High office

3 August, 1872

'Dear Duchess,

Harriet has written to you announcing our arrival ... I must content myself with jotting down, in the most haphazard manner, whatever I think may interest you ...

With the account of our Belfast Banquet I need not bother you. It was wonderfully successful and I was more surprised than I can say by such a demonstration of good will on behalf of persons with many of whom I was scarcely acquainted, but who represented every political social and religious section in the North of Ireland. The same pleasant exhibitions of affection and good will was bestowed not merely by our own tenantry but by the inhabitants of all so that I do not think anyone could have left home with happier reminiscences than we did. The last few days were very trying to both of us and I shall never forget our final leave taking of Clandeboye.

On reaching the stations at Belfast, we were made to feel for the first time that we had embued the robes of royalty as testified by the presence of the Mayor and his satellites, a number of bouquets and a Directors carriage. At Derry, similar honours awaited us, and by the end of the day my Harriet had got quite pompous. The next morning a little Steamer took us up Loch Foyle to where the Prussian was lying about fifteen miles off. On coming on board, we found a very cheery Captain and a confusing crowd of passengers on the poop, from amid whose petticoats and legs the faces of Hermie and the baby beamed down graciously upon us as we ascended the Companion. The Packet Company had given us nice berths and had fitted up a spare cabin as a little boudoir for 'Her Excellency'. This proved an enormous comfort during the voyage.

The evening was bright and gay but our favourable prognostications of the weather were a little dampened by the first nautical spectacle we beheld on looking over the side of the ship, in the shape of the top sails and top masts of a brig just peeping above the water, which our steamer had run down a few hours before we joined her. Of course, the captain and all his officers swore that the Brig had spiked herself on the Steamers bows and they had a very plausible narrative ready for our consolation but I am afraid they would not have succeeded in persuading the Boards of Traders of their innocence.

An hour after we were comfortably sailing past the green gray headlands of Ireland and I began for the first time to realise a little, the immensity and the unknowness of the plunge we were taking. Just before it got dark we passed the Island if Innistrahall, where a year before, a sister ship of our own had perished, with all her crew and passengers, with the exception of one man who by some strange chance, had contrived to cling to a boat and was picked up somewhere near the Giants Causeway. He was so ignorant and illiterate and the few brains he had were so jumbled by his adventure that he could give no description whatever of the catastrophe. The poor people must have been thrown out of their reckoning and run on a sunken reef in a fog and in the darkness.

The next morning we had a breeze of wind which soon mellowed into a stiff gale which lasted four days. The vessel rolled like a pendulum, being well weighted with Railway Iron. One night it was impossible to sleep at all, and the wretched baby narrowly escaped being shot up against the ceiling of its cabin.  Although Harriet is by no means a bad sailor, the unusual racketing of the ship naturally alarmed her a little, and I had only just succeeded in making her easy on the state of affairs, when two passengers came into my cabin about one o'clock in the morning and stated in a voice quite loud enough for her to overhear 'that in their opinion the ship was in the most imminent danger and that they requested me to do something' - you can imagine that I did not feel well disposed towards them and my welcome was so cold that they slunk back to their berths where they were found the next morning fast asleep in jackboots and enormous cork belts round their waists.

As we approached the American shore the weather moderated, and inspirited by this encouraging circumstance, a baby made its appearance on board. The captain of the ship was a very good fellow but a bit of a Methodist, very fond of preaching and general clerical functions, so that this event just suited his taste as it authorised him to celebrate the baptism. He then organised a further meeting in the hold of the vessel for the purpose of enabling those of his passengers who were acquainted with Canada, to make speeches to the emigrants on their prospects and to give them advice as to what they were to do on first landing. I was called to the chair and through there was nothing said to much purpose, the scene had its romantic side. One of the emigrants who addressed us talked of "his misfortune in having a large family" in remarking on this observation, - which grated harshly on my ear, I happened to say that although such a phrase might be true sometimes in England, perhaps the difference between the two countries could not be better illustrated than by saying that 'whereas in the one a multitude of children might prove an embarrassment, in the other, - in Canada, he could not have too many of them'. This sentiment seemed very much to please a young stalwart fellow, standing behind me, for he fetched me a great slap on the back saying 'Right you are! that's just what I have been telling Eliza'.

