In the wide plain lying by the banks of the River St. Charles, many handsome country houses and pleasant seats, with well-cultivated gardens and rich orchards, met the eye, and, on the slopes beyond, the trim villages of Charlesburg, Lorette, and Beauport; the distant mountain range, with its forest covering, formed, as now, the background of the broad and beautiful picture.
From the Falls of Montmorency[151] to Quebec, a continuous chain of intrenchments defended the northern bank of the St. Lawrence. A large boom lay across the mouth of the River St. Charles, and the bridge, about a quarter of a mile high up the stream, was protected by a "tête du pont." All these various works and fortifications were, however, rude and imperfect; the strength, as well as the beauty, of this magnificent position, was chiefly due to the bountiful hand of Nature.
The cultivation of the fertile Canadian soil was of a very rude description; but even the feeble industry of the "habitan" was generally repaid by rich and plentiful crops. The animals of the chase, and the inexhaustible supplies of fish in their lakes and rivers, were resources that better suited the thriftless and scanty population than the toilsome produce of the field. Tillage was neglected; they cared not to raise more grain than their own immediate wants demanded. The unparalleled monopolies of the colonial government deprived labor of the best stimulant—the certain enjoyment of its fruits. The farmer hardly cared to store up his superabundant harvest, when his haggard was exposed to the licensed plunder of cruel and avaricious officials, or served but as a sign where the domineering soldiery of Old France might find free quarters. He that sowed the seed knew not who might reap the crop. Often, when the golden fields were almost ripe for the sickle, the war-summons sounded in the Canadian hamlets, and the whole male population were hurried away to stem some distant Indian onslaught, or to inflict on some British settlement a ruin scarcely more complete than their own. In the early wars with the fierce Iroquois, this rude militia had ever answered their leaders' call with ready zeal, and fought with worthy courage; when the haughty savage was subdued and humbled, and a new and more dangerous foe arose in the hereditary enemies of their fatherland, the Canadians again took the field, strong in the spirit of national hatred. But as, year after year, the vain strife continued, and, despite their valor and even success, the British power hemmed them more closely in, their hearts sickened at the hopeless quarrel, and they longed for peace even under a stranger's sway. Their fields desolate, their villages deserted, their ships driven from the seas, what cared they for the pride of France, when its fruit to them was ruin, oppression, and contempt![152] What cared they for the Bourbon lily, when known but as the symbol of avarice and wrong!
The manufactures of this neglected though splendid colony scarcely merit even a passing notice. Flax and hemp were worked only sufficiently to show how much was lost in their neglect, and the clothing of this simple peasantry was chiefly of a coarse gray woollen stuff, the produce of their own wheels and looms. At the forges of St. Maurice, near Three Rivers, indeed, iron works were carried on with some skill, and profit to the employed, if not to the employers.
The commercial spirit of the French, such as it was, the fur trade almost wholly engrossed; the fisheries were never carried on with any vigor by the colonists; some adventurers, indeed, from the home ports, bore the produce of the northern waters, with Canadian timber and provisions, to the tropical islands, but even this limited trade was monopolized by a privileged few, through the corrupt connivance of the authorities. In the official returns of the colonial customs, there appears every year an enormous surplus of imports over exports, which can only be accounted for by the clandestine shipment of great quantities of furs and other goods, to restore in some measure the necessary balance of exchange. The sole view of the local officials was rapidly to accumulate wealth at the expense of the state or of their Canadian fellow-subjects; such of their books and accounts as fell into the hands of the English were so confused and irregular that it was difficult or impossible to discover the exact nature of their undoubted dishonesty.
The French East India company enjoyed the exclusive privilege of exporting the valuable furs of the beaver; they had therefore an agent, director, and controller in each separate government of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec. A stated price was fixed for each skin, and on the hunter presenting it at the store, he received a receipt which became current in the colony as money, and was held to the last in higher estimation than the notes of the royal treasury. It has already been stated that bills of exchange to an immense amount on the government of France were afloat in the colony at a considerable depreciation; in the emergency of the year 1759, they ceased to be negotiable at any price.
Although the Canadian population was at this time poor, rude, and dispersed, it presented in some respects features usually characteristic of older and more prosperous communities. The emigration from whence it mainly sprung contained within itself the embryo forms of organization; nobility, clergy, merchants, and peasants were sent out from the fatherland, and commissioned especially for their several offices. No voluntary influx of ambitious, truculent, but energetic men swelled the population or disturbed the fatal repose of the young nation; no free development was permitted to its infant form, but, clothed in the elaborate garments of maturer years, the limbs were cramped, and the goodly proportions of nature dwarfed into a feeble frame. No safety-valve offered itself to the quick spirit of the young Canadian; military rank was limited to the favorites of the powers at home; mercantile success was debarred by vile and stupid monopolies; territorial possessions were unattainable but by interest or wealth: here the proud man, for a time, chafed and murmured, and at length strode away to the Far West, and sought the irresistible attractions of free and savage life.
No colony was ever governed by a succession of more able and excellent men than that of New France, perhaps none (except Algiers) has been apparently so much indebted to the mother country in tender infancy; none ever exhibited more thorough failure. A fertile soil, invigorating climate, and unsurpassed geographical advantages also offered themselves to the men of France; royal liberality and power lent them every aid; but, clogged by the ruinous conditions of their ecclesiastic and feudal organization, healthy action was impeded, and the seed, thus freely sown and carefully tended, grew up into a weak and sickly exotic. Experience has amply proved, as wisdom might have suggested, that in colonies, certainly, "the best government is that which governs least." When bold and vigorous men struggle forth from among the crowded thousands of the old communities, let them start in a fair race in the land of their adoption; the difficulties are great, let high hope cheer them; Nature there only opens her rich stores and bestows her treasures to brave and patient industry; the uncertain seasons, the Indian, and the wolf, are check and tax sufficient. The fatal error of despotic restraint cost France Canada by conquest, and cost us the noblest land God ever gave to man, by the deeper disgrace of a deserved and violent divorce.
The Canadian nobility, or rather gentry, were descended from the civil and military officers who from time to time settled in the country; through their own influence or that of their ancestors, this privileged class was altogether supported by royal patronage. Some enjoyed grants of extensive seigneuries;[153] others were speedily enriched by an appointment to the command of a distant post, where ample opportunities of dishonest aggrandizement were afforded and improved. Even the largest and least fortunate class were provided for by the less profitable favor of commissions in the colonial corps.
These favorites of power were generally vain and indolent men; they disdained trade and agriculture alike as beneath their high-born dignity; but they did not scruple to grasp at every convenient opportunity of easy profit, whether lawful or contraband; and they exacted, frequently with unequal justice, a large portion of the fruits of the earth from their peasant vassals. The feeble complaints of poverty against oppression were seldom loud enough to awake the attention of judges who were themselves often as guilty as the accused. From the especial favor enjoyed by the Canadian gentry under the rule of France, they were stanch to the last to her and to their own interests, and, as far as they went, were the most effective garrison in the colony: to them the prospect of British conquest was hateful and ruinous; with it must end their reign of corruption and monopoly.