were in a condition somewhat similar, and La Barre complains of a prevailing spirit of disobedience and lawlessness. * The most orderly and thrifty part of Canada appears to have been at this time the cote of Beaupré, belonging to the seminary of Quebec. Here the settlers had religious instruction from their curés, and industrial instruction also if they wanted it. Domestic spinning and weaving were practised at Beaupré sooner than in any other part of the colony.
When it is remembered that a population which in La Barre’s time did not exceed ten thousand, and which forty years later did not much exceed twice that number, was scattered along both sides of a great river for three hundred miles or more; that a large part of this population was in isolated groups of two, three, five, ten, or twenty houses at the edge of a savage wilderness; that between them there was little communication except by canoes; that the settlers were disbanded soldiers, or others whose fives had been equally adverse to habits of reflection or self-control; that they rarely saw a priest, and that a government omnipotent in name had not arms long enough to reach them,—we may listen without surprise to the lamentations of order-loving officials over the unruly condition of a great part of the colony. One accuses the seigniors, who, he says, being often of low extraction, cannot keep their vassals in order. ** Another dwells sorrowfully on the “terrible dispersion” of
the settlements where the inhabitants "live in a savage independence.” But it is better that each should speak for himself, and among the rest let us hear the pious Denonville.
“This, monseigneur, seems to me the place for rendering you an account of the disorders which prevail not only in the woods, but also in the settlements. They arise from the idleness of young persons, and the great liberty which fathers, mothers, and guardians have for a long time given them, or allowed them to assume, of going into the forest under pretence of hunting or trading. This has come to such a pass, that, from the moment a boy can carry a gun, the father cannot restrain him and dares not offend him. You can judge the mischief that follows. These disorders are always greatest in the families of those who are gentilshommes, or who through laziness or vanity pass themselves off as such. Having no resource but hunting, they must spend their lives in the woods, where they have no curés to trouble them, and no fathers or guardians to constrain them. I think, monseigneur, that martial law would suit their case better than any judicial sentence.
“Monsieur de la Barre suppressed a certain order of knighthood which had sprung up here, but he did not abolish the usages belonging to it. It was thought a fine thing and a good joke to go about naked and tricked out like Indians, not only on carnival days, but on all other days of feasting and debauchery. These practices tend to encourage the disposition of our young men to live like sav ages, frequent their company, and be for ever unruly and lawless like them. I; cannot tell you, monseigneur, how attractive this Indian life is to all our youth. It consists in doing nothing, caring for nothing, following every inclination, and getting out of the way of all correction.” He goes on to say that the mission villages governed by the Jesuits and Sulpitians are models of good order, and that drunkards are never seen there except when they come from the neighboring French settlements; but that the other Indians who roam at large about the colony, do prodigious mischief, because the children of the seigniors not only copy their way of life, but also run off with their women into the woods. *
“Nothing,” he continues, “can be finer or better conceived than the regulations framed for the government of this country; but nothing, I assure you, is so ill observed as regards both the fur trade and the general discipline of the colony. One great evil is the infinite number of drinking-shops, which makes it almost impossible to remedy the disorders resulting from them. All the rascals and idlers of the country are attracted into this business of tavern-keeping. They never dream of tilling the soil; but, on the contrary, they deter the other inhabitants from it, and end with ruining
them. I know seigniories where there are but twenty houses, and moire than half of them dram shops. At Three Rivers there are twenty-five houses, and liquor may be had at eighteen or twenty of them. Villemarie (Montreal) and Quebec are on the same footing.”
