Canada; its Defences, Condition, and Resources / Being a third and concluding volume of "My Diary, North and South"

by Sir William Howard Russell

There is not much good fellowship between the French Roman Catholics and their Irish co-religionists; and I was told that few of the latter ever entered the chapel of the Ursulines, though they constitute an appreciable proportion of the population. The Canadians, indeed, retain a good deal of the old French sentiment, and regard the Irish very much as their ancestors, under St. Ruth, looked on the poor vassals of the Irish Jacobins. The Irish are, however, more energetic and restless, and do not lose by comparison with the unenterprising inhabitants.

The feelings and faith of the French Canadian tend to keep up all that is French in his nature. Small wonder that it should be so. But it may be doubted whether he has much sympathy with the Empire, though he is proud of the glory and renown attained by the parent stock under the “Great Gaul” who founded it.

In visiting the beautiful and well-ordered Library of the Houses of Parliament, the state of which does honour to the excellent curator, I observed several very handsome volumes of the most costly works marked with the French imperial cipher. They had, it appeared, been presented to the Canadian Parliament by the Emperor Louis Napoleon, and they were pointed out to me with much pride and pleasure; but I looked in vain for any such outward and visible sign of favour and policy on the part of the reigning House in England. The conduct of France towards Canada in former times, if not always just to the settlers, was indeed exceedingly liberal to the landed interest; on one occasion some sixteen country gentlemen were raised to the French peerage. The most a Canadian can hope for now is a barren baronetcy or the honours of the Bath. By conferring on our colonies, dependencies, and provinces very liberal democratic forms of government institutions, and at the same time refusing to give the counterpoise which an extension of the aristocratic system to them would bestow, we hasten the coming of the day when separation becomes inevitable. When separation takes place, the difference of institutions begets opposition of views and of policy, distrust, and, finally, collision.

One of my New York acquaintances, who professed to be somewhat of a philosopher, said, one day, he was quite sure the colonies never would have revolted, no matter how high tea was taxed, if the king had made a few of the leading Americans peers of the realm. The dream of an Imperial Senate with representatives from all the portions of the wide-spread territories of Great Britain may excite the imagination, but it is not likely to be ever realised. The honours which have been conferred on such men as Sir Etienne Taché and Sir Narcisse Belleau, are highly prized, and a more liberal bestowal of the cheap defence of nations would do much to gratify the reasonable ambition of the Canadians.

That there should be some—and not a little—jealousy of foreign interference and usurpation of places, profits, and honours, by the English families, is not unnatural. I am not persuaded that it was right to hand over the whole direction of the volunteer and militia organisation to British officers, who are by the many often identified with the last noisy ensign who has been playing pranks in the Rue de Montagne. The remembrances of the old rebellion have not altogether died out, but it appeared to me that the Canadians are a mild, tractable race, fond of justice, a little too fond of law, and quite content to live under any rule which secured them equal rights, and gave them facility for moderate litigation and religious exercises.

While I was in Quebec some foolish young men stormed a house under a misapprehension as to its character. The same thing might have happened in Great Britain; it would have excited no feeling—the perpetrators might have compounded for their folly, or have suffered the penalty. Here the matter was hushed up, and some of the Canadians were vexed and angry. Provincials must necessarily be jealous of the smallest appearance of disrespect or show of distinctive justice between the two races.

There are very few persons in England acquainted with the many ancient and glorious memories which endear Quebec to the French Canadians. Jacques Cartier is to them a greater discoverer and navigator than Captain Cook is to us, and a long list of names thoroughly French illustrate the early history of the city. De Frontenac, Le Chevalier de Levi, Dambourges and others are not known to those who are well acquainted with Wolfe and Montcalm.

Quebec, though doubtless the oldest city existing on the continent, is in a very different condition from that in which it was for many a year after it was founded by Champlain, more than two centuries and a half ago. It is quite delightful, after a sojourn in the United States, to ramble through the tortuous streets, lined by tall narrow-windowed houses with irregular gables, even though an air of something like decay has settled upon the place. There is no trace in Quebec of the feverish activity of American cities—no great hotels nor eager multitudes thronging the pavements; but in summer the quays present a most animated appearance, for the noble waters of the St. Lawrence are then laden with stately ships, and traffic is carried on extensively in the exchange of the exhaustless forest-produce of the back country for the manufactures of Europe.

The Indian squaws and their people have well-nigh vanished from the scene, and it would almost seem as though they were unfit to learn the doctrines of Christianity—it is certain they had not qualities to permit of their flourishing in the midst of Christians. Other coloured races brought in contact with the white man have saved themselves from extermination by service; but the individual Indian is feudatory to no man—he says “Ich Dien” to no created being. The result is, that, slowly and surely, he is driven further and further out into the waste, or is caught up in the waters of civilisation, and held, like the fly in amber, as a curious instance of the incompatibility of one substance with the surrounding particles of another. He will never again play a part in any contest which may take place between the British and Americans; notwithstanding the efforts made by the Confederates to use the Southern Indians in the present war, no adequate results have been obtained for the trouble.