project of the constitution to be
promulgated by the home authorities. His able speech may be met with in
the pages of the Canadian Review, published at Montreal, in 1826.
This St. Peter street magnate attained four score and ten years, and died
at Russell Square, London, on the 10th January, 1836.
Another signature recalls days of
strife and alarm; that of sturdy old Hugh McQuarters, the brave artillery
sergeant who, at Prês-de-Ville on that momentous 31st December
1775, applied the match to the cannon which consigned to a snowy shroud
Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, his two aides, McPherson and
Cheeseman, and his brave but doomed followers some eleven in all; the rest
having sought safety in flight. By this record, it appears Sergeant
McQuarters had also a son in 1802 one of Dr. Sparks’ congregation. Old
Hugh McQuarters lived in Champlain street and closed his career there, in
1812.
Another autograph, that of James
Thompson, one of Wolfe’s comrades—" a big giant," as our old friend, the
late Judge Henry Black who knew him well used to style him, awakens many
memories of the past. Sergeant James Thompson, of Fraser’s Highlanders, at
Louisbourg in 1758, and at Quebec, in 1759, came from Tain, Scotland to
Canada as a volunteer to accompany a friend—Capt. David Baillie of the
78th. His athletic frame, courage, integrity and intelligence, during the
seventy-two years of his Canadian career, brought him employment, honor,
trust and attention from every Governor of the colony from 1759 to 1830,
the period of his death; he was then aged 98 years. At the battle of the
Plains of Abraham, James Thompson, as hospital sergeant, was intrusted
with the landing at Pointe Lévis of the wounded, who were crossed over in
boats; he tells us of his carrying some of the wounded from the crossing
at Levis, up the hill, all the way to the church at St. Joseph converted
into an hospital and distant three miles from the present
