Page:The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock - 1847.djvu/100

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84

LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF


Lieut.-Colonel Thornton to Brigadier Brock.

Quebec, October 4, 1810.

I was yesterday favored with your letter of the 23d ultimo, and have not failed to communicate to Sir James your account and your charity towards the poor old fellow, formerly of the king's.[1] He has in consequence directed the allowance of the ration to be authorized and continued to him, for which purpose I must request his Christian name and the date of the first issue; but I am to remind you of the danger of establishing a precedent of this nature, and to request, in the general's, name that you will refrain as much as possible from indulging the natural benevolence of your disposition in this way, as he has hitherto resisted all applications of this sort.

Your successor, as commandant of Quebec, is certainly much to be esteemed—a good kind of man, and devoted to his profession—but it is vanity in the extreme to attempt to describe the general admiration and estimation of his cara ct dolce sposa: she is young, (twenty-three,) fair, beautiful,—lively, discreet, witty, affable,—in short, so engaging, or rather so fascinating, that neither the courier nor my paper will admit of my doing her justice; however, from what I have said it is necessary further to add and explain, that it is not my opinion alone but that of the public.

Two hundred volunteers for Colonel Zouch, from other veteran battalions, have just arrived and landed: the regiment is to be completed in this manner to one thousand.

  1. ↑ Sir Isaac Brock was several years in the 8th regiment, but this old man had probably served with his brother, Lieut.-Colonel John Brock, who was many years in the 8th, in Canada, during and after the first American war, and who on his return home used to describe the dreadful state of solitude in which he lived while a subaltern on detachment in the upper country. The lieutenant-colonel of the 8th at this period amassed a considerable sum by dealing in furs, which he purchased at a cheap rate from the Indians.
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