The governor next dwells on the necessity of finding occupation for children and youths, a matter which he regards as of the last importance. "It is sad to see the ignorance of the population at a distance from the abodes of the curés, who are put to the greatest trouble to remedy the evil by travelling from place to place through the parishes in their charge.” *
La Barre, Champigny, and Duchesneau write in a similar strain. Bishop Saint-Vallier, in an epistolary journal which he printed of a tour through the colony made on his first arrival, gives a favorable account of the disposition of the people, especially as regards religion. He afterwards changed his views. An abstract made from his letters for the use of the king states that he "represents, like M. Denonville, that the Canadian youth are for the most part wholly demoralized.” **
"The bishop was very sorry,” says a correspondent of the minister at Quebec, "to have so much exaggerated in the letter he printed at Paris the morality of the people here.” *** He preached a sermon on the sins of the inhabitants and issued a pastoral mandate, in which he says, "Before we
knew our flock we thought that the English and the Iroquois were the only wolves we had to fear; but God having opened our eyes to the disorders of this diocese, and made us feel more than ever the weight of our charge, we are forced to confess that our most dangerous foes are drunkenness, luxury, impurity, and slander.” *
Drunkenness was at this time the most destructive vice in the colony. One writer declares that most of the Canadians drink so much brandy in the morning, that they are unfit for work all day. ** Another says that a canoe-man when he is tired will lift a keg of brandy to his lips and drink the raw liquor from the bung-hole, after which, having spoiled his appetite, he goes to bed supperless; and that, what with drink and hardship, he is an old man at forty. Nevertheless the race did not deteriorate. The prevalence of early marriages, and the birth of numerous offspring before the vigor of the father had been wasted, ensured the strength and hardihood which characterized the Canadians. As Denonville describes them so they long remained. “The Canadians are tall, well-made, and well set on their legs (bienplantés sur leurs jambes), robust, vigorous, and accustomed in time of need to live on little. They have intelligence and vivacity, but are wayward, light-minded, and inclined to debauchery.”
As the population increased, as the rage for
bush-ranging began to abate, and, above all, as the curés multiplied, a change took place for the better. More churches were built, the charge of each priest was reduced within reasonable bounds, and a greater proportion of the inhabitants remained on their farms. They were better watched, controlled, and taught, by the church. The ecclesiastical power, wherever it had a hold, was exercised, as we have seen, with an undue rigor, yet it was the chief guardian of good morals; and the colony grew more orderly and more temperate as the church gathered more and more of its wild and wandering flock fairly within its fold. In this, however, its success was but relative. It is true that in 1715 a well-informed writer says that the people were “perfectly instructed in religion;” * but at that time the statement was only partially true.
During the seventeenth century, and some time after its close, Canada swarmed with beggars, a singular feature in a new country where a good farm could be had for the asking. In countries intensely Roman Catholic begging is not regarded as an unmixed evil, being supposed to promote two cardinal virtues,—charity in the giver and humility in the receiver. The Canadian officials nevertheless tried to restrain it. Vagabonds of both sexes were ordered to leave Quebec, and nobody was allowed to beg without a certificate of poverty from the curé or the local judge. ** These orders were not
always observed. Bishop Saint-Vallier writes that he is overwhelmed by beggars, * and the intendant echoes his complaint. Almshouses were established at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec; ** and when Saint-Vallier founded the General Hospital, its chief purpose was to serve, not as a hospital in the ordinary sense of the word, but as a house of refuge, after the plan of the General Hospital of Paris. *** Appeal, as usual, was made to the king. Denonville asks his aid for two destitute families, and says that many others need it. Louis XIV. did not fail to respond, and from time to time he sent considerable sums for the relief of the Canadian poor. ****
Denonville says, “The principal reason of the poverty of this country is the idleness and bad conduct of most of the people. The greater part of the women, including all the demoiselles, are very lazy.” (v) Meules proposes as a remedy that the king should establish a general workshop in the colony, and pay the workmen himself during the first five or six years. (v*) “The persons here,” he says, “who have wished to make a figure are nearly all so overwhelmed with debt that they may be
considered as in the last necessity.” * He adds that many of the people go half-naked even in winter. “The merchants of this country,” says the intendant Duchesneau, “are all plunged in poverty, except five or six at the most; it is the same with the artisans, except a small number, because the vanity of the women and the debauchery of the men consume all their gains. As for such of the laboring class as apply themselves steadily to cultivating the soil, they not only live very well, but are incomparably better off than the better sort of peasants in France.” **
All the writers lament the extravagant habits of the people; and even La Hontan joins hands with the priests in wishing that the supply of ribbons, laces, brocades, jewelry, and the like, might be cut off: by act of law. Mother Juchereau tells us that, when the English invasion was impending, the belles of Canada were scared for a while into modesty in order to gain the favor of heaven; but, as may be imagined, the effect was short, and Father La Tour declares that in his time all the fashions except rouge came over regularly in the annual ships.
