Canada and the British immigrant

by Emily P. Weaver

In the year 1534, the Breton mariner, Jacques Cartier, sailed up the St. Lawrence till he could see land on both sides. Next year he came again with three well-appointed vessels (none over one hundred and twenty tons burden) to colonize and to trade. It was he who called a small bay, in which his vessels lay upon the Saint’s day, St. Lawrence, a name afterwards extended to the “Great River of Canada,” and to the gulf into which it flows. It was he, too, who, penetrating later in the year far up the river, bestowed the title of “Mont Royale”—now anglicized to Montreal—upon the “Mountain” beneath which, over a century later, the devout and gallant Maisonneuve began the settlement destined to grow into Canada’s greatest city. Cartier himself spent one winter at the point where the St. Charles enters the St. Lawrence, near the Indian village of Stadacona.

But a greater man than he was to have the honour of founding Quebec. Cartier’s men suffered horribly from the cold and from scurvy, against which ills they did not know how properly to protect themselves, and in the spring the remnant of the company sailed for home, carrying off with them the chief, Donnacona, and nine other Indians. Two or three other attempts to establish French settlements on the St. Lawrence were made by Cartier, Roberval and La Roche, but it was not till 1608 that Champlain at last “well and truly laid” the foundations of Quebec.

Of his company also two-thirds died, during the first winter, of scurvy, but this time the French were there to stay, and for a century and a-half Quebec was both the head and heart of Canada.

The proud little city, clinging to and climbing upon the rock, was the seat of the French rulers, the centre of the colony which—despite government restrictions, despite its own early limitations as a mere trading post and mission station, despite the terrible hostility of the Iroquois and the frequent attacks of the English, despite the “wanderlust” of its own more energetic sons, which led to a dissipation of the strength of New France as a whole—struck its roots so deep into the soil, that through all vicissitudes it has preserved to this day its own peculiar type of civilization.

To old Quebec, Canadians, whether of French or British descent, turn with much the same feeling that thrills an English heart at the thought of Westminster Abbey. There is something strangely satisfying in the beauty of rock and river, of distant blue hills and shining water, of ancient gabled roofs, grey walls, and antique, harmless-looking cannon; something stirring in memories of the heroes of two races, which mingle at Quebec; and inspiring for the future in the peaceful outcome of the grim struggles of the past.

But if one would really learn to know the French-Canadians of to-day, he must not be content to observe only the brisk city men in their offices and stores, nor the dainty little maidens who on Sundays promenade in gay attire on Dufferin Terrace, before that great modern hotel, the “Château Frontenac.” He must visit the markets, where the country people drive their trade in eggs and butter, poultry and small pink pigs, knitted goods and queer homegrown tobacco. He must go into the country beyond and around Quebec, and penetrate, if possible, into the quaint little wooden or stone houses, where all kinds of old-world employments are carried on by the busy mothers of families, which not infrequently number ten or a dozen children.

The French-Canadians generally are credited with being a thrifty, industrious folk, but it looks to an outsider as if the women do the heavier share of the work, for, not content with those tasks of sweeping and cleaning, cooking and milking, spinning and sewing, nursing the babies and all the house mothers’ other miscellaneous duties, the women, in their flat, black mushroom hats, are constantly seen with the men, hoeing root-crops or working in the hay-fields.

VIEW OF QUEBEC, SHOWING CITADEL.

The “habitants,” as the country folk call themselves, are a conservative people, following customs much the same as those of their ancestors who first settled in Canada. But the conditions under which they live are greatly changed. During the last years of the French régime, Canada was neglected by her mother-land, and amongst the officials sent out to govern the country were not a few bent on enriching themselves at any cost. The last Intendant of New France—an official charged with the administration of justice, and the management of the finances of the colony—was a clever scoundrel named Bigot, and his devices for diverting the public funds to his own pockets, and squeezing all manner of corrupt profits from the people, were endless and shameless. In those days there was no such thing as municipal government in Canada, and the affairs of the settlement were managed chiefly by the Intendant; and appeals to the king—three thousand miles away—were difficult and often ineffective.