The Fathers of the Sulpician Order, by virtue of a grant in the year 1663, were proprietors of the whole of this rich district. They had established three courts of justice in the city, and erected a stately church of cut stone at a great expense. The Knights Hospitallers also possessed a very handsome building. A large, solid rampart of heavy beams, with eleven separate redoubts, protected the landward face of Montreal, and two platform batteries commanded the streets from end to end.
Here was the great dépôt of the northwestern fur trade, and here, also, the best market for the plentiful crops of the adjoining island, of the prairie, and of the Richelieu district.
In the month of June the savages came hither in canoes from places even at 500 miles' distance, to exchange their peltries for guns, ammunition, clothes, weapons, and utensils of iron and brass. The meeting or fair lasted for nearly three months, and during that time the town presented a strange and sometimes fearful spectacle; motley groups of fierce and hostile Indians occupied the streets, now engaged in bloody strife, again sunk in brutal intoxication. The French used every effort to prevent the sale of ardent spirits, but in vain, although sentinels were posted night and day to forbid the supply of the maddening liquor, and to preserve something of order in the wild gathering: all precautions proved ineffectual, and the drunkard frequently became also a murderer. At one time the little town of Chambly rivaled Montreal in the gainful but dangerous traffic; however, in 1759, there only remained a fort to prevent the English from enjoying the doubtful advantage of this trade. At Sorel, the entrance of the Richelieu River, an agricultural village had also arisen, rather beyond the neighboring settlements in extent and population.
Southwest of Montreal there was no town of any consideration. Near where the modern Kingston stands, a few poor hamlets were indeed grouped round Fort Frontenac, but on the shores of the sheltered Bay of Toronto, where 20,000 British subjects now ply their prosperous industry, myriads of wild fowl then found undisturbed refuge from the stormy waters of the lake. At Niagara there was a small village round the fort; there were trading posts at Detroit, Michillimackinac, and elsewhere; but the splendid tract of country lying between the northern shores of Erie and Ontario was almost unknown, save to the wandering Indian.
At this period, the first in importance, as well as population, among the settlements of New France, unquestionably was Quebec, the seat of government and of the supreme tribunals of justice. From its lofty headland the successors of the wise Champlain looked down upon the subject stream of the St. Lawrence, and held the great highway of Canada as if by a gate. No doubtful or hostile vessel could elude their vigilance; more than one powerful fleet had already recoiled shamed and crippled from before their embattled city. Here were deposited the public records, with most of the arms, ammunition, and resources of the colony; here, too, the principal establishments of religion, law, and learning were first founded and best sustained. The citizens and neighboring peasantry were less lowered by Indian intercourse than their other countrymen, and among them the refreshing immigration from the fatherland produced its most invigorating effect.
On the summit of the rocky height, a number of large and somewhat imposing public buildings, grouped irregularly together, with the well-built private dwellings of the wealthier inhabitants, formed the upper town. The lofty spires of no less than nine large ecclesiastical edifices arose within this comparatively limited space.
There were the bishop's palace, the courts of judicature, and the house of the Knights Hospitallers, the latter built of stone, extensive, handsome, and adorned with two stately pavilions. There, also, in a commanding situation, stood the Jesuits' college and their church, which was almost magnificent in the interior decorations. The governor's palace, however, erected in 1639, was the proudest ornament of the colonial capital.
Southwest of the Upper Town, on the crest of the headland, was the citadel, a large, imperfectly quadrangular fort, with flanking defenses at each corner, only protected, however, by a wall on the inner side. Further on, a large work of great design, but not yet finished, crowned the height of Cape Diamond:[150] from the northern angle of this work, an irregular line of bastioned defenses ran across the whole promontory to the River St. Charles. Some rude and imperfect field-works, with redoubts, strengthened the front toward the Plains of Abraham.
The Lower Town covered the beach of the Great River under the cliffs of the promontory: the dwellings, stores, and offices of the merchants, many of them handsome and solid, filled up this narrow space. The only edifice of note, however, was the church of Nôtre Dame de Victoire, built to commemorate Phipps's defeat in 1690. The defense of this part of the city was a large platform battery on the most salient point of the shore, placed scarcely above the level of the waters. The access from the Lower to the Upper Town was steep, narrow, and difficult, and protected by flanking loop-holed walls.
There was also a considerable suburb called St. Roch's, on the side of the River St. Charles, where dwelt the chief part of the laboring population, in irregular streets of mean and temporary houses. A large portion of the now valuable space was unoccupied, and here and there the rocky hill side remained as nature had made it. A few of the primeval forest trees still ornamented the gardens and terraces of the city, and clothed the neighboring cliffs.