able to trace the original MS. or any other
Journal of Fraser, except a brief and quite valueless one preserved at
Mount Murray. In one of his later letters, written fifty years after
this Journal, Fraser speaks of his reluctance to handle the pen. But
this did not keep him from writing in a beautiful round hand many long
letters and making also copies for his own use.

Early in the spring of 1859 a great British fleet had arrived in America
from England and a squadron under Admiral Holmes had gone to New York to
embark the Highlanders and other regiments wintering there to proceed
to Quebec. The place of rendezvous was Louisbourg. Fraser's Journal
begins on May 8th, 1759, with the departure of the regiments from Sandy
Hook, the fleet consisting of about twenty-eight sail. The Highlanders
had taken part in the siege and capture of Louisbourg in the previous
year but had gone to New York for the winter. On May 17th the fleet
sailed into Louisbourg Harbour after "a very agreeable and quick
passage" of nine days. Patches of snow lay still on the ground and on
the 29th of May Louisbourg Harbour was so full of ice that boats could
not pass from the ships to shore. "I suppose," says Fraser, "the ice
comes from the Gulf and river of St. Lawrence," regions he was in time
to be very familiar with. He hears that a Lieutenant has shot himself on
one of the men of war "for fear I suppose the French should do it. If he
was wearied of life, he might soon get out of it in a more honourable
way."

On Monday, June 4th, after much bustle of preparation, the fleet set
sail for Quebec. "I take it to consist of about 150 sail," says Fraser;
so great was the array that to count the ships was almost impossible.
They numbered in fact nearly 300, a huge force. On June 13th the fleet
anchored at Bic in the St. Lawrence River. As they came up the river
Fraser noted that the north shore was but little inhabited, a defect
which, within a few years, he was himself to try to remedy in part. On
June 23rd a whole division of the fleet anchored near Isle aux Coudres
as Jacques Cartier had done more than two hundred years earlier.

Arrived before Quebec the Highlanders were sent to Point Levi where, on
July 1st, they pitched their tents. The next day Fraser's company
established itself in the Church of St. Joseph there. The Canadians were
carrying on guerilla warfare, firing on the British from the woods and
Fraser was shocked at the horrid practise o