Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Donald's mother was the sister of the Canadian explorer John Stuart, partner of the North West Company who rose to become Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres. By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself
Dickens in America rattles off the Republican platform: tax cuts, more conservative judges, drilling in Alaska. Then we see George W. Bush on the ship's television and we hear an actor reading Dickens's words: "I do believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at Liberty's head will be dealt by this nation and the ultimate failure of its example to the earth. See what is passing now." Miriam doesn't report she experienced stormy weather, but Dickens brilliantly described a storm he was in shortly before arriving in America. Miriam disembarks the Queen Mary in New York and then drives north to Boston. Dickens