These two advertisements from R.W.S. Mackay's The Montreal Directory (Montreal: John LoveIl, 1848) illustrate a particular aspect of Montreal's trade relations its links with large, American urban centres. The companies referred to in the advertisements offered a forwarding service for packages to Troy, Albany, New York and Boston, with two departures a week in summer and one in winter. Bearing in mind that the port of Montreal was closed to navigation for five months of the year, the quickest communications route to Britain was via New York or Boston. The top advertisement shows the main means of transport at the time: steamships, which had provided service since the start of the nineteenth century; the stagecoach; and the train, which had appeared on the scene in the 1830s. The publishing of trade directories in English is illustrative of the dominance of merchants of British origin in the Montreal business world.