The manners of the mission period, on the other hand, were extremely simple. The old governor, Lauzon, lived on pease and bacon like a laborer, and kept no man-servant. He was regarded, it is true, as a miser, and held in slight account. *** Magdeleine Boucher, sister of the governor of Three Rivers,
brought her husband two hundred francs in money, four sheets, two table-cloths, six napkins of linen and hemp, a mattress, a blanket, two dishes, six spoons and six tin plates, a pot and a kettle, a table and two benches, a kneading-trough, a chest with lock and key, a cow, and a pair of hogs. * But the Bouchers were a family of distinction, and the bride’s dowry answered to her station. By another marriage contract, at about the same time, the parents of the bride, being of humble degree, bind themselves to present the bridegroom with a barrel of bacon, deliverable on the arrival of the ships from France. **
Some curious traits of this early day appear in the license of Jean Boisdon as innkeeper. He is required to establish himself on the great square of Quebec, close to the church, so that the parishioners may conveniently warm and refresh themselves between the services; but he is forbidden to entertain anybody during high mass, sermon, catechism, or vespers. *** Matters soon changed; Jean Boisdon lost his monopoly, and inns sprang up on all hands. They did not want for patrons, and we find some of their proprietors mentioned as among the few thriving men in Canada. Talon tried to regulate them, and, among other rules, ordained that no innkeeper should furnish food or drink to any hired laborer whatever, or to any
person residing in the place where his inn was situated. An innkeeper of Montreal was fined for allowing the syndic of the town to dine under his roof. *
One gets glimpses of the pristine state of Quebec through the early police regulations. Each inhabitant was required to make a gutter along the middle of the street before his house, and also to remove refuse and throw it into the river. All dogs, without exception, were ordered home at nine o’clock. On Tuesdays and Fridays there was a market in the public square, whither the neighboring habitants, male and female, brought their produce for sale, as they still continue to do. Smoking in the street was forbidden, as a precaution against fire; householders were required to provide themselves with ladders, and when the fire alarm was rung all able-bodied persons were obliged to run to the scene of danger with buckets or kettles full of water. ** This did not prevent the Lower Town from burning to the ground in 1682. It was soon rebuilt, but a repetition of the catastrophe seemed very likely. “This place,” says Denonville, “is in a fearful state as regards fire; for the houses are crowded together out of all reason, and so surrounded with piles of cord-wood that it is pitiful to see.” *** Add to this the stores of hay for the cows kept by many of the inhabitants for the benefit of their swarming progeny.
The houses were at this time low, compact buildings, with gables of masonry, as required by law; but many had wooden fronts, and all had roofs covered with cedar shingles. The anxious governor begs that, as the town has not a sou of revenue, his Majesty will be pleased to make it the gift of two hundred crowns’ worth of leather fire-buckets. * Six or seven years after, certain citizens were authorized by the council to import from France, at their own cost, “a pump after the Dutch fashion, for throwing water on houses in case of fire.” ** How a fire was managed at Quebec appears from a letter of the engineer, Yasseur, describing the burning of Laval’s seminary in 1701. Vasseur was then at Quebec, directing the new fortifications. On a Monday in November, all the pupils of the seminary and most of the priests went, according to their weekly custom, to recreate themselves at a house and garden at St. Michel, a short distance from town. The few priests who remained went after dinner to say vespers at the church. Only one, Father Petit, was left in the seminary, and he presently repaired to the great hall to rekindle the fire in the stove and warm the place against the return of his brethren. His success surpassed his wishes. A firebrand snapped out in his absence and set the pine floor in a blaze. Father Boucher, curé of Point Levi, chanced to come in, and was half choked by the smoke. He cried fire! the servants
