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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 he fierce strifes which raged between Catholic and
Protestant during the latter half of the sixteenth century
engrossed the mind of France to the exclusion of all that
concerned her remote and discouraging possession. But
while the strong hand of Henry IV. held the reins of
government, these strifes were calmed. The hatred remained, ready
to break forth when circumstances allowed; but meantime the
authority of the King imposed salutary restraint upon the
combatants, and the country had rest. During this exceptional quiet
the project of founding a New France on the gulf and river of St.
Lawrence again received attention.
Among the favourite servants of the King was Samuel de
Champlain. This man was a sailor from his youth, which had been
passed on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. He had fought for his
King on sea and on land. He was brave, resolute, of high ability, of
pure and lofty impulses, combining the courage with the gentleness
and courtesy of the true knight-errant. In him there survived the
passionate love of exploring strange lands which prevailed so widely
among the men of a previous generation. He foresaw a great destiny
for Canada, and he was eager to preserve for France the neglected
but magnificent heritage. Above all, he desired to send the saving
light of faith to the red men of the Canadian forests; for although a
bigoted Catholic, he was a sincere Christian. “The salvation of one
soul,” he was accustomed to say, “is of more value than the
conquest of an empire.”
This man was the founder of Canada. During thirty years he toiled
incessantly to plant and foster settlements, to send out missionaries,
to repel the inroads of the English, to protect the rights of France in
the fur-trade and in the fisheries of Newfoundland. The immediate
success which attended his labours was inconsiderable. His
settlements refused to make progress; the savage tribes for whose
souls he cared were extirpated by enemies whose hostility he had
helped to incur; the English destroyed ships which were bringing him
supplies; they besieged and captured Quebec itself. He died without
seeing the greatness of the colony which he loved, but which,
nevertheless, owed the beginnings of its greatness to him.
One of the earliest concerns of Champlain was to choose a site for
the capital of the French empire in the West. As Cartier had done
three-quarters of a century before, he chose the magnificent
headland of Quebec. At the foot of the rock he
1608 A.D.
erected a square of buildings, enclosing a court,
surrounded by a wall and a moat, and defended
by a few pieces of cannon. This rude fort became the centre of
French influence in Canada during the next hundred and fifty years,
till the English relieved France of responsibility and influence on the
American continent.
Champlain received cordial welcome from the Huron Indians, who
were his neighbours. These savages were overmatched by their
ancient enemies the Iroquois, and they besought the Frenchmen to
lend them the help of their formidable arms. Champlain consented—
moved in part by his love of battle, in part by his desire to explore
an unknown country. He and some of his men accompanied his new
allies on their march. The Iroquois warriors met them confidently,
expecting the customary victory. They were received with a volley of
musketry, which stretched some on the ground, and caused panic
and flight of the whole force. But Champlain had reason to regret
the foreign policy which he had adopted. The Hurons took many
prisoners, whom, as their practice was, they proceeded to torture to
death. In a subsequent expedition the allies were defeated, and
Champlain himself was wounded—circumstances which, for a time,
sensibly diminished his authority. And the hostility of the Iroquois,
thus unwisely provoked, resulted in the utter destruction of the
Hurons, and involved the yet unstable colony in serious jeopardy.
Champlain enjoyed the support of King Henry IV., who listened to
his glowing accounts of the country in which he was so profoundly
interested, who praised the wisdom of his government, and
encouraged him to persevere. But despite of royal favour, his task
was a heavy one. There were in his company both Romanists and
Calvinists, who bore with them into the forest the discords which
then made France miserable. Champlain tells that he has seen a
Protestant minister and a curé attempting to settle with blows of the
fist their controversial differences. Such occurrences, he points out,
were not likely to yield fruit to the glory of God among the infidels
whom he desired to convert. At home his prerogatives were the
playthings of political parties. To-day he obtained vast powers and
rich grants of land; to-morrow some court intrigue swept these all
away. There was an “Association of Merchants” who had received a
valuable trading monopoly under pledge that they would send out
men to colonize and priests to instruct. But the faithless merchants
sought only to purchase furs at low prices from the Indians. It was
to their advantage that the Indian and the wild creatures which he
pursued should continue to occupy the continent, undisturbed by the
coming in of strangers. And thus they thwarted to the utmost all
Champlain’s efforts. In defiance of authority, they paid in fire-arms
and brandy for the furs which were brought to them; and the red
men, whose souls Champlain so earnestly desired to save, were
being corrupted and destroyed by the greed of his countrymen.
Some years after Champlain’s first expedition, a few Englishmen
landed in mid-winter on the coast of Massachusetts, and, without
help of kings or nobles, began to grow strong by their own inherent
energy and the constant accession to their number of persons
dissatisfied at home. It was not so with the French settlements on
the St. Lawrence. Champlain was continually returning to France to
entreat the King for help; to seek a new patron among the nobles;
to compel the merchants to fulfill their compact by sending out a few
colonists. No Frenchman was desirous to find a home beyond the
sea; all bore in quietness a despotism worse than that from which
the more impatient Englishmen had fled. The natural inaptitude of
France for the work of colonizing was vividly illustrated in the early
history of Canada.
Near the close of Champlain’s life the capital
1629 A.D.
of the State which he had founded was torn
away from him. An English ship, commissioned
by Charles I. and commanded by a piratical Scotchman, appeared
before the great rock of Quebec, and summoned the city to
surrender. Champlain, powerless to resist, yielded to fate and gave
up his capital. When the conquerors landed to seek the plunder for
which they had come, they found a few old muskets and cannon and
fifty poorly-fed men. The growth of twenty years had done no more
for Quebec than this.
The loss of Canada caused no regret in France. There were public
men who regarded that loss as in reality a gain, and advised that
France should make no effort to regain her troublesome
dependency. But Champlain urged upon the Government the great
value of the fur trade and fisheries; he showed that the difficulties of
the settlement were now overcome, and that progress in the future
must be more rapid than in the past; he pled that the savages who
were beginning to receive the light of the true faith should not be
given over to heretics. His urgency prevailed;
1632 A.D.
and England, not more solicitous to keep than
France was to regain this unappreciated
continent, readily consented that it should be restored to its former
owners.
Three years afterwards Champlain died. He saw nothing of the
greatness for which he had prepared the way. The colonists
numbered yet only a few hundreds. The feeble existence of the
settlement depended upon the good-will of the Englishmen who
were their neighbours on the south, and of the fierce savages who
lived in the forests around them. But Champlain was able to
estimate, in some measure, the results of the work which he had
done. He sustained himself to the end with the hope that the
Canada which he loved would one day be prosperous and strong—
peopled by good Catholics from France, and by savages rescued
from destruction by baptism and the exhibition of the cross.

