the columns of the Dumfries Journal. He died as full of honors as of years, having held the king's commission upwards of 77 years, and being probably at the time the oldest officer in the service, in November, 1832.

HON. H. T. CRAMAHE.

THIS gentleman administered the government from 1770 to the latter part of 1774, during the absence of the governor, Sir Guy Carleton. It was a most critical time, namely, the passing of the "Quebec Act," and required great vigilance on the part of the person in charge of the government to watch over its interests, what with the indignation of the English community and the subtility of the English colonists settled in what is now the United States.

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Mr. Cramahe performed his high duties with great care and judiciousness, and his conduct, on the occasion of the English people demanding a legislature to be convened, deserves great credit. We believe he was a French Swiss by birth, and a member of the Executive Council.

HON. CHIEF-JUSTICE LIVIUS.

MR. LIVIUS, the occupant of this high office, during our early history, was a foreigner, and was born abroad about the year 1727. He resided for a considerable time previous to the independence

of the United States at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; was a member of the Council under the Royal Government; but was proscribed by the act, 1778. Of the members of the Council of New Hampshire, in 1772, seven were relatives of the governor. Having been left out of a commission as a justice of the Common Pleas, on the division of the province into counties, when new appointments were made, and dissenting from the views of the Council as to the disposition of reserved lands in grants made by a foreign governor, Livius went to England, and exhibited to the Lords of Trade several and serious charges against the administration of which he was a member. These charges were rigidly investigated, but were finally dismissed. Livius appears, however, to have gained much popularity among those in New Hampshire, who were opposed to the governor, and who desired his removal; and was appointed by their influence chief-justice of the province But as it was thought that the appointment, under the circumstances, was likely to produce discord, he was transferred to that of this province, then called Quebec. His commission bears date May 31, 1777; and we believe he served until about 1786, when he retired to England where he died in 1795. Sabine says of him, "Livius would seem a gentleman of strong feelings." He possessed a handsome fortune; was educated abroad, but received an honorary degree from Harvard University, in 1767.

SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND, K.B.

FREDERICK HALDIMAND, lieutenant-general in the British army, and once governor of Canada, a native of Yierdon, County of Berne, Switzerland, was one of those heroes who owed their clevated dignity solely to their marked superiority of talent.

Those who have had the advantage of serving under him and sharing in his fatigues and perils, cannot have failed to have made known his eminent qualities, and the preference of the English nation, who confided to him the government of such an important colony as Canada in the then trying and precarious times, must justify for ever the high opinion entertained of him. He first entered into the service of the king of Sardinia; and, prompted by a noble ambition to instruct himself in the school of the king of Prussia, he joined his service, where after about three years

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