3 ment. They were established in such parts of the country as were considered best rather for the interests of France than for their own. In its political aspect the colony of Canada was a vast feudal organization formed on the shores of the St. Lawrence, charged with the duty of maintaining the honour Large tracts of the and advancing the prosperity of France. American continent were lavished upon the favourites of the French court. Canada then presented one vast unbounded forest, and land was granted in extensive tracts, called seigneuries, which stretched along either coast of the St. Lawrence for a distance of ninety miles below Quebec and thirty miles above Montreal. These seigneuries included from one hundred to five hundred square miles each, and they were parcelled out by the proprietors in small lots to the inhabitants; for as the persons to whom the large territorial grants were made consisted chiefly of officers of the army and poor courtiers, this was the only mode by which their property could be made practically valuable. In Canada the portion allotted to each inhabitant was generally three acres in breadth and from seventy to eighty in depth, commencing from the banks of the St. Lawrence and The seigneurs or original running back into the woods. grantees of the soil, possessed many of the privileges and much of the authority of the old feudal lords in Europe. They exercised a magisterial jurisdiction; they held courts for the trial of all offences committed within their territories, treason and murder excepted; villenage existed in a modified form; and most of the oppressive feudal rights were imported The Church was largely enwithout mitigation into Canada. dowed. The fines on alienation constituted the most burthensome charge upon the feudal proprietors, and necessarily operated as a restraint on the transfer of land, and as a serious impedinent to agricultural improvement. Under these feudal institutions the Canadian noblesse became so impoverished, that Louis XIV. was induced to permit them to engage in trade without social degradation. In the year 1759 the population of Canada amounted to only 60,000 souls, and it was found to have decreased during the preceding twenty years of war and privation. The people led a life of simple rural industry on their farms, which were confined to the banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries below Quebec. The cultivation was generally very rude; but the fertility of the soil supplied in profusion all their wants, and left a surplus Commercial for which there was neither outlet nor demand. monopolies depressed the energy and industry of the habitans, and the insecurity of their property deprived them of the strongest motive for production. They were exposed to two B 2 enemies. enemies, of whom it would be difficult to say which they had most cause to dread-the licentious soldiery of old France, or the ferocious Indian tribes. But there was another foe of whom they then took little account; the British settlers. France has never possessed the art of colonization. Her conquests have not been durable, and she has never yet succeeded in establishing a firm and friendly footing on any considerable territory that has submitted to her arms. Her ablest politicians and economists have frequently deplored this political destiny; but they have not succeeded in reversing it. Chateaubriand, in his Travels in America,' thus pours out his regrets on the limited influence of his country in the extension of civilization : 'We possessed here vast territories, which might have offered a home to the excess of our population, an important market to our commerce, a nursery to our navy. Now we are forced to confine in our prisons culprits condemned by the tribunals, for want of a spot of ground whereon to place these wretched creatures. We are excluded from the New World, where the human race is recommencing. The English and Spanish languages serve to express the thoughts of many millions of men in Africa, in Asia, in the South Sea Islands, on the continent of the two Americas; and we, disinherited of the conquests of our courage and our genius, hear the language of Racine, of Colbert, and of Louis XIV., spoken merely in a few hamlets of Louisiana and Canada, under a foreign sway. There it remains, as it were, for an evidence of the reverses of our fortune and the errors of our policy. Thus, then, has France disappeared from North America, like those Indian tribes with which she sympathized, and some of the wrecks of which I have myself beheld.'* England and France started in their career of colonization in the New World upon fair and equal terms, and the contest for ultimate supremacy was for a time maintainel without the sensible predominance of either; but the dif ferent policy of the two countries soon manifested itself by its results. New France was colonized by a government- New England by a people. France founded a state in Canada based upon feudality and supported by the church; to England the American colonies owed scarcely anything, and they received very little of her attention. They taxed themselves, enacted their own laws, and were in all essential points independent of the Imperial administration. But in one respect the mother country was rigidly exacting. The colonial trade was fettered by commercial jealousy; and when, in addition to this grievance, the British legislature attempted to tax the colonists without their consent, neither the ties of blood nor all the power of Eng * Chateaubriand's Travels in America,' vol. ii. land land were able to bind them any longer to their allegiance. In a remarkable letter written by the Marquis de Montcalm shortly before his death, he had foretold that the British dominion in America would not long survive a triumph over France, and that whenever the dread of the latter power should cease to be felt by the colonists, they would no longer submit to Imperial control. The sovereignty of England, having succeeded to that of France in Canada, was maintained without exciting any political discontent. The French Canadians never joined the British American colonists in their revolt, but remained loyal to their new sovereign notwithstanding every temptation to rebel. A considerable number of the British colonists also declined to join the revolutionary movement, and fled to Canada. They there found a welcome and protection. A tract of country above Montreal and on the borders of the great lakes was appropriated to British officers and discharged soldiers, to whom grants were made under the name of military bounties. These two classes of settlers formed the nucleus of the present British Protestant population. * Canada, according to a report which emanated from the Colonial Government in 1857, contains 350,000 square