Richard Horne letter to his mother, Maria Patridge Horne, August 8, 1826

              Quebec, Augst 8th, 1826



Dear Mother,



I have had no opportunity of writing to you before on account of the short /of ---/ period I remained in the different places I have passed through, and ^have delayed doing so also from the time and expense which would have attended letters from the interior of the country. I have been /---/ in Quebec now three ^or four days and fear, as schoolboys say, “I shall stick” for I do not hear of any vessels in port by which I can proceed on my way to New Brunswick. I am living very cheap at the home of ^a Frenchman who deals in every thing. There are two Canadian lodgers beside myself, none of them however speak a dozen words of English: we live very well, and only pay /a/ one shilling and eight pence a day for board and lodging. As to lodging I have not slept in a bed more than twice these five weeks, but rolled myself in my cloak and slept on the bedroom floor or passages: Canada swarms with bugs in the summer. I am now getting anxious to leave for several reasons: /---/ the first is that my pocket is light and I cannot replenish it until I get to New Brunswick where I have ^left in my chest money enough to take me to England. Again, there is not much amusement to be found in Quebec, and I do not think it ^very safe to walk out into the country for fear of meeting with some of the Iroquois savages, with one of whom I had a sort of combat in the market-place the other day. Besides all this, the weather is getting very cold and I wish to return t o England before the winter season has set in, having, as usual, a hundred fresh plans in my head. -I imagine it will be six weeks at least before you receive this, and by that time I hope to be half way across the Atlantic. -The Canadians in the town speak much such French as the people of Guernsey, and it is a difficult matter to understand them; for tho’ the language is nearly