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entered upon it, it was as well to write exactly what I felt.
You will wish to know perhaps how long I have been absent
from Vevay {Vevey] I set out on my return to my Regiment on the
13th of last Month and reached Paris on the 22d where I found
the 39th still in quarters – Something more agreeably than
our last Winter in Canada, tho' believe me the weather is
not very warm even here – I have two very comfortable
well furnished apartments provided by the French Govern-
-ment in the house of a good bourgeois, whose sentiments
and mine are not quite the same, perhaps on this occasion
He will no doubt be very happy when his rooms are vacated
and I shall regret the leaving them not a little – And that
I certainly shall, in the course of a very few days, for in a
week the British army will quit the environs of Paris, and
march to the frontier towns, where we are to remain in Garrison
for the next three years. When this period is expired we shall
be complete Frenchmen, and be perfect connoiseurs in wine
I shall be capable of giving a good opinion of that I hope to
find the produce of the vineyard James is bent upon esta-
blishing in New South Wales. I request that a cask of the very
first vintage may be set aside against my arrival –
but whither have I wandered I set out proposing to give an
account of my Journey from Switzerland, and behold me amidst
the vines which are not yet planted in New Holland
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Paris

19th December

My dearest Mother,

I shall send off this letter to Morrow
from hence. Finding the quarters of my Regiment too far from
Paris to return after an Evening's party I have been obliged to
sleep in Paris these two last Nights having been engaged at two
different houses – I am this moment returned from one of them
where, tho it be Sunday Evening, we have been dancing and
making as merry as the good people in England do on high
days and holy days – I have not half vivacity enough for
the French – but that will come when I shall have acquired a
little more impudence – Where I was this Evening I met a
very charming Girl born of English parents in Paris – Her
conversation was very interesting as I considered her a coun-
trywoman I could ask her many things about the French – that
I could not ask themselves. She gave the palm of gallantry and
politeness to our neighbours – to us propriety and sincerity
Where [Were] I only a little nearer Paris I might be out every Evening –
God bless you all again and again, my dearest friends, ever
prays your affectionate Son E. Mc A

In five days hence we shall
all think of each other, tho we may not at this moment –