y to Major-General Brock_.

PORTSMOUTH, June 10, 1811.

I congratulate you on your promotion, and you may return me
the compliment. I did not expect to appear in the same brevet
with you as a major-general; it has so happened, however, and
I am not at all sorry to go out to Sicily as major-general
instead of a brigadier. You have such a lot of generals in
Canada at present, that it is impossible to continue them all
upon the staff. Your wish will be to come home, I dare say,
and very glad I should be if you were in England at present,
while all the arrangements are making. It may perhaps be your
fate to go to the Mediterranean, but the Peninsula is the most
direct road to the honor of the Bath, and as you are an
ambitious man, that is the station you would prefer--so should
I, but I have been advised not to solicit for it, but to go
where I was ordered; therefore, am I proceeding. I need not
say how rejoiced I should be if you were of the party.

The return of the duke of York to the head of the army gives
general satisfaction to all military people, and indeed to
most others I fancy: his old worn-out predecessor has long
been superannuated. I still retain my appointment of deputy
barrack master-general in Nova Scotia, to the astonishment of
every body, because I suppose they do not like to take it from
me _par force_, without giving me something in lieu of it. I
have told the treasury that I would not give it up upon any
other terms than for my lieutenant-colonelcy, but that they
had the power of taking it from me if they chose to do me that
injustice: I suppose they will as soon as my back is turned.
Lord William Bentinck is expected down to-day; he goes to
Sicily in the Caledonia, with Sir Edward Pellew. As it is
possible you may have left Canada, I shall enclose this letter
to our friend Bruyeres; bid him read it and forward it if you
are yet in that country.

_Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock, at Montreal_.

QUEBEC, August 3, 1811.

We were very much surprised on Thursday last by the arrival of
the Racoon, sloop of war, from Jamaica, with the duke of
Manchester on board, who is come with the view of visiting the
lions of Canada previous to his return to England; he is gone,
attended by General Drummond, to see the falls of Montmorenci,
and the ge