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by way of Oswego and down the St. Lawrence, landed on Montreal Island, and invested the city on the 6th of September, 1760. On the 8th of September Governor Vaudreuil yielded, and New France became a dependency of Britain, so that by 1761 French rule had ceased in every part of Canada, having endured for a century and a half.

Section VI.-The French Canadian People

At the time of the conquest the French Canadians were already children of the soil. It is estimated that not more than 8,000 immigrants came from France to Canada, all told. As we have seen, the chief colonization period was in Colbert's time, and under his wise and energetic guidance. The population had now at the conquest grown to be 65,000. Three generations had passed away, so that not only had the people been fused into one, but their fathers' graves held them to the soil.

Nor had the population of French Canada been of a very mixed kind. At one time during his autocracy, Laval had objected that heretics from Rochelle were being sent to the colony, and at once the French rulers turned to the north-western provinces of France for the new settlers. From Normandy the greater number came. As the traveller drops off the railway from Dieppe to Paris, at the city of Rouen, he is in the midst of the fatherland of French Canada. He sees there much that is the prototype of style and general outline of the French Canadian homes.

The Government was really active in sending forth emigrants in Colbert's day. Many ruined gentlemen and half-pay officers went to Canada. As governors and officials men of high rank were sent "noble dukes, proud marquises, great sea-captains, and engineer officers" were all found in Canada. Baron Lahontan said he "preferred the forests of Canada to the Pyrenees of France," and Louis XIV. boasted that "Canada contained more of his old nobility than the rest of the French colonies put together." It was the avowed object of

the king in 1663 to "infuse a more liberal spirit into the colony, to raise the quality and character of the settlers, and to give a higher tone to society."

It was a part then of the plan to transplant feudal institutions to Canada. De Tracy-the Viceroy-always appeared in public with a "Garde Royale" of twentyfour men. The Governor and Intendant each had a splendid equipage. Of the Carignan officers, as already said, many were noblesse. On the recommendation of Governor De Courcelles, four families in Canada were ennobled, and five more on the recommendation of the Intendant. Seigniories were bestowed upon those considered deserving of them, and the other colonists must receive their tenures from the seignior.

The "censitaire," or settler, must come to the seignior "without sword or spurs, with bare head, and one knee on the ground," must repeat his lord's name three times, bring his "faith and honour," and pledge himself to pay "seignorial and feudal dues." If he sold out his right to another, the feudal lord was entitled to one-twelfth of what he received. Then the "censitaire" must grind his flour at the seignior's mill, bake his bread in the seignior's oven, give one fish in every eleven caught, and work for his lord one or more days in every year.

A somewhat highly organized society was thus at once formed. But the Government could induce but few families to emigrate. The lonely settlers in their cabins longed for society. Colbert was equal to the emergency. In 1665, 100 French maidens were sent out to the colony, and married at once. In 1667 eighty-four girls from Dieppe, and twenty-five from Rochelle, went out to Canada, and so in other years. These were jocularly called the "king's girls"; but, notwithstanding the sneers of the cynical Lahontan, they seem to have been generally honest peasant maidens. There were exceptions, however. Mother Mary, who had charge of them, in an offhand way called them "mixed goods," and at last a rule was enforced that each should bring from her parish priest a certificate that she had not been

married before. As soon as the maidens were married, and that was usually very soon after arrival, to each new family was given by the Government an ox, cow, pair of swine, pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in money.

Further, to encourage marriage in the colony, twenty livres was given to each young man married before twenty years of age, and to each girl married before sixteen. This was known as the "king's gift." This was independent of the dowry also bestowed. In addition, there was a bounty given to the parents of every child. The practical plans of the Government resulted, as we have mentioned, in a rapidly increasing and moral community. It is rather remarkable that the custom of early marriages is a prominent feature of Lower Canadian society to this day. A good Jesuit father informed the writer that he has seen a grandmother among the French Canadian peasantry at the age of twenty-eight.

Undoubtedly, the system of a peasantry dependent on the noblesse has made the French Canadians a peaceable, industrious, and light-hearted people; but it has likewise taken away the mainspring for action, the hope of rising in society, and while their life may be compared to a pastoral idyl," yet it would be all the better for some enlivening or even discordant strains.

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The same trustful spirit with which the peasant in Lower Canada looks on the higher classes is transferred to the priest or curé of the parish. The curé baptizes the children, and keeps a most careful register by a system which has resulted in the industrious Abbé Tanguay being able to make a genealogy of upwards of a million of French Canadians. The curé marries, confesses, and advises all, and at last speaks the words "Dust to dust" over their graves. This is the uneventful life of the French Canadian habitant.

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The language of the French Canadian peasantry is by no means the patois " some would have us believe. One of their writers has said, "Our French Canadian peasantry talk better French than half the peasantry of

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France." The first settlers of Canada left France when literature was at its zenith under Louis XIV. The French Canadians of to-day retain the simple old Norman songs" in all the purity with which their fathers brought them; and it is worthy of note that requests have come from France to have them collected, as not occurring now in any part of France.

The French Canadians had few regrets for "la belle France," for they had all been born in Canada, and the French officials went to France after the conquest. As already said, the French Revolution rudely severed French Canada from the mother-land. It was in contemplating this fact in 1794 that Bishop Plessis of Quebec "thanked God the colony was English.'

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The Cavaliers. Virginia. 1602.

1606.

CHAPTER VI

BRITAIN IN AMERICA

Section I.-The Revolting English Colonies

THE history of Canada is so closely bound up in its early days, even during the French rule, with that of both Puritan and Cavalier colonies, that some short account of the settlement of these Revolting Colonies is necessary to understand the fortunes and history of the colonies which remained loyal to Britain and became the Canada of to-day. The real settlement of Virginia was begun thus. An enterprising Englishman, Captain Gosnold, having built a fort on an island of what is now Massachusetts, led to the formation in England of two companies for colonization. To the London Company was given the coast from 33° N. to Delaware Bay in nearly 40° N. From Delaware Bay northward, along the coast to the mouth of the Ste. Croix, in lat. 45° N. was bestowed upon the Bristol Company. The dividing-line of the territories was not marked. Captain Gosnold, along with Wingfield and John Smith, were among the leaders of the Virginia colony. On January 1st the company, con1607. sisting of "poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men, and libertines," sailed for the New World. On May 13th they arrived at their new homes, and in honour of their English king, called their settlement Jamestown, and this a year before Champlain had founded Quebec.

From the composition of the colony it could not be but that dissension must soon arise. The man who rose to command among these unpromising elements was

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