"XI. That the present capitulation shall be executed according to its form and tenor, without being subject to non-execution under pretense of reprisals, or for the non-execution of any preceding capitulation.—Granted.
"Duplicates hereof, taken and executed by and between us, at the camp before Quebec, this 18th day of September, 1759.
"Charles Saunders, George Townshend, De Ramsay."
Extracts from "Lettres de M. le Marquis de Montcalm, G.G. en Canada, à MM. de Berryer et de la Molé, 1757-1759. Londres, 1777."
In 1757.—Letter 1. Montcalm informs M. de Berryer that he carries on a correspondence with the English planters by giving them a few prohibited articles. "They dupe their own people, who think they dupe us; their letters discover to me many curious political secrets. Our governors of Canada have neglected the only means of making the country prosperous ... another system is indispensable."
S.J., of Boston, writes to Montcalm, "The cause of your non-progress lies in the genius of your nation. Your governors were French gentlemen, hating and despising commerce—wealth, commerce, and strength are inseparable—your skeleton colony has lost more in a year than it can regain in ten. Your commerce with us ought to be free and unfettered.... We shall soon break with England for commercial reasons."
Montcalm observes on the foregoing, "Let us beware how we allow the establishment of manufactures in Canada; she would become proud and mutinous like the English. So long as France is a nursery to Canada, let not the Canadians be allowed to trade, but kept to their wandering, laborious life with the savages, and to their military exercises. They will be less wealthy, but more brave and more faithful to us.
"We may lose Canada—no great loss, if we keep some port in North America for fishing and trade.... The English settlers are as hostile to their mother country as to us. The state of their country is singular—not a city is fortified. The English governors often wished to fortify, but the people objected. If Canada be in the hands of an able (French) governor when the certain quarrel comes on, it will repay us for all former cost. England made a great mistake in not taxing these colonies from the first, even ever so little. If they now attempt it—revolt."
Letter from M. de Montcalm to M. de Molé, Premier Président au Parliament de Paris, 1759: