the navigation of the river, such as
it was, was stopped, and in eight and forty hours heavy waggons and
carts were passing over where we had floated across.

My course lay through what were termed the _excited_ districts; I had
promised to pass through them, and supply the folks at Montreal with any
information I could collect. The weather was bitterly cold, and all
communication was carried on by sleighs, a very pleasant mode of
travelling when the roads are smooth, but rather fatiguing when they are
uneven, as the sleigh then jumps from hill to hill, like an oyster-shell
thrown by a boy to skim the surface of the water. To defend myself from
the cold, I had put on, over my coat, and under my cloak, a wadded black
silk dressing-gown; I thought nothing of it at the time, but I
afterwards discovered that I was supposed to be one of the rebel priests
escaping from justice.

Although still in the English dominions, I had not been over on the
opposite side more than a quarter of an hour before I perceived that it
would be just as well to hold my tongue; and my adherence to this
resolution, together with my supposed canonicals, were the cause of not
a word being addressed to me by my fellow-travellers. They presumed
that I spoke French only, which they did not, and I listened in silence
to all that passed.

It is strange how easily the American people are excited, and when
excited, they will hesitate at nothing. The coach (for it was the
stage-coach although represented by an open sleigh), stopped at every
town, large or small, every body eager to tell and to receive the news.
I always got out to warm myself at the stove in the bar, and heard all
the remarks made upon what I do really believe were the most absurd and
extravagant lies ever circulated--lies which the very people who uttered
them knew to be such, but which produced the momentary effect intended.
They were even put into the newspapers, and circulated every where; and
when the truth was discovered, they still remained uncontradicted,
except by a general remark that such was the Tory version of the matter,
and of course was false. The majority of those who travelled with me
were Americans who had crossed the St Lawrence in the same boat, and
who must, therefore, have known well the whole circumstances attending
the expedition against St Eustache; but, to my surprise, at every place
where we stopped they declared that there had been a battle between the
i