ran for water; but the flames soon mastered them; they screamed the alarm, and the bells began to ring. Vasseur was dining with the intendant at his palace by the St. Charles, when he heard a frightened voice crying out, “Monsieur, you are wanted; you are wanted.” He sprang from table, saw the smoke rolling in volumes from the top of the rock, ran up the steep ascent, reached the seminary, and found an excited crowd making a prodigious outcry. He shouted for carpenters. Four men came to him, and he set them at work with such tools as they had to tear away planks and beams, and prevent the fire from spreading to the adjacent parts of the building; but, when he went to find others to help them, they ran off. He set new men in their place, and these too ran off the moment his back was turned. A cry was raised that the building was to be blown up, on which the crowd scattered for their lives. Vasseur now gave up the seminary for lost, and thought only of cutting off the fire from the rear of the church, which was not far distant. In this he succeeded, by tearing down an intervening wing or gallery. The walls of the burning building were of massive stone, and by seven o’clock the fire had spent itself. We hear nothing of the Dutch pump, nor does it appear that the soldiers of the garrison made any effort to keep order. Under cover of the confusion, property was stolen from the seminary to the amount of about two thousand livres, which is remarkable, considering the religious character of the building, and the supposed piety of the people. “There were more than three hundred persons at the fire," says Yasseur; “but thirty picked men would have been worth more than the whole of them.” *
August, September, and October were the busy months at Quebec. Then the ships from France discharged their lading, the shops and warehouses of the Lower Town were filled with goods, and the habitants came to town to make their purchases. When the frosts began, the vessels sailed away, the harbor was deserted, the streets were silent again, and like ants or squirrels the people set at work to lay in their winter stores. Fathers of families packed their cellars with beets, carrots, potatoes, and cabbages; and, at the end of autumn, with meat, fowls, game, fish, and eels, all frozen to stony hardness. Most of the shops closed, and the long season of leisure and amusement began. New Year’s day brought visits and mutual gifts. Thence till Lent dinner parties were frequent, sometimes familiar and sometimes ceremonious. The governor’s little court at the chateau was a standing example to all the aspiring spirits of Quebec, and forms and orders of precedence were in some houses punctiliously observed. There were dinners to the military and civic dignitaries and their wives, and others, quite distinct, to prominent citizens. The wives and daughters of the burghers of Quebec are said to have been superior in manners to women of the corresponding
class in France. “They have wit,” says La Potherie, “delicacy, good voices, and a great fondness for dancing. They are discreet, and not much given to flirting; but when they undertake to catch a lover it is not easy for him to escape the bands of Hymen.” *
So much for the town. In the country parishes, there was the same autumnal stowing away of frozen vegetables, meat, fish, and eels, and unfortunately the same surfeit of leisure through five months of the year. During the seventeenth century, many of the people were so poor that women were forced to keep at home from sheer want of winter clothing. Nothing, however, could prevent their running from house to house to exchange gossip with the neighbors, who all knew each other, and, having nothing else to do, discussed each other’s affairs with an industry which often bred bitter quarrels. At a later period, a more general introduction of family weaving and spinning served at once to furnish clothing and to promote domestic peace.
The most important persons in a parish were the curé, the seignior, and the militia captain. The seignior had his bench of honor in the church. Immediately behind it was the bench of the militia captain, whose duty it was to drill the able-bodied men of the neighborhood, direct road-making and other public works, and serve as deputy to the intendant, whose ordinances he was required to enforce. Next in honor came the local judge any there was, and the church-wardens.
The existence of slavery in Canada dates from the end of the seventeenth century. In 1688, the attorney-general made a visit to Paris, and urged upon the king the expediency of importing negroes from the West Indies as a remedy for the scarcity and dearness of labor. The king consented, but advised caution, on the ground that the rigor of the climate would make the venture a critical one. * A number of slaves were brought into the colony; but the system never flourished, the climate and other circumstances being hostile to it. Many of the colonists, especially at Detroit and other outlying posts, owned slaves of a remote Indian tribe, the Pawnees. The fact is remarkable, since it would be difficult to find another of the wild tribes of the continent capable of subjection to domestic servitude. The Pawnee slaves were captives taken in war and sold at low prices to the Canadians. Their market value was much impaired by their propensity to run off.
