I refer your Lordship to Colonel Rivers for that farther information in regard to this colony, which he is much more able to give you than I am, having visited every part of Canada in the design of settling in it.
I have the honor to be,
My Lord, &c.
Wm. Fermor.
Your Lordship’s mention of nuns has brought to my memory a little anecdote on this subject, which I will tell you.
I was, a few mornings ago, visiting a French lady, whose very handsome daughter, of almost sixteen, told me, she was going into a convent. I enquired which she had made choice of: she said, “The General Hospital.”
“I am glad, Mademoiselle, you have not chose the Ursulines; the rules are so very severe, you would have found them hard to conform to.”
“As to the rules, Sir, I have no objection to their severity; but the habit of the General Hospital—”
I smiled.
“Is so very light—”
“And so becoming, Mademoiselle.”
She smiled in her turn, and I left her fully convinced of the sincerity of her vocation, and the great propriety and humanity of suffering young creatures to chuse a kind of life so repugnant to human nature, at an age when they are such excellent judges of what will make them happy.