A large and uncontrolled fire started in the French Canadian section of the Quebec city of Montreal and within hours more than a thousand houses were destroyed in an area exceeding a square mile. Reports estimated that damage amounts to more than 340,000 pounds sterling and that around 14,000 were now homeless in the city. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Chronicle, The Annual Register or a View of the History and Politics of the Year 1852 (London: F. & J. Rivington, 1853), 107.