It is curious to observe the views of the Canadians taken at different times by different writers. La Hontan says, “They are vigorous, enterprising, and indefatigable, and need nothing but education. They are presumptuous and full of self-conceit, regard themselves as above all the nations of the earth, and, unfortunately, have not the veneration for their parents that they ought to have. The women are generally pretty; few of them are
brunettes; many of them are discreet, and a good number are lazy. They are fond to the last degree of dress and show, and each tries to outdo the rest in the art of catching a husband.” *
Fifty years later, the intendant Hocquart writes, “The Canadians are fond of distinctions and attentions, plume themselves on their courage, and are extremely sensitive to slights or the smallest corrections. They are self-interested, vindictive, prone to drunkenness, use a great deal of brandy, and pass for not being at all truthful. This portrait is true of many of them, particularly the country people: those of the towns are less vicious. They are all attached to religion, and criminals are rare. They are volatile, and think too well of themselves, which prevents their succeeding as they might in farming and trade. They have not the rude and rustic air of our French peasants. If they are put on their honor and governed with justice, they are tractable enough; but their natural disposition is indocile.” *
The navigator Bougainville, in the last years of the French rule, describes the Canadian habitant as essentially superior to the French peasant, and adds, “He is loud, boastful, mendacious, obliging, civil, and honest; indefatigable in hunting, travelling, and bush-ranging, but lazy in tilling the soil.” ***
The Swedish botanist, Kalm, an excellent observer, was in Canada a few years before Bougainville,
and sketches from life the following traits of Canadian manners. The language is chat of the old English translation. “The men here (at Montreal) are extremely civil, and take their hats off to every person indifferently whom they meet in the streets. The women in general are handsome; they are well bred and virtuous, with an innocent and becoming freedom. They dress out very fine on Sundays, and though on the other days they do not take much pains with the other parts of their dress, yet they are very fond of adorning their heads, the hair of which is always curled and powdered and ornamented with glittering bodkins and aigrettes. They are not averse to taking part in all the business of housekeeping, and I have with pleasure seen the daughters of the better sort of people, and of the governor (of Montreal) himself, not too finely dressed, and going into kitchens and cellars to look that every thing be done as it ought. What I have mentioned above of their dressing their heads too assiduously is the case with all the ladies throughout Canada. Their hair is always curled even when they are at home in a dirty jacket, and short coarse petticoat that does not reach to the middle of their legs. On those days when they pay or receive visits they dress so gayly that one is almost induced to think their parents possess the greatest honors in the state. They are no less attentive to have the newest fashions, and they laugh at each other when they are not dressed to each other’s fancy. One of the first questions they propose to a stranger is, whether he is married; the next, how he likes the ladies of the country, and whether he thinks them handsomer than those of his own country; and the third, whether he will take one home with him. The behavior of the ladies seemed to me somewhat too free at Quebec, and of a more becoming modesty at Montreal. Those of Quebec are not very industrious. The young ladies, especially those of a higher rank, get up at seven and dress till nine, drinking their coffee at the same time. When they are dressed, they place themselves near a window that opens into the street, take up some needlework and sew a stitch now and then, but turn their eyes into the street most of the time. When a young fellow comes in, whether they are acquainted with him or not, they immediately lay aside their work, sit down by him, and begin to chat, laugh, joke, and invent double-entendres, and this is reckoned being very witty. In this manner they frequently pass the whole day, leaving their mothers to do the business of the house. They are likewise cheerful and content, and nobody can say that they want either wit or charms. Their fault is that they think too well of themselves. However, the daughters of people of all ranks without exception go to market and carry home what they have bought. The girls at Montreal are very much displeased that those at Quebec get husbands sooner than they. The reason of this is that many young gentlemen who come over from France with the ships are captivated by the ladies at Quebec and marry them; but, as these gentlemen seldom go up to Montreal, the girls there are not often so happy as those of the former place." *
Long before Kalm’s visit, the Jesuit Charlevoix, a traveller and a man of the world, wrote thus of Quebec in a letter to the Duchesse de Lesdiguières: “There is a select little society here which wants nothing to make it agreeable. In the salons of the wives of the governor and of the intendant, one finds circles as brilliant as in other countries.” These circles were formed partly of the principal inhabitants, but chiefly of military officers and government officials, with their families. Charlevoix continues, “Everybody does his part to make the time pass pleasantly, with games and parties of pleasure; drives and canoe excursions in summer, sleighing and skating in winter. There is a great deal of hunting and shooting, for many Canadian gentlemen are almost destitute of any other means of living at their ease. The news of the day amounts to very little indeed, as the country furnishes scarcely any, while that from Europe comes all at once. Science and the fine arts have their turn, and conversation does not fail. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty, which makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our language is nowhere more purely spoken. One finds here no rich persons whatever, and this is a great pity; for the Canadians like to get the credit of their money, and scarcely anybody
amuses himself with hoarding it. They say it is very different with our neighbors the English, and one who knew the two colonies only by the way of living, acting, and speaking of the colonists would not hesitate to judge ours the more flourishing. In New England and the other British colonies, there reigns an opulence by which the people seem not to know how to profit; while in New France poverty is hidden under an air of ease which appears entirely natural. The English colonist keeps as much and spends as little as possible: the French colonist enjoys what he has got, and often makes a display of what he has not got. The one labors for his heirs: the other leaves them to get on as they can, like himself. I could push the comparison farther; but I must close here: the king’s ship is about to sail, and the merchant vessels are getting ready to follow. In three days perhaps, not one will be left in the harbor.” * And now we, too, will leave Canada. Winter draws near, and the first patch of snow lies gleaming on the distant mountain of Cape Tourmente. The sun has set in chill autumnal beauty, and the sharp spires of fir-trees on the heights of Sillery stand stiff and black against the pure cold amber of the fading west. The ship sails in the morning; and, before the old towers of Rochelle rise in sight, there will be time to smoke many a pipe, and ponder what we have seen on the banks of the St Lawrence.