The Canada of Champlain’s day was a region stretching thirteen

hundred miles northward from the frontier line of the New England
settlements, and seven hundred miles westward from the mouth of
the St. Lawrence. Besides Canada, France possessed Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia; and she claimed all the unknown territory to the
north, the character and extent of which were veiled from human
knowledge by cold so intense that men had not yet dared to
encounter it. The great river with its tributaries, and the vast lakes
out of which it flows, opened convenient access into the heart of the
country, and made commerce easy. On the high lands were dense
forests of oak and pine and maple; beech, chestnut, and elm. In the
plains were great areas of rich agricultural land capable of
supporting a large population, but useless as yet; for the Indians
deemed agriculture effeminate, and chose to live mainly by the
chase. The climate is severe and the winter long, especially towards
the mouth of the St. Lawrence, where at certain seasons the cold
becomes greater than the human frame can endure. Everywhere the
heat of summer is great, and the transition from the fierce extreme
of cold to the warmth of the delightful Canadian spring is sudden.
The desolate woods burst into rich green foliage; the valleys clothe
themselves as by magic with grass and flowers. The great heat of
summer follows with equal suddenness, and the harvest of grain or
of fruits ripens as quickly as it sprang.
The cold of the Canadian winter was greatly more influential than
the heat of the Canadian summer in fixing the character and pursuits
of the savages who occupied the country. In a climate where frost
rends asunder rocks and trees, and gives to iron power to burn as if
it were red hot, life could not be sustained without a special defence
against the intolerable severity. Nature had amply provided for the
welfare of the wild creatures which she had called into being. The
buffalo and musk ox which wandered over the plains were endowed
with masses of shaggy hair which defied the cold even of a Canadian
winter. The bear which prepared for himself a resting-place in the
hollow trunk of an old tree, where he could sleep out the tedious
months of frost, was clothed suitably to his circumstances. The
beaver which built his house in the centre of Canadian streams was
wrapped in rich, warm, glossy fur. The fox, the wolverine, the
squirrel, and many others, enjoyed the same effective protection.
The Indians needed the skins of these creatures for clothing, their
flesh for food. And thus it came to pass that the French found in
Canada only wild things, which walked the forests in coverings of
beautiful and valuable fur; and human beings, but one degree higher
in intelligence, who lived by slaying them. One of the strongest
impulses which drew Europeans to Canada was not her rich soil, nor
the timber of her inexhaustible forests, nor her treasures of copper
and of iron, but the skins of the beasts which frequented her valleys
and her woods.
Numerous tribes of savages inhabited the Canadian wilderness.
They ordinarily lived in villages built of logs, and strongly palisaded
to resist the attack of enemies. They were robust and enduring, as
the climate required; daring in war, friendly and docile in peace. The
torture of an enemy was their highest form of enjoyment: when the
victim bore his sufferings bravely, the youth of the village ate his
heart in order that they might become possessed of his virtues. They
had orators, politicians, chiefs skilled to lead in their rude wars. Most
of their weapons were of flint. They felled the great pines of their
forests with stone axes supplemented by the use of fire. Their
canoes were made of the bark of birch or elm. They wore
breastplates of twigs. It was their habit to occupy large houses, in
some of which as many as twenty families lived together without any
separation. Licentiousness was universal and excessive. Their
religion was a series of grovelling superstitions. There was not in any
Indian language a word to express the idea of God: their heaven
was one vast banqueting-hall where men feasted perpetually.
The origin of the American savage awakened at one time much
controversy among the learned. Had there been a plurality of
creative acts? Had Europeans at some remote period been driven by
contrary winds across the great sea? If not, where did the red man
arise, and by what means did he reach the continent where white
men found him? When these questions were debated, it was not
known how closely Asia and America approach each other at the
extreme north. A narrow strait divides the two continents, and the
Asiatic savage of the far north-east crosses it easily. The red men are
Asiatics, who, by a short voyage without terrors to them, reached
the north-western coasts of America, and gradually pushed their way
over the continent. The great secret which Columbus revealed to
Europe had been for ages known to the Asiatic tribes of the extreme
north.

CHAPTER III.
THE JESUITS IN CANADA.

he Reformation had made so large progress in France

that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the
Protestants were able to regard themselves as forming
one-half of the nation. They had accomplished this
progress in the face of terrible difficulties. The false
maxim prevailed in France, as in other countries, that as there was
but one king and one government, there should be but one faith.
Vast efforts were made to regain this lost uniformity. The vain
pursuit cost France thirty-five years of civil war, and two million
French lives. At its close half her towns were in ashes; her industries
had perished; her fields were desolated. The law gave no protection
to Protestants: a Catholic noble riding with his followers past a
Protestant meeting-place occasionally paused to slaughter the little
congregation, and then resumed his journey, not doubting that he
had done to God and to the State an acceptable service. The
Protestants undertook their own armed defence; made laws for
themselves; maintained in so far as it was possible a government
distinct from that of their persecutors. There were two nations of not
extremely unequal strength living on the soil of France, with fierce
mutual hatred raging in their hearts, and finding expression in
incessant war, assassination, massacre. At
1598 A.D.
length these horrors were allayed by the Edict
of Nantes, which conceded full liberty of conscience. The Pope
cursed this hateful concession; but the strong arm of Henry IV.
maintained it. For a time the ferocity of religious strife was
mitigated, and the adherents of the new faith enjoyed unwonted
calm.
The sword was no longer a weapon of theological war; the deep
and irrepressible antagonism of the old and the new beliefs found
now its inadequate expression by pen and by speech. The interest
which prevailed regarding disputed ecclesiastical questions became
exceptionally strong. Theological dogmas filled an influential place in
the politics of the time. The Protestant Synod adopted in its
Confession of Faith an article which charged the Pope with being
Antichrist. His Holiness manifested “a grand irritation;” the King
declared that this article threatened to destroy the peace of the
kingdom. For four years a fierce contest raged, till another Synod
withdrew the offending article by express order of the King, after
having with unanimous voice declared that the charge was true.
