The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 2

by George Warburton

At the time of the first settlement of Canada, the feudal system existed in the mother country in all its Gothic rigor, and thus it was naturally established in spirit and in letter as the basis of the new society. Every territorial possession in New France was originally held by grants under the strictest form of these iron laws; but, as the country became more populous and of increasing importance, a variety of modifications was gradually introduced, tending to curb the exorbitant power of the seigneurs, and proportionally to elevate the condition of their vassals. By degrees, many of the more obnoxious features of feudalism were effaced; and the nature of the tenure became to a certain extent adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the colony. The independent holdings by "free and common soccage" were not, however, effectually introduced till thirty years after the conquest.

The favored classes of the Canadians were devoted to social amusements; excursions by day, parties for gaming, and the dance at night, occupied their summer; and in winter, sleighing, skating, snow-shoeing, and evening réunion, turned that dreary time into a season of enjoyment. Lively, free, and graceful in manners, their vanity and want of education were little noticeable in the intercourse of daily life.[154] They were inclined to ostentation and extravagance;[155] the means, often unscrupulously procured, were squandered with careless profusion, and they generally endeavored to keep up an appearance of wealth beyond that which they really possessed. Henri de Pont Brian, bishop of Quebec, in his remarkable address to the Canadian people immediately before the conquest, draws a dark picture of the religious and moral condition of the inhabitants at the time, and attributes the threatened danger to the "especial wrath of Heaven for the absence of pious zeal—for the profane diversions—the insufferable excesses of games of chance—the contempt of religious ordinances—open robberies—heinous acts of injustice—shameful rapines. The contagion is nearly universal." Making every allowance for the worthy ecclesiastic's probable exaggeration of the causes which excited his indignation, the evidence of their own spiritual pastor must bear heavily against the reputation of the French colonists.

The clergy were usually classed in the second rank of Canadian precedence; in actual importance, however, they had no superior. Those holding the higher offices of the Church were chiefly or exclusively of French origin, and some among them were men of high talents and attainments; the parochial ministers and curates were generally colonists, sprung from the humble orders of society, locally educated, and limited in their ideas. Nevertheless, their influence over the still simpler parishioners was very great. These inferior clergy were placed under the absolute control of their bishops, by them promoted, removed, or dispossessed at pleasure; a certain degree of jealousy, therefore, not unnaturally mingled itself with the curate's reverend awe of his alien prelate, whose lessons of humility were often less strongly inculcated by example than by precept. Although many of the country priests exerted themselves zealously against the English, under the impression that a heretic conquest would be the ruin of their Church, they were not altogether contented with the intimacy of the connection that bound them to France. The idea had arisen, increased, and ripened among them, that from their own body a discriminating government could have selected wise and holy men upon whose heads the apostolic miter might have been judiciously placed. The arrival of a new bishop or other ecclesiastical dignitary from France was no more a matter of rejoicing to the reverend fathers of Canada than that of a Parisian collector or intendant to the provincial merchant and farmer. In the year 1759, however, the Bishop of Quebec, the Abbé de la Corne, was of Canadian origin; notwithstanding which, he was at that critical time in France. When the Bishopric of Quebec was erected by Louis XIV. in 1664, he endowed the new see with the revenues of the two abbacies, Benevent and l'Estrie; subsequently these were resigned to a general fund for the increase of small livings, from which a yearly income of 8000 livres was allowed instead for the colonial bishopric. The chapter was also enriched by a royal pension and an abbey in France, together valued at 12,000 livres annually.

Besides some liberal allowances from the French crown, the Hôtel de Ville, and other external sources, no less than one fourth of all the granted lands was bestowed upon the Church establishment, and the several religious, educational, and charitable institutions of the colony, and a tithe of a twenty-sixth part of all the produce of the fields was also appropriated to the support of the parochial clergy.