Formation op Canadian Character.—The Rival Colonies.—England and France.—New England.—Characteristics op Race.—Military Qualities.—The Church.—The English Conquest.
Not institutions alone, but geographical position, climate, and many other conditions unite to form the educational influences that, acting through successive generations, shape the character of nations and communities.
It is easy to see the nature of the education, past and present, which wrought on the Canadians and made them what they were. An ignorant population, sprung from a brave and active race, but trained to subjection and dependence through centuries of feudal and monarchical despotism, was planted in the wilderness by the hand of authority, and told to grow and flourish. Artificial stimulants were applied, but freedom was withheld. Perpetual intervention of government, regulations, restrictions, encouragements sometimes more mischievous than restrictions, a constant uncertainty what the authorities would do next, the fate of each man resting less with himself than with another, volition enfeebled, self-reliance paralyzed,—the condition, in short, of a child held always under the rule of a father, in the main well-meaning and kind, sometimes generous, sometimes neglectful, often capricious, and rarely very wise,—such were the influences under which Canada grew up. If she had prospered, it would have been sheer miracle. A man, to be a man, must feel that he holds his fate, in some good measure, in his own hands.
But this was not all. Against absolute authority there was a counter influence, rudely and wildly antagonistic. Canada was at the very portal of the great interior wilderness. The St. Lawrence and the Lakes were the highway to that domain of savage freedom; and thither the disfranchised, half-starved seignior, and the discouraged habitant who could find no market for his produce, naturally enough betook themselves. Their lesson of savagery was well learned, and for many a year a boundless license and a stiff-handed authority battled for the control of Canada. Nor, to the last, were church and state fairly masters of the field. The French rule was drawing towards its close when the intendant complained that though twenty-eight companies of regular troops were quartered in the colony, there were not soldiers enough to keep the people in order. * One cannot but remember that in a neighboring colony, far more populous, perfect order prevailed, with no other
guardians than a few constables chosen by the people themselves.
Whence arose this difference, and other differences equally striking, between the rival colonies? It is easy to ascribe them to a difference of political and religious institutions; but the explanation does not cover the ground. The institutions of New England were utterly inapplicable to the population of New France, and the attempt to apply them would have wrought nothing but mischief. There are no political panaceas, except in the imagination of political quacks. To each degree and each variety of public development there are corresponding institutions, best answering the public needs; and what is meat to one is poison to another. Freedom is for those who are fit for it. The rest will lose it, or turn it to corruption. Church and state were right in exercising authority over a people which had not learned the first rudiments of self-government. Their fault was not that they exercised authority, but that they exercised too much of it, and, instead of weaning the child to go alone, kept him in perpetual leading-strings, making him, if possible, more and more dependent, and less and less fit for freedom.
In the building up of colonies, England succeeded and France failed. The cause lies chiefly in the vast advantage drawn by England from the historical training of her people in habits of reflection, forecast, industry, and self-reliance,—a training which enabled them to adopt and maintain an invigorating system of self-rule, totally inapplicable to their rivals.
The New England colonists were far less fugitives from oppression than voluntary exiles seeking the realization of an idea. They were neither peasants nor soldiers, but a substantial Puritan yeomanry, led by Puritan gentlemen and divines in thorough sympathy with them. They were neither sent out by the king, governed by him, nor helped by him. They grew up in utter neglect, and continued neglect was the only boon they asked. Till their increasing strength roused the jealousy of the Crown, they were virtually independent; a republic, but by no means a democracy. They chose their governor and all their rulers from among themselves, made their own government and paid for it, supported their own clergy, defended themselves, and educated themselves. Under the hard and repellent surface of New England society lay the true foundations of a stable freedom,—conscience, reflection, faith, patience, and public spirit. The cement of common interests, hopes, and duties compacted the whole people like a rock of conglomerate; while the people of New France remained in a state of political segregation, like a basket of pebbles held together by the enclosure that surrounds them.