Philippe de Mornay, one of the King’s most trusted advisers, and a
devoted adherent of Protestantism, had written a treatise against
the Real Presence, supporting his argument by five or six thousand
quotations, which he had laboriously gathered from the writings of
the early Fathers. One of the bishops impugned his accuracy, and
Mornay challenged him to a public discussion. The meeting-place
was the grand hall of the palace of Fontainebleau. The combatants
debated in presence of the King, before a brilliant audience of great
officers of State, of lords and ladies who formed the royal court, of
all great dignitaries of the kingdom. So effectively, for the time, had
the Reformation and its consequences dispelled the religious apathy
of France.
It had, indeed, left unaffected the manners of a large portion of
French society. The great lords retained professional assassins
among their followers. It was as easy then to get the address of a
stabber or a poisoner as it is now to get that of a hotel. In the
highest places licentiousness was unconcealed and unrebuked.
Crime associated itself with superstition, and the courtiers made wax
figures of their enemies, which they transfixed with pins, hoping
thus to destroy those whom the figures represented. The religious
zeal which burned in every heart and retained its vigour amidst this
enormous wickedness was nowhere stronger than among the
members of the Society of Jesus. It moulded into very dissimilar
forms, and guided into widely different lines of action, those sworn
servants of the Church. For the most part it revealed itself in nothing
higher than a readiness to serve the purposes of the Church,
however unworthy, by any conduct, however criminal. But among
the Jesuits too there were men of pure and noble nature, whose
religious zeal found its sole gratification in toil and danger and self-
sacrifice to promote the glory of God and save perishing heathen
souls.
Champlain had never ceased to press upon the spiritual chiefs of
France the claims of those savages for whose welfare he himself
cared so deeply. For many years he spoke almost in vain, and his
toilsome and frustrated career had nearly reached its close before
the Jesuits entered in good earnest upon the work of Indian
conversion. Six priests and two lay-brothers,
1632 A.D.
sworn to have no will but that of their superiors,
laid the foundation of the great enterprise.
Under the shadow of the rock on which Quebec stands arose a one-
story building of planks and mud, thatched with grass, and affording
but poor shelter from rain and wind. This was the residence of Our
Lady of the Angels—the cradle of the influence which was to change
the savage red men of Canada into followers of the Cross. The
Father Superior of the Mission was Paul le Jeune, a man devoted in
every fibre of mind and heart to the work on which he had come. He
utterly scorned difficulty and pain. He had received the order to
depart for Canada “with inexpressible joy at the prospect of a living
or dying martyrdom.” Among his companions was Jean de Brébœuf,
a man noble in birth and aspect, of strong intellect and will, of zeal
which knew no limit, and recognized no obstacle in the path of duty.
The winter was unusually severe. The snow-drift stood higher
than the roof of the humble Residence; the fathers, sitting by their
log-fire, heard the forest trees crack with loud report under the
power of intense frost. Le Jeune’s earliest care was to gain some
knowledge of the savage tongue spoken by the tribes around him.
He was commended, for the prosecution of that design, to a
withered old squaw, who regaled him with smoked eels while they
conversed. After a time, he obtained the services of an interpreter, a
young Indian known as Pierre, who could speak both languages.
Pierre had been converted and baptized; but the power of good
influences within him was not abiding, and his frequent backslidings
grieved the Father Superior. A band of savages invited Le Jeune to
accompany them on a winter hunting expedition; and he did so,
moved by the hope that he might gain their hearts as well as acquire
their language. Among the supplies which his friends persuaded him
to carry, was a small keg of wine. Scarcely had the expedition set
out when the apostate Pierre found opportunity to tap the keg, and
appeared in the camp hopelessly and furiously intoxicated. The
sufferings of the good father from hunger and from cold were
excessive.[13] His success in instructing the savages was not
considerable. He endured much from Pierre’s brother, who followed
the occupation of sorcerer. This deceptive person, being employed to
assist Le Jeune in preparing addresses, constantly palmed off upon
him very foul words, which provoked the noisy mirth of the
assembled wigwam and grievously diminished the efficacy of his
teaching. The missionary regained his home at Quebec after five
months of painful wandering. He had accomplished little; but he had
learned to believe that his labour was wasted among these scanty
wandering tribes, and that it was necessary to find access to one of
the larger and more stable communities into which the Indians were
divided.
Far in the west, beside a great lake of which the Jesuits had
vaguely heard, dwelt the Hurons, a powerful nation with many
kindred tribes over which they exercised influence. The Jesuits
resolved to found a mission among the Hurons. Once in every year a
fleet of canoes came down the great river, bearing six or seven
hundred Huron warriors, who visited Quebec to dispose of their furs,
to gamble and to steal. Brébœuf and two
1634 A.D.
companions took passage with the returning
fleet, and set out for the dreary scene of their
new apostolate. The way was very long—scarcely less than a
thousand miles; it occupied thirty toilsome days. The priests
journeyed separately, and were able to hold no conversation with
one another or with their Indian companions. They were barefooted,
as the use of shoes would have endangered the frail bark canoe.
Their food was a little Indian corn crushed between two stones and
mixed with water. At each of the numerous rapids or falls which
stopped their way, the voyagers shouldered the canoe and the
baggage and marched painfully through the forest till they had
passed the obstacle. The Indians were often spent with fatigue, and
Brébœuf feared that his strong frame would sink under the excessive
toil.
The Hurons received with hospitable welcome the black-robed
strangers. The priests were able to repay the kindness with services
of high value. They taught more effective methods of fortifying the
town in which they lived. They promised the help of a few French
musketeers against an impending attack by the Iroquois. They cured
diseases; they bound up wounds. They gave simple instruction to
the young, and gained the hearts of their pupils by gifts of beads
and raisins. The elders of the people came to have the faith
explained to them: they readily owned that it was a good faith for
the French, but they could not be persuaded that it was suitable for
the red man. The fathers laboured in hope, and the savages learned
to love them. Their gentleness, their courage, their
disinterestedness, won respect and confidence, and they had many
invitations from chiefs of distant villages to come and live with them.
It was feared that the savages regarded them merely as sorcerers of
unusual power; and they were constantly applied to for spells, now
to give victory in battle, now to destroy grasshoppers. They were
held answerable for the weather; they had the credit or the blame of
what good or evil fortune befell the tribe. They laboured in deep
earnestness; for to them heaven and hell were very real, and very
near. The unseen world lay close around them, mingling at every
point with the affairs of earth. They were visited by angels; they
were withstood by manifest troops of demons. St. Joseph, their
patron, held occasional communication with them; even the Virgin
herself did not disdain to visit and cheer her servants. Once, as
Brébœuf walked cast down in spirit by threatened war, he saw in the
sky, slowly advancing towards the Huron territory, a huge cross,
which told him of coming and inevitable doom.
