St. John is a corporate town, and styled a city. Its municipal government is lodged in a mayor, recorder, six aldermen, and six assistants, designated " Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of St. John."

The other civil officers are a sheriff, coroner, townclerk, chamberlain, two marshals, a high constable, and six petty constables.

The mayor, recorder, sheriff, coroner, and town or common clerk, hold their appointment of the governor, continuing in office from one year to another. The aldermen are elected annually by the freemen. The mayor and council appoint the other officers.

The mayor and council make laws for the improvement or government of the town, which expire in one year, unless confirmed by the governor and council; they have also an annual revenue at their command for public improvements, &c.; and they constitute a Court of Record, or Common Pleas, for the "City and County of St. John." Small debts are recovered before an alderman's court, held once a fortnight. The aldermen are all justices of the peace.

On the opposite side of the river to St. John, and under its municipal government, stands the pretty little town of Carleton, with a neat English church and a chapel. The saw mills within the aboiteux, a little above this place, are well worth visiting. On the Point of Carleton several ships have been built.* The upper part of St. John is named Portland, and the whole, including Carleton, is divided into * A fine vessel, intended for a steamer, was on the stocks when I visited this place.

six wards. Opposite to the town, in the middle of the stream, is Navy Island, small, low, and muddy; and, as the Indians would have it, carried down en masse, by an extraordinary overflowing of the stream. It is evidently formed by alluvial deposits.

There are always some troops stationed at St. John; and the barracks, situated above the lower cove, and near the extremity of the peninsula, are spacious, handsome, and commodious.

The country in the vicinity is stubborn, but, when subjected to cultivation, fertile. An extensive prairie, named the marsh, containing about 3000 acres, and occupying a space which is by some considered to have been once the bed of the River St. John, lies near the town. The tide is shut out by an aboiteux, over which the road to Indian Town passes. The soil of this beautiful alluvial tract is remarkably rich, and mellowed by the application of lime, which is abundant in the neighbourhood.

There are several handsome houses along the rising grounds which follow the course of the prairie; and their situation and appearance seem to render them desirable and comfortable residences.

As to the condition of society, I am not able to treat so explicitly as I have done in respect to Halifax, from having less intercourse with the inhabitants than a traveller could have wished. There were no public amusements there at the time, or if there had been, these are not the places to draw a just picture of society. At both the churches, and at the Scotch kirk, the general appearance of the congregations was highly respectable; and their dresses were in the fashions prevailing about a year previously in England.

Many of the ladies are very pretty, but appeared to walk rather awkwardly. The steep uneven streets are certainly unfavourable to graceful movements. Of their manners or accomplishments I can say little. The gentlemen that I have had an opportunity of being acquainted with while there, or that I have met with from St. John in other places, were generally intelligent and well bred.

From the information given me by people living at St. John, it would appear that a very tolerable share of bickerings and divisions prevails among the inhabitants; - one family arrogating a rank and respect which others will not admit; and some building their pretensions on their families being of the number of the first royalist settlers; others measuring their respectability by the length of their purses. All this, however, is common in much larger towns; and the same ease and freedom of manners which have gained the ascendant at Halifax, will likely, as the population increases, and a greater intercourse with the world takes place, distinguish this city. When we also consider the late period of its foundation, we must make the most charitable allowance for any defect in the condition of its society. To Sir Howard Douglas there is much praise due for his attention to whatever rendered private and public life pleasing and elegant; nor did the influence of his amiable family fail in lending an agreeable tone to domestic manners.

Assemblies are common once a month, or oftener, during winter. They excite, as elsewhere in America, from the necessity of forming some fixed line of demarcation as to admission, the angry bile of those who are excluded. Carriolling, pic-nic, and private parties, are also common; and there are races annually near the town. There is excellent fishing and shooting at no great distance from the town.

Fifty years ago, the site of this thriving city, with the exception of a few straggling huts, was covered with trees. This was its condition at the peace of 1783; and when we now (1833) view it, with its population of nearly 14,000, its stately houses, its public buildings, its warehouses, its wharfs, and the majestic ships which crowd its port, we are more than lost in forming even a conjecture of what it will become in less than a century. Its position will ever command the trade of the vast and fertile country watered by the lakes and streams of the River St. John, as all towns through which the bulk of the imports and exports of the country in which these towns are situated necessarily pass have, in consequence, flourished.

We view this in the long and continued prosperity of Hamburgh, the boundless commerce of Liverpool, and the amazing prosperity of New York.

CHAP. III.

RIVER ST. JOHN. - LOWER CATARACTS. - INDIAN TOWN. -
STEAM BOAT. - RIVER SCENERY. - GRAND BAY. - KENNEBE-
CACIS. ALWINGTON MANOR. - LONG REACH. - BELLE ISLE
BAY. - WASHEDEMOAK. - GRAND LAKE, ETC.

THE River St. John, called by the Indians Looshtook, or the long river, is, next to the St. Lawrence, the finest river in British America. About a mile above the city of St. John, at rugged narrows, the river is interrupted by huge rocks, over and among which the waters of this great river, and its tributary streams, roll in foaming impetuosity, and render the navigation, except for four short diurnal periods, impracticable. The great rise of tide at St. John, however, so far overflows these falls or rapids, that, when the flood rises twelve feet at the fort, sloops and schooners pass in safety for about twenty minutes, and for the same time when the tide ebbs to twelve feet.

This cataract, viewed from the high ground on the Carleton side, forms, with the adjoining scenery, a picturesque and, indeed, romantic picture. The foam is frequently carried down in frothy bodies past St. John; and the agitated waters, holding the juices of mossy deposits from the interior in solution, and running to the sea, impart to it, in the spring, at the harbour, and for some miles out at the Bay of Fundy, a dark-brown colour.