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A letter from Montreal, dated the 28th November, and published in the Liverpool Mail, contradicts a rumour that Browne, the Canadian General, had been taken prisoner, and his baggage seized, after the battle of St. Charles. Browne, Papineau, and O'Callaghan, the writer says, are still " at large." The priest at St. Charles adminis- tered the sacrament to the insurgents before the engagement. General Scott commands the Canadians assembled at Grand Brule. It was expected that Montreal would be attacked during the winter; and great exertions were made to fortify the principal streets. The in- surgents are described as being well armed and equipped. The Mon- treal Tories appear to be very indignant that martial law had not been proclaimed. The prisons are filled with persons charged with high treason, whom the "loyal Canadians" might acquit. This apprehen- sion shows the state of public feeling in Montreal among the classes from which jurymen are chosen. The rumour is repeated, that Lieu- tenant Weir, who was taken prisoner by the insurgents, had been shot ; but as the official accounts do not mention this, it may be safely con- cluded that the report is false. A report, which appeared originally, we believe, in a New York paper, that Sir John Colborne had offered a reward of 1,0001. for the heads of Papineau and Browne, is not men- tioned in the latest accounts, and is probably untsue.
It is said, we know not whether on certain authority, that the Com- mander of the Canadian Forces under Papineau is our fellow citizen, Thomas Browne, one of the principal writers of the" Parson's Horn- book," and original editor of the Comet newspaper. If the fact be so, it will form a new chapter in the history of futile opposition to the progress of civil liberty, and a demonstration of the inutility of indivi- dual oppression, not unworthy to class with the story of C:omwell having been refused the appointment of exciseman, and Hampden baying been denied liberty to emigrate.—Dublin Pilot. [Wait a little : Thomas Browne is not a great man yet.] We have seen two gentlemen, arrived from Canada by the last packet, the Cambridge, who state that though there might be some degree of partisanship with the rebels, by a few of the " ne'er-do- weels " and rifle-hunting youths of Vermont, no such feeling existed at New York.—Brighton Gazette.—[But it happens, unfortunately, that in backwoods warfare one " rifle-hunting ne'er-do.weel " of Ver- mont is worth a hundred comfortable merchants of New York.] A number of French volunteers propose forming themselves into an
auxiliary legion to go to British America and assist the Canadian patriots in their resistance to the domination of England; the French, who love liberty, remember that these insurgents are Frenchmen by origin ; that they were given up to England by the good pleasure of Louis the Fifteenth ; and that the treaty of 1763, by which they were delivered over to that Power, has never been ratified by the People of France."—Bon Sens.
With the exception of one or two Ministerial papers, the entire Paris press is in ecstacy at the prospect of an immediate separation of Canada from Great Britain which presents itself to them, and which they declare they rejoice in, on grounds strangely contrasting with their professed friendship for England and their own pressing demands that the conquests of France in Africa be retained. Leaving them to explain and reconcile those discrepancies as they may, I shall remark that there are two points of the question on which they one and all agree,—namely, that the Canadas are lost to you, and that the dis- memberment of the British empire in that respect is due to misgo-
vernment under your present Cabinet I do not seek to convince you that France has no affection for you, in order to induce you to break up the amicable relations now subsisting between the two countries, but simply to put you on your guard against believing that you have propitiated or conciliated, or that you ever can propitiate or conciliate, a single Frenchman, Royalist, Imperialist, or Republican. Paris Correspondent of the Times.
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