In Ottawa State there were:
| In 1851 | Total population | 15,000 |
| ” | French ” | 5,000 |
| In 1863 | Total population | 25,000 |
| ” | French ” | 15,000 |
The history of the Acadians furnishes statistics which are quite as convincing. From the information obtained by M. Rameau, it appears that the entire population was descended from forty-seven families, numbering 400 souls in 1671. In 1755 there were 18,000. Dispersed and driven out by the English they were reduced to only 8,000. In 1861, the number rose to 95,000 persons.
If we calculate from the preceding figures the annual increase of French populations in America, we shall find the ratio equal or superior to that furnished by the most favoured European populations. This proves that the French race shows no sign of disappearance, even in the country chosen as an example by Knox.
Without entering into too many details, let us remember that the French have lived and increased in number at Constantia, not far from the Cape, since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; that this same region has been colonized by the Dutch, whose descendants, the Boers, have migrated, and now form the Transvaal Republic; that they have been succeeded at the Cape by the English, who, by degrees, have overrun the whole country. We must also remember the rapid growth of the Anglo-Australian colonies, etc.; and, finally, let us not forget those nine families of missionaries visited by M. de Delapelin in Polynesia, which, in all, numbered sixty-nine children, that is to say, a mean of more than seven and a half each, and we shall be forced to acknowledge that the most highly characterised European white can live and increase in number in both hemispheres, at the antipodes, and in the native countries of the most different races.
Further, the great race to which he himself belongs was not originally European. It probably sprang from the mountain district of the Bolor and the Hindoo-koh, where the Mamogis still represent the original stock. In any case, the Zend-Avesta informs us that it issued from a region where the summer lasted but two months, a climate which almost corresponds to that of Finland. Step by step it advanced, on the one hand as far as the Gangetic peninsula and Ceylon, on the other to Iceland and Greenland. Afterwards, when the era of great discoveries had commenced, it distributed its colonies over the whole world, peopling continents, and replacing indigenous races.
The consideration of these general facts alone, and the result of this perpetual activity, make it impossible to deny to the Aryan race the faculty of acclimatisation, under the most diverse conditions of existence. All the assertions of Knox, and of his more or less avowed disciples, fall before these facts.
What is true for the Aryan race is equally true for the Negro. The White has transported the Black to almost every part of the globe, and in the most distant places the Black lives side by side with his master. Our experience as to the Yellow Races is still slight, but we can already foresee that the result will be the same. Chinese and Coolies have passed over into America from Asia; we shall perhaps soon see them in Africa and in Europe.
Certain branches detached from the great ethnical stocks have already offered similar evidences. The Gipsies, Aryans mixed, perhaps, with Dravidians, have overrun the whole of Europe, and are now met with everywhere. As to the Jews, we know that they are really cosmopolitan, and that almost everywhere, in Prussia as in Algeria, their fecundity surpasses that of the local races.