chants, and a number of others, again, were extensive traders who penetrated into the interior and established trading posts that yielded substantial returns to their intrepid owners.

Lazarus David was, as far back as 1767, an extensive owner of real estate in Montreal and its vicinity. He took an active part in public affairs, and was a prominent man in civic matters in those days. He had come from Wales, where he was born at Swansea in 1734, and took up his permanent residence in Montreal in 1763. Uriah Judah, Isaac Judah and other members of the Judah family were also leading merchants of Montreal.

B. AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

An interesting figure at this time was Colonel David Salesby (or Salisbury) Franks, whose father, Abraham Franks, was a resident of Quebec in 1767, where Colonel Franks was extensively engaged in trade with the French Canadian colonies. Moving to Montreal in 1774, he took an active part in communal affairs and also in politics, for his name is found appended to petitions sent in 1774 to the King, the Lords and. the Commons, asking for the repeal of the Quebec Act, stating that by this Act "we have lost the protection of the English laws so universally admired for their wisdom and brevity and which we have ever held in the highest veneration, and in their stead the laws of Canada are to be introduced to which we are utter strangers, and we thereby lose the invaluable privilege of trial by juries; in matters of a criminal nature the Habeas Corpus Act is dissolved." A long list of other names,

mostly of English citizens, accompany his, including Aaron Hart, Joseph Bindona, Jacob de Maurera, Samuel Jacobs, Ezekiel Solomons, Simon Levy, Lazarus David, Andrew Hays, Levy Solomons and Isaac Judah. David Salesby Franks had intimate relations, both political and commercial, with the New England colonies, and eventually he removed from Montreal to Philadelphia in 1776.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Franks espoused the cause of the colonists and became prominent in the Revolutionary Army, the intimate friend and a member of the staff of Benedict Arnold. Later (1781) he was sent by Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance of the Colonies, with dispatches to Benjamin Franklin, then American ambassador to France, and early in 1784 he was sent by Congress to deliver copies of the Treaty of Paris to American representatives abroad.

But there were other Franks who were utterly opposed to any severance of the relations between the American Colonies and the mother country. Among those, perhaps the most notable were David Franks, born 1720, who, with his father Jacob Franks (who came to America in 1707 and died in New York in 1769, where he was buried in the cemetery of the Portuguese Jews) and his brother Moses Franks, was appointed Chief Agent of the British Crown for furnishing supplies to the British armies in Canada and the American colonies during the French and Indian wars, from 1755 to 1760, and again in the following years. The official papers and correspondence of Generals Moncton, Amherst, and Gage contain numerous commendatory references to the services rendered by these three members of the Franks family at that time, and mention in terms of

special commendation their highly efficient organization of this branch of the military service.

They resided in Philadelphia and New York, but their duties in connection with the Army in Canada brought them often to Montreal, where they also had a residence. David Franks was one of the wealthiest residents of Philadelphia before the war, but his whole fortune was confiscated on account of his loyalty to Britain. He was ordered to leave the United States in 1780, and to give a security of £200,000 that he would not return until after the war. He returned to Montreal for a while, and was in England in 1781. As far back as 1748 he had been a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He was offered large grants of land on the Ohio by the British Government in recognition of his services, and previous to the war of the American Revolution he owned large tracts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Indiana and Illinois. Near Fort Duquesne he founded the town of Frankstown, named after him.

Other members of the Franks family remained in Montreal during the American War of Independence, notably Abraham and Jacob Franks. The former, already referred to as the father of David Salesby Franks, was a resident of Quebec until 1775, when he took up his residence in Montreal. His daughter Rebecca married Levy Solomons, one of the earliest settlers and an outstanding figure. He was a man of great affluence, of great benevolence and of boundless energy, one whose achievements were on a large scale. He settled in Montreal at the time of the British conquest, having previously lived in Albany where he retained a homestead, to which he occasionally returned

until the close of his life. He was largely engaged in traffic with the Indians and French Canadians, and his enterprises extended from Michilimackinac (now Mackinack) to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and down the Hudson River. When the trouble between England and her American colonies began, Levy Solomons took a rather prominent part in striving to secure the removal of the causes which were separating the colonies from the mother country, and extant documents show that even after hostilities had commenced, and the Americans had invaded Canada, he still clung to the hope of a friendly settlement.

When the Americans invaded Canada in 1775, Levy Solomons was ordered by General Montgomery to establish hospitals for the wounded troops, Montgomery regarding him as a former resident of New York State, and paying no heed to his Canadian citizenship. This led to trouble. General Arnold's retreating soldiers appropriated without compensation, and General Burgoyne's officials confiscated, large quantities of stores destined for Michilimackinac. The services which Solomons rendered the Revolutionary forces were never indemnified by them. At the same time he was exposed to the resentment of the British, as one suspected of sympathy with the colonists. After having been expelled with his family from his home in Montreal by General Burgoyne, and after enduring much hardship, he eventually gained the indulgence of the Canadian Governor and was permitted to return in peace to Montreal, where his big enterprises continued until his death in 1792. His eldest daughter, Mary or Polly, married Jacob Franks, Jr., Hudson's Bay trader, with extensive interests, who was one of the founders of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where

he opened up a large trading post in 1794. He fought on the side of the British in the war of 1812-1814, and his home at Michilimackinac was pillaged by the Americans during this war. He is frequently mentioned in the Canadian Government records of that period. It is an interesting fact that John Jacob Astor began his career in America by working for Jacob Franks. The latter had a home in Montreal, and passed the declining years of his life in that city.

Another daughter of Levy Solomons, Rachel, married Henry Joseph, nephew of Aaron Hart, who settled in Canada when quite a youth, and became connected with the troops at Fort William Henry on the River Richelieu, where he lived for some years. Afterwards he resigned his military commission and took up his residence at Berthier. Here he established the headquarters of one of the largest chains of trading posts in Canada, extending from Hudson's Bay to Quebec. In conjunction with his father-in-law, Levy Solomons, and with his brothers-in-Law, Jacob Franks and Benjamin Solomons, he extended his posts all through the then wild and thinly-populated Northwest; the most important of these posts being at Michilimackinac, now known as Mackinac. Records have been preserved showing that this traffic was carried on in large fleets of canoes, manned by indians and French voyageurs. We read of hundreds of these canoes being employed on one expedition, passing up and down on the waters of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River and carried over the portages. Henry Joseph carried the supplies for this great traffic between Europe and Canada in ocean ships which he either individually owned or chartered. He was the