Some of their methods of conversion were exceedingly rude. A
letter from Father Garnier has been preserved in which pictures are
ordered from France for the spiritual improvement of the Indians.
Many representations of souls in perdition are required, with
appropriate accompaniment of flames and triumphant demons
tearing them with pincers. One picture of saved souls would suffice,
and “a picture of Christ without beard.”[14] They were consumed by
a zeal for the baptism of little children. At the outset the Indians
welcomed this ceremonial, believing that it was a charm to avert
sickness and death. But when epidemics wasted them they charged
the calamity against the mysterious operations of the fathers, and
refused now to permit baptism. The fathers recognized the hand of
Satan in this prohibition, and refused to submit to it. They baptized
by stealth. A priest visited the hut where a sick child lay—the mother
watching lest he should perform the fatal rite. He would give the
child a little sugared water. Slyly and unseen he dips his finger in the
water, touches the poor wasted face, mutters the sacramental
words, and soon “the little savage is changed into a little angel.”
The missionaries were subjected to hardship such as the human
frame could not long endure. They were men accustomed to the
comforts and refinements of civilized life; they had tasted the
charms of French society in its highest forms. Their associations now
were with men sunk till humanity could fall no lower. They followed
the tribes in their long winter wanderings in quest of food. They
were in perils, often from hunger, from cold, from sudden attack of
enemies, from the superstitious fears of those whom they sought to
save. They slept on the frozen ground, or, still worse, in a crowded
tent, half suffocated by smoke, deafened by noise, sickened by filth.
Self-sacrifice more absolute the world has never seen. A love of
perishing heathen souls was the impulse which animated them; a
deep and solemn enthusiasm upheld them under trials as great as
humanity has ever endured. That they were themselves the victims
of erring religious belief is most certain; but none the less do their
sublime faith, their noble devotedness, and patience and gentleness
claim our admiration and our love.
The Huron Mission had now been established
1640 A.D.
for five years. During those painful years the
missionaries had laboured with burning zeal and
absolute forgetfulness of self; but they had not achieved any
considerable success. The children whom they baptized either died
or they grew up in heathenism. There were some adult converts,
one or two of whom were of high promise; but the majority were
eminently disappointing. Once the infant church suffered a grievous
rent by the withdrawal of converts who feared a heaven in which, as
they were informed, tobacco would be denied to them. The manners
of the nation had experienced no amelioration. No limitation in the
number of wives had been conceded to the earnest remonstrances
of the missionaries. Captive enemies were still tortured and eaten by
the assembled nation. In time, the patient, self-denying labour of
the fathers might have won those discouraging savages to the
Cross; but a fatal interruption was at hand. A powerful and relentless
enemy, bent on extermination, was about to sweep over the Huron
territory, involving the savages and their teachers in one common
ruin.
Thirty-two years had passed since those ill-judged expeditions in
which Champlain had given help to the Hurons against the Iroquois.
The unforgiving savages had never forgotten the wrong. A new
generation inherited the feud, and was at length prepared to exact
the fitting vengeance. The Iroquois had trading relations with the
Dutchmen of Albany on the Hudson, who had supplied them with
fire-arms. About one-half of their warriors were now armed with
muskets, and were able to use them. They
1642 A.D.
overran the country of the Hurons; they infested
the neighbourhood of the French settlements.
Boundless forests stretched all around; on the great river forest
trees on both sides dipped their branches in the stream. When
Frenchmen travelled in the woods for a little distance from their
homes, they were set upon by the lurking savages and often slain;
when they sailed on the river, hostile canoes shot out from ambush.
No man now could safely hunt or fish or till his ground. The Iroquois
attacked in overwhelming force the towns of their Huron enemies;
forced the inadequate defences; burned the palisades and wooden
huts; slaughtered with indescribable tortures the wretched
inhabitants. In one of these towns they found Brébœuf and one of
his companions. They bound the ill-fated missionaries to stakes;
they hung around their necks collars of red-hot iron; they poured
boiling water on their heads; they cut stripes of flesh from their
quivering limbs and ate them in their sight. To the last Brébœuf
cheered with hopes of heaven the native converts who shared his
agony. And thus was gained the crown of martyrdom for which, in
the fervour of their enthusiasm, these good men had long yearned.
In a few years the Huron nation was extinct; famine and small-pox
swept off those whom the Iroquois spared. The Huron Mission was
closed by the extirpation of the race for whom it was founded. Many
of the missionaries perished; some returned to France. Their labour
seemed to have been in vain; their years of toil and suffering had
left no trace. It was their design to change the savages of Canada
into good Catholics, industrious farmers, loyal subjects of France. If
they had been successful, Canada would have attracted a more
copious immigration, and a New France might have been solidly
established on the American continent. The feudal system would
have cumbered the earth for generations longer; Catholicism, the
irreconcilable enemy to freedom of thought and to human progress,
would have overspread and blighted the valley of the St. Lawrence.
For once the fierce Iroquois were the allies and vindicators of liberty.
Their cruel arms gave a new course to Canadian history. They
frustrated plans whose success would have wedded Northern
America to despotism in Church and in State. They prepared a way
for the conquest of New France by the English, and thus helped,
influentially, to establish free institutions over those vast regions
which lie to the northward of the Great Lakes.

CHAPTER IV.
THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

he discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand de Soto was

not immediately productive of benefit. For nearly a
century and a half after this ill-fated explorer slept
beneath the waters which he had been the first to cross,
the “Father of Rivers” continued to flow through
unpeopled solitudes, unvisited by civilized men. The French
possessed the valley of the St. Lawrence. The English had thriving
settlements on the Atlantic sea-board; but the Alleghany Mountains,
which shut them in on the west, allowed room for the growth of
many years, and there was yet therefore no reason to seek wider
limits. The valley of the Mississippi remained a hunting-ground for
the savages who had long possessed it.
In course of years it became evident that England and France
must settle by conflict their claims upon the American continent. The
English still maintained their right, originating in discovery, to all the
territory occupied by the French; and from time to time they sent
out expeditions to re-assert by invasion the dormant claim. To the
French, magnificent possibilities offered themselves. The whole
enormous line of the Mississippi and its tributaries, from the Great
Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, could be seized and held; a military
settlement could secure the mouth of the river; the English could be
hemmed in between the Alleghanies and the ocean, and the
increase of their settlements frustrated.
