1844, Fr. Martin was named superior of the mission in Lower Canada, now the Province of Quebec. Work in Canada The citizens of Montreal had generously subscribed towards the building of a college, his principal preoccupation. In May, 1847, ground was broken and the foundations were laid. Then came a series of disasters which interrupted all further work. The greater portion of Laprairie was swept by fire and the presbytery of the fathers was reduced to ashes. The great conflagration of Quebec followed, whereby a vast portion of the city was destroyed. Thousands of Irish immigrants were pouring into the country; in 1847 the numbers reached nearly 100,000. With them they brought the typhus or ship-fever. In that year alone nearly two thousand were stricken down in Montreal. The priests of St. Sulpice, pastors of the city, devoted themselves to the spiritual relief of the sick and dying, and five at the outset fell victims. Fathers Paul Mignard and Henri du Ranquet, arriving from New York gave timely assistance. But this was far from sufficient, so Fr. Martin appealed to Fr. Augustus Thébaud, rector of St. John's, Fordham, for volunteers to assist the plague-stricken. The answer was the immediate arrival of Fathers Driscoll, Dumerle, Ferard and Schianski. All escaped the contagion except Fr. Dumerle. The priests of St. Sulpice, whose ranks were thinned by the ravages of the plague, asked for four English-speaking Fathers to take charge of St. Patrick's Church. A presbytery was provided for them near the very ground whereon the college had been commenced. In it there was room sufficient to house a few teachers. A temporary structure was put up, and opened as a college on 20 September 1848. A few boarders even were received and lodged in a small tenement in a street hard by. It was not till the month of May, 1850, that work was resumed on the college building, but so quickly was it prosecuted that Mgr Bourget was invited to bless it, in its advanced stage of completion, on 31 July 1851, feast of St. Ignatius. On 4 August the novitiate was transferred from its temporary quarters in M. Rodier's house, and installed in the new edifice, and in the beginning of September everything was in perfect working order in the young institution of learning, from under whose roof, in later years, many men were to go forth as statesmen, judges,