[80] The first idea of utilising the ruins of the Château St. Louis, burnt in 1834, is due to His Excellency the Earl of Durham, Governor-General and High Commissioner in Canada from the 29th May to the 1st November, 1838. George Lambton, Earl of Durham, died in England in 1840. He was one of our ablest administrators, and with all his faults, one of the most ungenerously treated public men of the day by the Metropolitan statesmen.
[81] "Le Chien d'Or—the History of an Old House,"—MAPLE LEAVES, 1873, p. 89. [82] "His constant attendance when he went abroad," says Mère Juchereau.
[83] The Old Régime in Canada, p. 177-9.
[84] John George Lambton, Earl of Durham, was born at Lambton Castle, in April, 1792, and died at the Isle of Wight, on the 28th July, 1840, broken-hearted at the apparent failure of his Canadian mission.
"Lord Durham," says Justin McCarthy, "was a man of remarkable character. It is a matter of surprise how little his name is thought of by the present generation, seeing what a strenuous figure he seemed in the eyes of his contemporaries, and how striking a part he played in the politics of a time which has even still some living representatives. He belonged to one of the oldest families in England. The Lambtons had lived on their estate in the north in uninterrupted succession since the Conquest. The male succession, it is stated, never was interrupted since the twelfth century. They were not, however, a family of aristocrats. Their wealth was derived chiefly from coal mines, and grew up in later days; the property at first, and for a long time, was of inconsiderable value. For more than a century, however, the Lambtons had come to take rank among the gentry of the country, and some member of the family had represented the city of Durham in the House of Commons from 1727 until the early death of Lord Durham's father, in December, 1797, William Henry Lambton, Lord Durham's father, was a staunch Whig, and had been a friend and associate of Fox. John George Lambton, the son, was born at Lambton Castle, in April, 1792. Before he was quite twenty years of age, he made a romantic marriage at Gretna Green with a lady who died three years after. He served for a short time in a regiment of Hussars. About a year after the death of his first wife, he married the eldest daughter of Lord Grey. In 1828 he was raised to the Peerage with the title of Baron Durham."—History of Our Own Times, page 9.—Justin McCarthy.
[85] I use the term advisedly, for had he followed out the Colborne policy and gibbetted the "Bermuda exiles," he would have had one sin less to atone for, at the hands of Lord Brougham and other merciless enemies in England.
[86] Thanks to the late Mr. J. B. Martel, then Secretary of the Harbour Commission, Quebec, we may designate in a few words the site which the Quebec Bank now possesses. This extent of ground (at that period a beach lot), was conceded to the Seminary by the Marquis de Denonville in 1687, and confirmed by the King, the 1st March, 1688. The 25th August, 1750, Messire Christophe de Lalane, Directeur du Séminaire des Missions Étrangères à Paris, made a concession of it to Mons. Nicholas René Levasseur, Ingénieur, formerly chief contractor of the ships of "His Most Christian Majesty." On the 24th June, 1760, a deed of sale of this same property, to Joseph Brassard Deschêneaux, consisting of a two-story house and a wharf (avec les peintures au-dessus de la porte.) On the 8th September, 1764, a deed of sale to Alexander McKenzie, purchase money, $5,800. On the 19th April, 1768, Joseph Deschêneaux assigned his mortgage to Mr. John Lymburner. On the 11th August, 1781, a deed of concession of the beach in the rear, to low water mark, by the Seminary to Adam Lymburner. The 5th November, 1796, a deed of sale by the attorney of Adam Lymburner. Subsequently Angus Shaw became the proprietor in consideration of $4,100. On the 17th October, 1825, a judicial sale, to the late Henry Atkinson, Esq.
[87] Hon. D.A. Ross.
[88] This attempt, although ushered in with a brilliant victory on 28th April 1760, failed.
[89] Born in 1765; died in 1820; resided at Quebec, 1741-46.