Our seagoing festivities were concluded by a marriage, to the still further delight of the Captain. The bride was a nice pretty little woman of the middle class, going out with her sister (who was also a bride) to colonise the Far West but she had not had time to get married before she started. Harriet gave her one of her dresses and the rest of her fellow passengers, including all of our maids, who were naturally much excited - furnished her forth to the best advantage so that she really looked extremely smart and attractive. The bridegroom was a very respectable young man but the whole affair seemed to me very much like a charade or a scene in some private theatricals and the married sister confided to our nurse that she would take care to have the couple married again directly they landed in Quebec. The character of unreality was not I imagine simply confined to the Church ceremony for a crowded emigrant ship does not conveniently lend itself to any honeymoon observances. A dance concluded the Historical part of the Entertainment.

Coming up the gulf of St. Lawrence was too delightful, the change of climate was immediate, although we had been very lucky in the matter of fogs and icebergs off the banks. There was a translucent brilliancy of atmosphere greater than one sees in Europe, and the power of the sun was truly characteristic of an Arctic summer. One's first view of a new continent is always an epoch in ones life. What struck me most were the primeval woods which covered the hills at Gaspe for miles and miles through the interior. One felt one saw what the red Adam and Eve first opened their eyes upon. Quebec is a beautiful city and I wonder one does not hear more about it. It is built on a high promontory jutting out between the St Lawrence and St Charles.

Although fires have perpetually licked up its quainter buildings a good many picturesque gable ends, church spires and Mansard roofs still break the skyline, the summit of the rock being majestically crowned by the citadel. It is in this latter place that we are going to take up our abode for the summer.

Before the Dominions times, the Governor of Canada used always to live in a beautiful villa four miles out of the town, called Spencer Wood, but when Ottawa became the capital, by some mismanagement Spencer Wood was handed back to the local authorities, so that at present the Governor General has no summer resort whatever, except any little cottage he can contrive to hire on the banks of the River. It is a monstrous inconvenience and I hope next year to have the old arrangement re-established.

For the last three week we have been living in a little house about 120 miles below Quebec, at a place called Reviera du Loup, - with our two babies, - but I have at last fought my way into the citadel though with as much difficulty as Wolfe experience in the same achievement. ...[Much talk here of fishing]

To return, however, to my itinerary. On first landing at Quebec I was received by my Prime Minister, Sir John A MacDonald, and some of his colleagues, and by Hastings Doyle. We then went up to Spencer Wood, at present the residence of Sir Narcissi Belleau, the Lieutenant Governor of the Lower Province. It was tremendously hot, but to my taste all the more delightful on that account. Moreover to my great surprise Harriet liked the heat as much as I did. In the afternoon I was sworn in and received a certain number of addresses. The next day my official duties began by a review of the local Militia, the best part of this performance being the site of the encampment as the troops themselves had not a very good appearance ...

Ottowa

Here a very cordial reception awaited me at the hands of the inhabitants though perhaps eleven addresses in succession seemed a little long to listen to, and still longer to answer. Ottowa is not an inviting town. It is just in that stage which is so characteristic of a new country. A collection of small wooden houses, scattered higgeldy piggeldy all over the place but interspersed with new built or half built stores, shops and residences of considerable pretensions. The disjointed articulations of the city, however, are rapidly drawing into an organised mass - the whole being surmounted by a lofty group of public buildings of Gothic architecture, comprising the House of Commons, the Senate House and the very fine range of Government offices - well sited on an eminence overlooking the river...

We like the country, climate and the people and I have never for a moment regretted having come here and I shall be quite content with my fate if only during the next six years I can do anything towards helping to build up what I cannot but hope is destined to become a great community.

The Canadians themselves (at least so far as I have observed) are infinitely pleasanter people than Americans both in appearance and in manner, although the womankind are not so pretty as the Yankee ladies are disposed to be. They have no nasal twang, they don't spit, they are extremely polite, especially the lower Canadians who still retain the tradition of good breeding they brought with them from old France and they are simple and natural in their habits and modes of thoughts. Their press is inferior to ours, but still far more respectable, less personal and less abusive than the American newspapers and their public men are of a very fair stamp but probably I have only come across the best specimens.

The boats on which we travel are crowded with American tourists at this time of the year and I have already been "interviewed" by two Yankee visitors who addressed me as "Governor" and both of whom initiated me into their private history, the incidence of their birth, health and professional prospects while a very pretty American woman introduced herself to me on the plea of her being a 'tourist' and asked me to write my name in pencil on the ivory handle of her fan.

Ever dearest Duchess, Yours affectionately,

Dufferin