miles, of which only 40,000 were then settled, that is to say, cleared; from which it follows that there were then belonging to the province 310,000 square miles, or 198,000,000 acres of uninhabited country; but it is to be observed that a considerable portion of this great area lies to the north of the river St. Lawrence, on the Labrador coast, where the land is less fertile and the climate very severe. But in the west, where the climate is milder, and more especially in the districts lying between the great lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, the land is taken up quite as fast as the Government is able to open it out for settlement. It is therefore probable that in a few years all the land in Western Canada will have been appropriated, and that colonization will then take a north-westerly course. In conformity with this impression, we find the Governor-General, in 1857, suggesting to the Imperial Government the propriety of taking certain measures in reference to the future. His Excellency feels it particularly necessary that the importance of securing the North-West Territory against the sudden and unauthorised influx of immigration from the United States should be strongly pressed. He fears that the continued vacancy of this great tract, with * Evidence of the Hon. Chief-Justice Draper before the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, p. 228. a boundary a boundary not marked on the soil itself, may lead to future loss and injury both to England and to Canada. He wishes you to urge the expediency of marking out the limits, and so protecting the frontier, of the lands above Lake Superior, about the Red River, and from thence to the Pacific, as effectually to secure them against violent seizure or irregular settlement, until the advancing tide of emigrants from Canada and the United Kingdom may fairly flow into them, and occupy them as subjects of the Queen, on behalf of the British Empire.' * We propose to take a brief review of the policy of the Government since its practical independence. It may be premised that, although by the union of the two provinces in 1840 political unity has been given to the country, the two races which inhabit it remain in a great degree socially distinct. The progressive clement of Canada has been hitherto essentially British. The character of the French population has not materially changed since the country became a British dependency. The dress of the people is the same, and in the manners of the higher classes are to be found probably the only examples remaining of that mixture of courtesy, dignity, and grace, that characterised the noblesse of the ancient monarchy. The French Canadians are now understood generally to condemn the rebellion of 1837. There were, they say, grievances to be redressed, but not such as to justify taking up arms against the Government. The facility with which the outbreak was suppressed proved that it had no real support from the people, and that it originated rather in the weakness and vacillation of the Government than in any general Canadian disaffection. The Whig party then in office shrunk from allowing to Canada a right which the British Parliament had always esteemed one of the firmest bulwarks of liberty-namely, the power of stopping the supplies. It was reserved for a Conservative Government not only to give effect to this principle, but to take into favour and admit to some of the highest offices of state several influential members of the party which had taken a lead in the rebellion. The French Canadians are supposed not to entertain much sentimental attachment for the country of their origin. They do not like,' says the able German writer who has so well portrayed their character and manners in his interesting work, to be called French, but they call themselves Canadians; and they are,' he adds, as simple and primitive a people as Virgil could have desired to inspire him with his 6 * Letter from the Assistant-Secretary of the Governor-General of Canada to the Hon. Chief-Justice Draper, C.B. + Reisen in Canada, Idylls.' Idylls.' The valley of the St. Lawrence presents the only considerable range of continuous cultivation in Canada, and exhibits the singular spectacle of a river flowing, as it were, between two village streets 350 miles long, backed by forests and mountains. On the banks of this magnificent stream reside the best fed, the best clad, the best housed, the best conducted, and the most contented peasantry, in the world. Practically, the people of Canada now enjoy as large a measure of political liberty as can be possessed by any country; and since the year 1849 steps have been taken for adapting the constitution to the feelings and opinions of the community, and carrying out important changes believed to be essential to its progress. These consist principally in a reform of the legislature, an extension of the franchise, a complete system of municipal self-government, the abolition of feudal tenures, the simplification and consolidation of the law, together with some excellent measures for encouraging immigration. The legislature, by the Act conferring the constitution, was to consist, under the Governor-General, of a Council, or Upper House, nominated for life by the Crown, and a Lower House elected by the people. The representatives of the people are now 130 in number, and the franchise has been lowered to the qualification of Gl. sterling for freehold, proprietary, or tenantry, in towns, and 41. in rural districts, the principal feature in the change being the admission of the tenant vote in counties and rural districts. The Legislative Council has been essentially modified by the introduction of the elective principle, the existing nominated members retaining their seats for life. The Province has been divided into forty-eight electoral divisions, each returning one member. Twelve are elected every two years, and they go out of office after eight years of service. The House is not subject to dissolution. Of the innovation thus made in the original Canadian constitution the GovernorGeneral expresses himself with approbation : Up to the present time,' he says, 'no difficulty has arisen from the twelve members chosen by the people in connexion with the remaining members originally nominated by the Crown, who retain their seats for life. On the contrary, many valuable members of the Council have been added by the choice of the people. Free discussion combined with decorum, and an independent bearing as one of the two Houses of Parliament, have marked their proceedings, and I see no reason to fear that an additional infusion of the elective element will disturb this state of things.'* Copy of a Despatch from the Right Hon. Sir Edmund Head to the Right Hon Sir E. B. Lytton, Bart., M.P., August, 1858. |