The crews being formed of European sailors chiefly, no estimate is given of sufficient authenticity to depend upon as to the native citizens employed afloat in the services of the State.
The Militia appears a fearful Xerxian force, but it is really of no consequence whatever except as a protective one for the purposes of invasion, being quite met by the militia of the British provinces, as no larger army than 20,000 men can be effectually moved or subsisted on such an extensive frontier as Canada, and that only by an immense sacrifice of money.
Having thus given a glimpse at the state of affairs, I must leave my readers for the present, after a little talk about the city of Kingston.
Kingston, instead of suffering, as predicted, by the removal of the seat of government, having been thrown on her own resources, is rising fast.
Her naval and commercial harbours are being strongly fortified. The public buildings are important and handsome.
The Town Hall is probably the finest edifice of the kind on the continent of America, and cost £30,000, containing two splendid rooms of vast size, Post-office, Custom-house, Commercial Newsroom, shops, and a complete Market Place, with Mayor's Court and Policeoffice, and a lofty cupola, commanding a view of immense extent.
There are three English churches, built of stone, a Scots church of the same material, several dissenting places of worship, and a magnificent cathedral, almost equal in size to that at Montreal, for Roman Catholics, with a smaller church attached, a seminary for educating the priests, a nunnery, and an Hotel Dieu, conducted by Sisters of Charity; also an immense building for a public hospital, extensive barracks for troops, and several private houses of inferior importance, with four banks.
There are ten daily first-class steamers running to and from Kingston, and about thirty smaller steamers and propellers, with a fleet of two hundred schooners and sailing barges. The navigation is open from the 1st of April until late in November.
To show the trade of this rising city, now containing near twelve thousand inhabitants, I append a table of its Exports and Imports, for 1845.