First in establishment, and beyond all compare foremost in importance among the religious orders in the colony, was that of the Jesuits: to their particular care were intrusted the education of youth and the Indian missions. Here, as in all other countries where that mysterious and once terrible brotherhood had taken root, the traces of their vampire energy were plainly and painfully visible. We can not, however, but regard with admiration the courage and unquenchable zeal of these extraordinary men; their union of strange and contradictory qualities astounds us: the strong will of the tyrant, the enterprise of the freeman, and the discipline of the slave. With variety and versatility of power, but singleness of purpose, they pursued their appointed course; whether warping the minds of their civilized pupils in the chill tranquillity of the cloister, or denouncing idols among the fiercest of the heathen, ever devoted and unwearied.

The mission of the Jesuit priests was to bring the savage, on any terms, within the pale of the visible Church; not to advance him in civilization, but to tame him to the utmost possible docility. They overleaped the tedious difficulties of conversion, and proselyted whole tribes in a single day. At times they even adapted the forms of Catholicism to the ferocious customs of the Indians. On one occasion, when the Christian Hurons were about to torture and slay some heathen Iroquois taken in battle, the missionary, by bribes and prayers, gained permission to baptize the victims, but made no intercession to save them from an agonizing death: while under the torments of the fire and the knife, they recited their new creed instead of chanting the last war-song. The Jesuit historian of this dreadful scene calls on his readers to rejoice in the providential mercy that brought the captured Iroquois within the blessed fold of the Church. In the triumph of Christianizing the heathen, he despised the task of humanizing the Christian.

Even the wise and benevolent Charlevoix seemed to have forgotten that Christianity is "the religion of civilized man," and that its doctrine and practice are utterly incompatible with the habits of savage life. He, in common with his Jesuit brethren, ever exhibited a jealous hesitation and dislike to the enlightenment of the Indians by secular instruction, or to the improvement of their physical condition; any effort made by others with this object caused them deep uneasiness. When, in 1667, M. de Talon, the intendant, urged by the far-sighted Colbert, endeavored to introduce the language and civilization of Europe among the savages, he was defeated by the determined opposition of the missionaries, who alone at that time exercised influence over the red children of the forest. Nearly twenty years afterward the same policy was pressed upon M. de Denonville, and by him attempted; but, as Charlevoix complacently says, when the French were brought into contact with the Indians for this purpose, "the French became savages instead of the savages becoming French." This readiness in adapting themselves to the habits of the natives, which for a time gained them great power and popularity,[156] was ultimately fatal to their success as colonists. The Anglo-Americans, on the other hand, despising their Indian neighbors, and, in return, hated and feared by them, were seldom or never infected by the contagion of savage indolence.

M. de Frontenac writes, in the year 1691, that "the experience of twelve years' residence in Canada has convinced me that the Jesuit missions ought not to be separated as they are from the settlements of the French, but that free intercourse should be encouraged between the Indians and Europeans; thus they might become 'francisé' at the same time that they are Christianized, otherwise more harm than good will accrue to the king's service."

But on this question of the improvement of the Indians, the civil and the military authorities of the colony were at perpetual issue with the formidable brotherhood; the Canadian people generally concurred with their temporal rulers on this point, hence it resulted that in later years the Jesuits were little loved or esteemed in the colony.

More than a century after the missionaries first penetrated the Indian's country, their writers describe his condition as disgusting and degraded, rather with contentment than with regret. From their observations we may learn the views of the Jesuits, and in a measure see the result of their practice. "It must nevertheless be confessed that things have somewhat changed on this point (native civilization) since our arrival in this country; some of the Indians already begin to provide for future wants in case of the failure of the chase, but it is to be feared that this may go too far, and by creating superfluous wants, render them more unhappy than they now are in their greatest poverty. The missionaries, however, can not be blamed for causing this danger; they well know that it is morally impossible to keep the 'juste milieu,' and provide the proper restraint; they have rather desired to share with the Indian the hardships of his lot, than to open his eyes to the dangerous means of its amelioration."