Note 3 — Chapter XIII

Their arrival at Quebec is thus described by A.W. Cochran, assistant civil secretary to the governor general in a letter to his mother: “Both men and officers are a shabby looking set as ever you set your eyes on, and reminded me of Falstaff’s men very forcibly. Some of the officers talked very big and assured us that before long there would be 100,000 men in Canada and that they soon would have Quebec from us.” Later on, writing to his father from Montreal on October 10th he further expresses his views on the Americans: “The Americans, I think, bid fair to rival and surpass the French in gasconading as well as in everything that is dishonorable, base and contemptible. * * * Yankees cannot tell a plain story like other folks; they cannot help ‘immersing the wig in the ocean’ as Sterne says of the Frenchmen.”