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JOHN HANCOCK.

DURING the siege at Boston, General Washington consulted Congress upon the propriety of bombarding the town of Boston. Mr. Hancock was then President of Congress. After General Washington's letter was read, a solemn silence ensued. This was broken by a member making a motion that the House should resolve itself into a committee of the whole, in order that Mr. Hancock might give his opinion upon the important subject, as he was deeply interested from having all his estate in Boston. After he left the chair, he addressed the chairman of the committee of the whole in the fol. lowing words. "It is true, Sir, nearly at the property I have in the world is in houses and other real estate in the town of Boston; but if the expulsion of the British army from it, and the liberties of our country, require their being burnt to ashes-issue the order for that purpose immediately!"

BROTHER JONATHAN.

A SEA CAPTAIN, who chanced to be in London during our revolutionary war, met several British officers in a tavern, who were busily discussing American affairs. "We should have conquered them long ago," said one, "had it not been for that arch rebel, Washington." " With all his skilful manœuvres, they are the same as conquered already," observed another. The American said nothing, but his countenance bore strong marks of honest indignation. "What, Jonathan, are you from the rebel colonies?" asked the officers. "I am from New England, gentlemen." "Well, what news do you bring? Will your crops be heavy enough to feed the regulars?" "My countrymen tell me," replied he, "that British blood is the best manure they have ever had. Turnips larger than a peck measure are raised on Bunker Hill."

DEATH OF MONTGOMERY.

GENERAL MONTGOMERY had marched at the precise time stipulated, and had arrived at his destined place of attack, nearly about the time we attacked the first barrier. He was not one that would loiter. Colonel Campbell, of the New York troops, a large, good-looking man, who was second in command of that party, and was deemed a veteran, accompanied the army to the assault, his station was rearward; General Montgomery, with his aids, were at the point of the column.

It is impossible to give you a fair and complete idea of the nature and situation of the place solely with the pen-the pencil is required. As by the special permission of government, obtained by the good offices of Captain Prentis, in the summer following, Boyd, a few others, and myself, reviewed the causes of our disaster; it is, therefore, in my power, so far as my abilities will permit, to give you a tolerable notion of the spot. Cape Diamond nearly resembles the great jutting rock, which is in the narrows of Hunter's falls, on the Susquehanna. The rock, at the latter place, shoots out as steeply as that at Quebec, but by no means forms so great an angle, on the margin of the river; but is more craggy. There is a stronger and more obrious difference in the comparison. When you surmount the hill at St. Charles, or the St. Lawrence side, which to the eye are equally high and steep, you find yourself on Abraham's Plains, and upon an extensive champaign country. The bird's-eye view round Quebec, bears a striking conformity to the sites of Northumberland and Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania; but the former is on a more gigantic scale, and each of the latter wants the steepness and cragginess of the back ground, and a depth of rivers. This detail is to instruct you in the geographical situation of Quebec, and for the sole purpose of explaining the manner of General Montgomery's death, and the reasons of our failure. From Wolf's cove there is a good beach, down to, and around "Cape Diamond." The bulwarks of the city came to the edge of the hill, above that place. Thence down the side of the precipice, slantingly to the brink of the river, there was a stockade of

strong posts, fifteen or twenty feet high, knit together by a stout railing, at bottom and top with pins. This was no mean defence, and was at the distance of one hundred yards from the point of the rock. Within this palisade, and at a few yards from the very point itself, there was a like palisade, though it did not run so high up the hill. Again, within Cape Diamond, and probably at a distance of fifty yards, there stood a block-house, which seemed to take up the space between the foot of the hill and the precipitous bank of the river, leaving a cartway, or passage on each side of it. When heights and distances are spoken of, you must recollect that the description of Cape Diamond and its vicinity is merely that of the eye, made as it were running, under the inspection of an officer. The review of the ground our army had acted upon, was accorded us as a particular favour. Even to have stepped the spaces in a formal manner, would have been dishonourable, if not a species of treason. A blockhouse, if well constructed, is an admirable method of defence, which in the process of the war, to our cost, was fully experienced. In the instance now before us (though the house was

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