 Nicholas Perrot, a French officer, met, on the
1671 A.D.
King’s business, a gathering of Indian delegates,
at a point near the northern extremity of Lake
Michigan. There he was told of a vast river, called by some
Mechasepé, by others Mississippi. In what direction it flowed the
savages could not tell, but they were sure it did not flow either to
the north or to the east. The acute Frenchman readily perceived that
this mysterious stream must discharge its waters into the Pacific or
into the Gulf of Mexico, and that in either case its control must be of
high value to France.
An exploring party, composed of six men and
1673 A.D.
furnished with two slight bark canoes,
undertook the search. They ascended the Fox
River from the point where it enters Lake Michigan; they crossed a
narrow isthmus; and launching upon the River Wisconsin, they
floated easily downwards till they came out upon the magnificent
waters of the Mississippi. Their joy was great: the banks of the river
seemed to their gladdened eyes rich and beautiful; the trees were
taller than they had ever seen before; wild cattle in vast herds
roamed over the flowery meadows of this romantic land. For many
days the adventurers followed the course of the river. They came
where the Missouri joins its waters to those of the Mississippi. They
passed the Ohio and the Arkansas, and looked with wonder upon
the vast torrents which reinforced the mighty river. They satisfied
themselves that the Mississippi fell into the Gulf of Mexico; and then,
mistrusting the good-will of the Spaniards, they turned back and
toilsomely reascended the stream.
Some years later, a young and energetic
1680 A.D.
Frenchman—Sieur de la Salle—completed the
work which these explorers had begun. The
hope entertained by Columbus, that he would discover a better
route to the East, had only now, after two hundred years of
disappointment, begun to fade out of the hearts of his followers, and
it was still eagerly cherished by La Salle. He traversed the Mississippi
from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf. He saw the vast and
dreary swamps which lie around the outlet of the Mississippi. He
erected a shield bearing the arms of France; he claimed the
enormous region from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific, from
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, as the possession of the
French King.
For a full half century France took no action to secure the vast
possession which she claimed. The later years of Louis XIV. were full
of disaster. England, persuaded by King William that French ambition
was a standing menace to Europe, waged wars which brought
France to the verge of ruin. Her colonial possessions could receive
little care when France was fighting for existence in Europe. A wise
Governor of Canada—the Compte de la
1746 A.D.
Galissonnière—perceived the rapid growth of
the English settlements and the growing danger
to France which their superior strength involved. He proposed that
the line of the Mississippi should be fortified, and that ten thousand
peasants should be sent out to form settlements on the banks of the
great lakes and rivers. In time, the growing strength of these
settlements would give to France secure possession of the valley of
the Mississippi; while the English colonists, confined within the
narrow region eastward of the Alleghany Mountains, must lie
exposed to the damaging assault of their more powerful neighbours.
So reasoned the Governor; but his words gained no attention from
the pre-occupied Government of France. To the utmost of his means
he sought to carry out the policy which would preserve for France
her vast American possessions. He endeavoured to exclude English
traders, and to persuade the Indians to adopt a similar course. He
marked out the confines of French territory by leaden plates bearing
the arms of France, sunk in the earth or nailed upon trees. He
brought a few settlers from Nova Scotia. But all his efforts were in
vain. The Anglo-Saxons were the appointed rulers of the American
continent; and the time was near when, brushing aside the
obstruction offered by Frenchmen and by Indians, they were to
enter into full possession of their magnificent heritage.
 CHAPTER V.
THE AMERICAN CONTINENT GAINED BY THE BRITISH.

he first English settlement which became permanent in

Virginia was founded in 1606. Seven years later—while
the settlement was still struggling for existence—the
colonists began to form purposes of aggression against
their still feebler neighbours in the far north. It was their
custom to send annually to the great banks of Newfoundland a fleet
of fishing-boats under convoy of an armed ship. Once the
commander of this escort was a warlike person named Samuel
Argall, whose lofty aims could not be restricted to the narrow sphere
which had been assigned to him. While the boats which were his
charge industriously plied their calling, Argall turned his thoughts to
the larger pursuit of national aggrandizement.
1613 A.D.
He affirmed the right of England to all the lands
in his neighbourhood. The French had an armed
vessel on the coast: Argall attacked and captured her. The French
had formed a very feeble settlement on Penobscot Bay: Argall
landed and laid in ruins the few buildings which composed it. He
crammed seventeen of his prisoners into an open boat and turned
them adrift at sea. The others were carried to Jamestown, where
they came near to being hanged as pirates.
Thus early and thus lawlessly opened the strife which was to
close, a century and a half later, with the victory of the English on
the Heights of Abraham and the expulsion of French rule from the
American continent. During the greater portion of that time England
and France were at war, and the infant settlements of Acadie and
Canada formed a natural prey to English adventurers. King James
bestowed Acadie upon a countryman whom he
1628 A.D.
befriended, and this new proprietor sent out a
fleet to establish his claims. The lawless
commander of this expedition did not scruple, in a time of peace, to
possess himself of Quebec. Three times the English took Acadie:
once they held it jointly with France for eleven years; then they
restored it. Finally, it became theirs by the
1713 A.D.
Treaty of Utrecht, and was henceforth known as
Nova Scotia. As the New England colonies
increased in strength they waged independent war with Canada. A
little farther on the English conquered New
1664 A.D.
York, and gradually extended their occupation
northward to the Great Lakes. The Frenchmen
of the St. Lawrence were their natural enemies. The English sought
to possess themselves of the Canadian fur trade, and to that end
made alliance with the Iroquois Indians, who were then a controlling
power in the valley of the Hudson. There were perpetual border
wars—cruel and wasteful. Often the Englishmen of New York
attacked the Frenchmen of Canada; still more frequently they
stimulated the Indians to hostility. Always there was strife, which
made the colonies weak, and often threatened their extinction. It
was not at first that England cared to possess Canada; it was rather
that she could not witness the undisturbed possession by France of
any territory which France seemed to prize.
As years passed and the enormous value to European Powers of
the American continent was more fully discovered, the inevitable
conflict awakened fiercer passions and called forth more energetic
effort. The English were resolute to frequent the valley of the Ohio
for trading purposes; the French were resolute to prevent them.
Governors of the English colonies, scorning the authority of France,
granted licences to traders; when traders bearing such licences
appeared on the banks of the Ohio, they were arrested and their
goods were confiscated. The English highly resented these injuries.
