twentieth century, than was the difference between the town, when it arose from its ruins after the siege, to what it became when, fifty years later, it was practically rebuilt.
The building, in the opening years of the eighteenth century, of a new Government House, which occupied the space where two of the largest of the old buildings had stood, and which dwarfed all others by comparison with its lofty proportions, not only gave a stimulus to the desire to improve the town, but obliged a rearrangement of the streets in its immediate vicinity. The new Government House covered the entire space which had been sufficient for the old Government House, the Council House, and the grounds of both houses to the north. The two southerly wings of the new building rested on the Esplanade Road, while the two wings on the north extended to Wheler Place, a road which had formed the old boundary, and took its name from Mr. Wheler, member of Warren Hastings' Council, who, in 1784, in the Governor's absence, laid the foundation-stone of St. John's Church. This road led from old Court House Street to a large private house, probably "Mr. Wheler's house," which stood just where the north-west wing of Government House ends. The house was pulled down, as
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