The greater portion of this immense region is a waste, uninhabited, the home of wild beasts, and the seat of eternal snow and ice. It possesses little value, except the skins and furs which are taken from the animals that rove there. The settlements are few, even in those parts that have been reduced into provinces, and these embrace but an inconsiderable portion of the whole region.
It has not been thought important to establish regular governments in all the provinces, so called. Such governments are established only in the Canadas, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, and Newfoundland. The Canadas consist of Upper and Lower, or Canada West and Canada East, and embrace the principal amount of the population and productive resources of that whole northern world.
Canada East is a country of some considerable extent, measuring about two hundred thousand square miles, but mostly hilly and rocky, and unproductive, except on the borders of the St. Lawrence.
Canada West contains an area of one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, if its western boundary, as is generally considered, extends no farther than to the heads of the streams which fall into Lake Superior. The climate of Canada West, or Upper Canada, is less severe than that of Lower Canada. It has also some quite productive soil.
I. CANADA.[83]
Discovery—Settlement—Capture of Quebec—Death of Champlain—Religious Enterprises—War made by the Iroquois—Accessions to the Colony—Progress of the Colony—Attempts of the English to Conquer Canada—Condition of Canada in 1721 and 1722—General Prosperity of the Colony—Refusal to join in the War of American Independence—Consequences of American Independence to Canada—Territorial Divisions and Constitution—Dissensions after the close of the war of 1812—Disturbances and Insurrections.