Attempts were made to reach a pacific adjustment of disputes, and
commissioners met for that purpose. But the temper of both nations
was adverse to negotiation; the questions which divided them were
too momentous. It was the destiny of a continent which the rival
powers now debated. Men have not even yet found that the
peaceable settlement of such questions is possible.
 The English colonies had increased rapidly, and now contained a
population upwards of a million. From France there had been almost
no voluntary emigration, and the valley of the St. Lawrence was
peopled to the extent of only sixty-five thousand. The English were
strong enough to trample out their rivals. But they were scattered at
vast distances, and conflicting opinions hindered them from uniting
their strength. And France, at this time, began
1754 A.D.
to send out copious military stores and
reinforcements, as if in preparation for
immediate aggression. The two countries were still at peace, but the
inevitable conflict was seen to be at hand. The English Governors
begged earnestly for the help of regular soldiers, in whose prowess
they had unbounded confidence. Two regiments were granted to
their prayers, and they themselves provided a strong body of bold
but imperfectly disciplined troops. They were too powerful to wait
for the coming of the enemy. A campaign was designed whose
success would have shaken the foundations of French authority on
the continent. One army under General Braddock was to cross the
Alleghany Mountains and destroy Fort du Quesne, the centre of
French power on the Ohio. Two armies would operate against the
French forts on the Great Lakes; yet another force moved against
the French settlements in the Bay of Fundy. To crown the whole, a
British fleet cruised off the banks of Newfoundland watching the
proceedings of a rival force.
Ruin, speedy and complete, overwhelmed the
1755 A.D.
unwisely-guided armament which followed
General Braddock through the Virginian forests.
[15] In the north there were fought desperate and bloody battles.
The English forced on board their ships three thousand French
peasants—peaceful inhabitants of Nova Scotia—and scattered them
among the southern colonies. The Indian allies of the French
surprised many lonely hamlets, slaughtered many women and
children, tortured to death many fighting-men. The English fleet
captured two French ships. But no decisive advantage was gained on
either side. The problem of American destiny was solving itself
according to the customary methods—by the desolation of the land,
by the slaughter and the anguish of its inhabitants; but the results of
this bloody campaign did not perceptibly hasten the solution after
which men so painfully groped.
During the next two years success was mainly with the French.
The English were without competent leadership. An experienced and
skilled officer—the Marquis de Montcalm—commanded the French,
and gained important advantage over his adversaries. He took Fort
William Henry, and his allies massacred the garrison. He took and
destroyed two English forts on Lake Ontario. He made for himself at
Ticonderoga a position which barred the English from access to the
western lakes. The war had lasted for nearly three years; and
Canada not merely kept her own, but, with greatly inferior
resources, was able to hold her powerful enemy on the defensive.
But now the impatient English shook off the imbecile Government
under which this shame had been incurred, and the strong hand of
William Pitt assumed direction of the war. When
1757 A.D.
England took up in earnest the work of
conquest, France could offer but feeble
resistance. The Canadians were few in number, and weakened by
discontent and dissension. Their defensive power lay in a few
inconsiderable forts, a few thousand French soldiers, and five ships
of war. The insignificance of their resources had been concealed by
the skilful leadership of Montcalm.
Pitt proposed, as the work of the first campaign, to take Louisburg
—the only harbour which France possessed on the Atlantic; to take
Fort du Quesne, in the valley of the Ohio; and Ticonderoga, in the
north. He was able to accomplish more than he hoped. Louisburg
was taken; Cape Breton and the island of St. John became English
ground. Communication between France and her endangered colony
was henceforth impossible. The French ships were captured or
destroyed, and the flag of France disappeared from the Canadian
coast. Fort du Quesne fell into English hands, and assumed the
English name of Pittsburg, under which it has become famous as a
centre of peaceful industry. France had no longer a footing in the
Mississippi valley. At Ticonderoga, incapable
1758 A.D.
generalship caused shameful miscarriage: the
English attack failed, and a lamentable
slaughter was sustained. But the progress which had been made
afforded ground to expect that one campaign more would terminate
the dominion of France on the American continent.
The spirit of the British nation rose with the return of that success
to which they had long been strangers. Pitt laid his plans with the
view of immediate conquest. Parliament expressed strongly its
approbation of his policy and his management, and voted liberal
sums to confirm the zeal of the colonists. The people gave
enthusiastic support to the war. Their supreme concern for the time
was to humble France by seizing all her American possessions. The
men of New England and New York lent their eager help to a cause
which was peculiarly their own. The internal condition of Canada
prepared an easy way for a resolute invader. The harvest had been
scanty; no supply could now be hoped for from abroad, for the
English ships maintained strict blockade; food was scarce; a corrupt
and unpopular Government seized, under pretence of public
necessity, grain which was needed to keep in life the families of the
unhappy colonists. There were no more than fifteen thousand men
fit to bear arms in the colony, and these were for the most part
undisciplined and reluctant to fight. The Governor vainly
endeavoured to stimulate their valour by fiery proclamations. The
gloom and apathy of approaching overthrow already filled their
hearts.
It was the design of Pitt to attack
1759 A.D.
simultaneously all the remaining strongholds of
France. An army of eleven thousand men,
moving northward from New York by the valley of the Hudson, took
with ease the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and the fair
region which lies around Lake Champlain and Lake George passed
for ever away from the dominion of France. A smaller force attacked
Fort Niagara, the sole representative now of French authority on
Lake Ontario. This stronghold fell, and France had no longer a
footing on the shores of the Great Lakes.
In the east the progress of the British arms was less rapid.
Montcalm held Quebec, strongly fortified, but insufficiently provided
with food. He had a force of twelve thousand men under his
command—heartless and ill-armed, and swarms of allied Indians
lurked in the woods, waiting their opportunity. Before Quebec there
lay a powerful British fleet, and a British army of eight thousand
men. Pitt knew that here lay the chief difficulty of the campaign;
that here its crowning success must be gained. He found among his
older officers no man to whom he could intrust the momentous task.
Casting aside the routine which has brought ruin upon so many fair
enterprises, he promoted to the chief command a young soldier of
feeble health, gentle, sensitive, modest, in whom his unerring
perception discovered the qualities he required. That young soldier
was James Wolfe, who had already in subordinate command evinced
courage and high military genius. To him Pitt intrusted the forces
whose arms were now to fix the destiny of a continent.