It may be that the difference of historical antecedents would alone explain the difference of character between the rival colonies; but there are deeper causes, the influence of which went far to determine the antecedents themselves. The Germanic race, and especially the Anglo-Saxon branch of it, is peculiarly masculine, and, therefore, peculiarly fitted for self-government. It submits its action habitually to the guidance of reason, and has the judicial faculty of seeing both sides of a question. The French Celt is cast in a different mould. He sees the end distinctly, and reasons about it with an admirable clearness; but his own impulses and passions continually turn him away from it. Opposition excites him; he is impatient of delay, is impelled always to extremes, and does not readily sacrifice a present inclination to an ultimate good. He delights in abstractions and generalizations, cuts loose from unpleasing facts, and roams through an ocean of desires and theories.
While New England prospered and Canada did not prosper, the French system had at least one great advantage. It favored military efficiency. The Canadian population sprang in great part from soldiers, and was to the last systematically reinforced by disbanded soldiers. Its chief occupation was a continual training for forest war; it had little or nothing to lose, and little to do but fight and range the woods. This was not all. The Canadian government was essentially military. At its head was a soldier nobleman, often an old and able commander, and those beneath him caught his spirit and emulated his example. In spite of its political nothingness, in spite of poverty and hardship, and in spite even of trade, the upper stratum of Canadian society was animated by the pride and fire of that gallant noblesse which held war as its only worthy calling, and prized honor more than life. As for the habitant, the forest, lake, and river were his true school; and here, at least, he was an apt scholar. A skilful woodsman, a bold and adroit canoe-man, a willing fighter in time of need, often serving without pay, and receiving from government only his provisions and his canoe, he was more than ready at any time for any hardy enterprise; and in the forest warfare of skirmish and surprise there were few to match him. An absolute government used him at will, and experienced leaders guided his rugged valor to the best account.
The New England man was precisely the same material with that of which Cromwell formed his invincible “Ironsides;” but he had very little forest experience. His geographical position cut him off completely from the great wilderness of the interior. The sea was his field of action. Without the aid of government, and in spite of its restrictions, he built up a prosperous commerce, and enriched himself by distant fisheries, neglected by the rivals before whose doors they lay. He knew every ocean from Greenland to Cape Horn, and the whales of the north and of the south had no more dangerous foe. But he was too busy to fight without good cause, and when he turned his hand to soldiering it was only to meet some pressing need of the hour. The New England troops in the early wars were bands of raw fishermen and farmers, led by civilians decorated with military titles, and subject to the slow and uncertain action of legislative bodies. The officers had not learned to command, nor the men to obey. The remarkable exploit of the capture of Louisburg, the strongest fortress in America, was the result of mere audacity and hardihood, backed by the rarest good luck.
One great fact stands out conspicuous in Canadian history,—the Church of Rome. More even than the royal power she shaped the character and the destinies of the colony. She was its nurse and almost its mother; and, wayward and headstrong as it was, it never broke the ties of faith that held it to her. It was these ties which, in the absence of political franchises, formed under the old regime the only vital coherence in the population. The royal government was transient; the church was permanent. The English conquest shattered the whole apparatus of civil administration at a blow, but it left her untouched. Governors, intendants, councils, and commandants, all were gone; the principal seigniors fled the colony; and a people who had never learned to control themselves or help themselves were suddenly left to their own devices. Confusion, if not anarchy, would have followed but for the parish priests, who in a character of double paternity, half spiritual and half temporal, became more than ever the guardians of order throughout Canada.
This English conquest was the grand crisis of Canadian history. It was the beginning of a new life. With England came Protestantism, and the Canadian church grew purer and better in the presence of an adverse faith. Material growth, an increased mental activity, an education real though fenced and guarded, a warm and genuine patriotism, all date from the peace of 1763. England imposed by the sword on reluctant Canada the boon of rational and ordered liberty. Through centuries of striving she had advanced from stage to stage of progress, deliberate and calm, never breaking with her past, but making each fresh gain the base of a new success, enlarging popular liberties while bating nothing of that height and force of individual development which is the brain and heart of civilization; and now, through a hard-earned victory, she taught the conquered colony to share the blessings she had won. A happier calamity never befell a people than the conquest of Canada by the British arms.