Partial Autograph Letter Signed (postmarked Burlington, Vermont, July 18, 1831). Last page of the letter + stampless address leaf. To B.M. Mumford, probably his brother-in-law, Schenectady, New York.
Having gone to Canada to represent an unidentified defendant in a trial, Paige, the young District Attorney of Schenectady., later a New York Supreme Court Justice, was enthralled by his first view of the British province:
"...the descent of the St. Lawrence...repays the fatigues of the longest journies to enjoy it. This morning I rode across the mountains in the neighborhood of Montreal in an open barouche. The vast, variegated, rich and magnificent views it afforded… are the finest in the World, Along the whole horizon…not a hill or mountain is to be seen, but a rich champagne country chequered with cultivated fields, lofty forests, and majestic views. The population in this vicinity are principally French, who are living precisely as their great great grandfathers did… ignorant and bigoted, but happy and contented, very jealous of the English and more American than British in feeling…”
As for his court case, the one-day trial, was “one of the most exciting…of my life. To witness one of the finest men of this world, charged with an atrocious crime and subjected to the mortifications of a trial was too much even for my philosophy. But the dark and damnable conspiracy against him was exposed and its vile authors are now held up to the public scorn, indignation and reprobation which their fiendish malice and crimes richly deserve….”