The long winter of Lower Canada delayed the opening of the
campaign, and June had nearly closed before the British ships
dropped their anchors off the Isle of Orleans, and Wolfe was able to
look at the fortress which he had come to subdue. His survey was
not encouraging. The French flag waved defiantly over tremendous
and inaccessible heights, crowned with formidable works, which
stretched far into the woods and barred every way of approach.
Wolfe forced a landing, and established batteries within reach of the
city. For some weeks he bombarded both the upper and the lower
town, and laid both in ruins. But the defensive power of Quebec was
unimpaired. The misery of the inhabitants was extreme. “We are
without hope and without food,” wrote one: “God has forsaken us.”
Regardless of their sufferings, the French general maintained his
resolute defence.
The brief summer was passing, and Wolfe perceived that no real
progress had been made. He knew the hopes which his countrymen
entertained; and he felt deeply that the exceptional confidence
which had been reposed in him called for a return of exceptional
service. He resolved to carry his men across the
July 31, 1759 A.D.
river and force the French intrenchments. But
disaster fell, at every point, on the too
hazardous attempt. His transports grounded; the French shot
pierced and sunk some of his boats; a heavy rain-storm damped the
ammunition of the troops; some of his best regiments, fired by the
wild enthusiasm of battle, dashed themselves against impregnable
defences and were destroyed. The assault was a complete failure,
and the baffled assailants withdrew, weakened by heavy loss.
The agony of mind which resulted from this disaster bore with
crushing weight upon Wolfe’s enfeebled frame, and for weeks he lay
fevered and helpless. During his convalescence he invited his officers
to meet for consultation in regard to the most hopeful method of
attack. One of the officers suggested, and the others recommended,
a scheme full of danger, but with possibilities of decisive success. It
was proposed that the army should be placed upon the high ground
to the westward of the upper town and receive there the battle
which the French would be forced to offer. The assailants were
largely outnumbered by the garrison; escape was impossible, and
defeat involved ruin. But Wolfe did not fear that the French could
inflict defeat on the army which he led. The enterprise had an
irresistible attraction to his daring mind. He trusted his soldiers, and
he determined to stake the fortune of the campaign upon their
power to hold the position to which he would conduct them.
The Heights of Abraham stretch westward for three miles from the
defences of the upper town, and form a portion of a lofty table-land
which extends to a distance from the city of nine miles. They are
from two to three hundred feet above the level of the river. Their
river-side is well-nigh perpendicular and wholly inaccessible, save
where a narrow footpath leads to the summit. It was by this path—
on which two men could not walk abreast—that Wolfe intended to
approach the enemy. The French had a few men guarding the upper
end of the path; but the guard was a weak one, for they
apprehended no attack here. Scarcely ever before had an army
advanced to battle by a track so difficult.
The troops were all received on board the
Sept. 12, 1759 A.D.
ships, which sailed for a few miles up stream.
During the night the men re-embarked in a
flotilla of boats and dropped down with the receding tide. They were
instructed to be silent. No sound of oar was heard, or of voice,
excepting that of Wolfe, who in a low tone repeated to his officers
the touching, and in his own case prophetic, verses of Gray’s “Elegy
in a Country Churchyard.” Quickly the landing-place was reached,
and the men stepped silently on shore. One by one they climbed the
narrow woodland path. As they neared the summit the guard, in
panic, fired their muskets down the cliff and fled. The ships had now
dropped down the river, and the boats plied incessantly between
them and the landing-place. All night long the landing proceeded.
The first rays of the morning sun shone upon an army of nearly five
thousand veteran British soldiers solidly arrayed upon the Heights of
Abraham, eager for battle and confident of victory. Wolfe marched
them forward till his front was within a mile of the city, and there he
waited the attack of the French.
Montcalm had been wholly deceived as to the purposes of the
British, and was unprepared for their unwelcome appearance on the
Heights. He had always shunned battle; for the larger portion of his
troops were Canadian militia, on whom little reliance could be
placed. He held them therefore within his intrenchments, and
trusted that the approaching winter would drive away the assailants
and save Canada. Even now he might have sheltered himself behind
his defences, and delayed the impending catastrophe. But his store
of provisions and of ammunition approached exhaustion; and as the
English ships rode unopposed in the river, he had no ray of hope
from without. Montcalm elected that the great controversy should be
decided by battle and at once.
He marched out to the attack with seven thousand five hundred
men, of whom less than one-half were regular soldiers, besides a
swarm of Indians, almost worthless for fighting such as this. The
French advanced firing, and inflicted considerable loss upon their
enemy. The British stood immovable, unless when they silently
closed the ghastly openings which the bullets of the French created.
At length the hostile lines fronted each other at a distance of forty
yards, and Wolfe gave the command to fire. From the levelled
muskets of the British lines there burst a well-aimed and deadly
volley. That fatal discharge gained the battle, gained the city of
Quebec—gained dominion of a continent. The Canadian militia broke
and fled. Montcalm’s heroic presence held for a moment the soldiers
to their duty; but the British, flushed with victory, swept forward on
the broken and fainting enemy: Montcalm fell pierced by a mortal
wound; the French army in hopeless rout sought shelter within the
ramparts of Quebec.
Both generals fell. Wolfe was thrice struck by bullets, and died
upon the field, with his latest breath giving God thanks for this
crowning success. Montcalm died on the following day, pleased that
his eyes were not to witness the surrender of Quebec. The battle
lasted only for a few minutes; and having in view the vast issues
which depended on it, the loss was inconsiderable. Only fifty-five
British were killed and six hundred wounded; the loss of the French
was twofold that of their enemies.
A few days after the battle, Quebec was surrendered into the
hands of the conquerors. But the French did not at once recognize
absolute defeat. In the spring of the following
1760 A.D.
year a French army of ten thousand men gained
a victory over the British garrison of Quebec on
the Heights of Abraham, and laid siege to the city. But this
appearance of reviving vigour was delusive. The speedy approach of
a few British ships broke up the siege and compelled a hasty retreat.
Before the season closed, a British army, which the French had no
power to resist, arrived before Montreal and received the immediate
surrender of the defenceless city. Great Britain received, besides this,
the surrender of all the possessions of France in Canada from the St.
Lawrence to the unknown regions of the north and the west. The
militia and the Indians were allowed to return unmolested to their
homes. The soldiers were carried back to France in British ships. All
civil officers were invited to gather up their papers and other
paraphernalia of government and take shipping homewards. For
French rule in Canada had ceased, and the Anglo-Saxon reigned
supreme from Florida to the utmost northern limit of the continent.

