The History of Emily Montague

Excerpt

Vol. 1

LONDON,
Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall Mall.
MDCCLXIX.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GUY CARLETON, Esq. GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF His Majesty’s Province of QUEBEC, &c. &c. &c.

SIR,

As the scene of so great a part of the following work is laid in Canada, I flatter myself there is a peculiar propriety in addressing it to your excellency, to whose probity and enlightened attention the colony owes its happiness, and individuals that tranquillity of mind, without which there can be no exertion of the powers of either the understanding or imagination.

Were I to say all your excellency has done to diffuse, through this province, so happy under your command, a spirit of loyalty and attachment to our excellent Sovereign, of chearful obedience to the laws, and of that union which makes the strength of government, I should hazard your esteem by doing you justice.

I will, therefore, only beg leave to add mine to the general voice of Canada; and to assure your excellency, that

I am,
With the utmost esteem
and respect,
Your most obedient servant,
Frances Brooke.
London,
March 22, 1769.

LETTER I.1.

To John Temple, Esq; at Paris.Cowes, April 10, 1766.

After spending two or three very agreeable days here, with a party of friends, in exploring the beauties of the Island, and dropping a tender tear at Carisbrook Castle on the memory of the unfortunate Charles the First, I am just setting out for America, on a scheme I once hinted to you, of settling the lands to which I have a right as a lieutenant-colonel on half pay. On enquiry and mature deliberation, I prefer Canada to New-York for two reasons, that it is wilder, and that the women are handsomer: the first, perhaps, every body will not approve; the latter, I am sure, you will.

You may perhaps call my project romantic, but my active temper is ill suited to the lazy character of a reduc’d officer: besides that I am too proud to narrow my circle of life, and not quite unfeeling enough to break in on the little estate which is scarce sufficient to support my mother and sister in the manner to which they have been accustom’d.

What you call a sacrifice, is none at all; I love England, but am not obstinately chain’d down to any spot of earth; nature has charms every where for a man willing to be pleased: at my time of life, the very change of place is amusing; love of variety, and the natural restlessness of man, would give me a relish for this voyage, even if I did not expect, what I really do, to become lord of a principality which will put our large-acred men in England out of countenance. My subjects indeed at present will be only bears and elks, but in time I hope to see the human face divine multiplying around me; and, in thus cultivating what is in the rudest state of nature, I shall taste one of the greatest of all pleasures, that of creation, and see order and beauty gradually rise from chaos.

The vessel is unmoor’d; the winds are fair; a gentle breeze agitates the bosom of the deep; all nature smiles: I go with all the eager hopes of a warm imagination; yet friendship casts a lingering look behind....