CHAPTER VI.
COLONIZATION BY FRANCE AND BY ENGLAND.

century and a half had elapsed since Champlain laid the

foundations of French empire among the forests of the
St. Lawrence valley. During those years the nations of
Western Europe were possessed by an eager desire to
extend their authority over the territories which recent
discovery had opened. On the shores of the Northern Atlantic there
were a New France, a New Scotland, a New England, a New
Netherlands, a New Sweden. Southwards stretched the vast domain
for whose future the occupation by Spain had already prepared
deadly and enduring blight. France and England contended for
possession of the great Indian peninsula. Holland and Portugal, with
a vigour which their later years do not exhibit, founded settlements
alike in Eastern and in Western seas, gaining thus expanded trade
and vast increase of wealth.
France had shared the prevailing impulse, and put forth her
strength to establish in Canada a dominion worthy to bear her
name. The wise minister Colbert perceived the greatness of the
opportunity, and spared neither labour nor outlay to foster the
growth of colonies which would secure to France a firm hold of this
magnificent territory. Successive Kings lent aid in every form. Well-
chosen Governors brought to the colony every advantage which
honest and able guidance could afford. Soldiers were furnished for
defence; food was supplied in seasons of scarcity. A fertile soil and
trading opportunities which were not surpassed in any part of the
continent, offered inducements fitted to attract crowds of the
enterprising and the needy. But under every encouragement New
France remained feeble and unprogressive. When she passed under
British rule, her population was scarcely over sixty thousand, and
had been for several years actually diminishing. Quebec, her chief
city, had barely seven thousand inhabitants; Montreal had only four
thousand. The rest of the people cultivated, thriftlessly, patches of
land along the shores of the great river and its affluents; or found,
like the savages around them, a rude and precarious subsistence by
the chase. The revenue of the colony was no more than £14,000—a
sum insufficient to meet the expenditure. Its exports were only
£115,000.
While France was striving thus vainly to plant in Canada colonies
which should bear her name and reinforce her greatness, some
Englishmen who were dissatisfied with the conditions of their life at
home, began to settle a few hundred miles away on the shores of
the same great continent. They had no encouragement from Kings
or statesmen; the only boon they gained, and even that with
difficulty, was permission to be gone. When famine came upon
them, they suffered its pains without relief; their own brave hearts
and strong arms were their sufficient defence. But their rise to
strength and greatness was rapid. Within a period of ten years
twenty thousand Englishmen had found homes in the American
settlements. Before the seventeenth century closed, Virginia alone
contained a population larger than that of all Canada. When the final
struggle opened, the thirteen English colonies contained a
population of between two and three million to contrast with the
poor sixty thousand Frenchmen who were their neighbours on the
north. The greatness of the colonies can be best measured by a
comparison with the mother country. England was then a country of
less than six million; Scotland of one million; Ireland of two million.
The explanation of this vast difference of result between the
efforts of the English and those of the French to colonize the
American continent is to be found mainly in the widely different
quality of the two nations. England, in the words of Adam Smith,
“bred and formed men capable of achieving such great actions and
laying the foundation of so great an empire.” France bred no such
men; or if she did so, they remained at home unconcerned with the
founding of empires abroad. The Englishman who took up the work
of colonizing, came of his own free choice to make for himself a
home; he brought with him a free and bold spirit; a purpose and
capacity to direct his own public affairs. The Frenchman came
reluctantly, thrust forth from the home he preferred, and to which he
hoped to return. He came, submissive to the tyranny which he had
not learned to hate. He was part of the following of a great lord, to
whom he owed absolute obedience. He did not care to till the
ground: he would hunt or traffic with the Indians in furs till the
happy day when he was permitted to go back to France. Great
empires are not founded with materials such as these.
But France was unfortunate in her system no less than in her
men. Feudalism was still in its unbroken strength. The soil of France
was still parcelled out among great lords, who rendered military
service to the King; and was still cultivated by peasants, who
rendered military service to the great lord. Feudalism was now
carried into the Canadian wilderness. Vast tracts of land were
bestowed upon persons of influence, who undertook to provide
settlers. The seigneur established his own abode in a strong,
defensible position, and settled his peasantry around him. They paid
a small rent and were bound to follow him to such wars as he
thought good to wage, whether against the Indians or the English.
He reserved for his own benefit, or sold to any who would purchase,
the right to fish and to trade in furs; he ground the corn of his
tenantry at rates which he himself fixed. He administered justice and
punished all crimes excepting treason and murder. When the feudal
system was about to enter on its period of decay in Europe, France
began to lay upon that unstable basis the foundation of her colonial
empire.
 The infant commerce of the colony was strangled by monopolies.
Great trading companies purchased at court, or favourites obtained
gratuitously, exclusive right to buy furs from the Indians and to
import all foreign goods used in the colonies—fixing at their own
discretion the prices which they were to pay and to receive.
Occasionally in a hard season they bought up the crops and sold
them at famine prices. The violation of these monopolies by
unlicensed persons was punishable by death. The colonists had no
thought of self-government; they were a light-hearted, submissive
race, who were contented with what the King was pleased to send
them. Their officials plundered them, and with base avarice wasted
their scanty stores. The people had no power for their own
protection, and their cry of suffering was slow to gain from the
distant King that justice which they were not able to enforce.
The priest came with his people to guard their orthodoxy in this
new land—to preserve that profound ignorance in which lay the
roots of their devotion. Government discouraged the printing-press;
scarcely any of the peasantry could so much as read. At a time when
Connecticut expended one-fourth of its revenues upon the common
school, the Canadian peasant was wholly uninstructed. In Quebec
there had been, almost from the days of Champlain, a college for
the training of priests. There and at Montreal were Jesuit seminaries,
in which children of the well-to-do classes received a little
instruction. A feeble attempt had been made to educate the children
of the Indians; but for the children of the ordinary working
Frenchmen settled in Canada no provision whatever had been made.
The influences which surrounded the infancy of the English
colonies were eminently favourable to robust growth. Coming of
their own free choice, the colonists brought with them none of the
injurious restraints which in the Old World still impeded human
progress. The burdensome observances of feudalism were not
admitted within the new empire. Every colonist was a landowner. In
some States the settlers divided among themselves the lands which
they found unoccupied, waiting no consent of King or of noble. In
others, they received, for prices which were almost nominal, grants
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