From a very early age of improvement in the art of navigation it must have become evident that water carriage was that which presented the cheapest and most easy mode of transporting merchandise from place to place. Accordingly, with some exceptions, such as occur to all rules, we find that great cities have always arisen either upon convenient ports of the sea, or upon large navigable rivers and inland waters.
Such being the case, it is no wonder that the spot on which Montreal now stands was early chosen for the foundation of a commercial city.
It is true that the commerce of Canada in the early days was not such as to employ many hands.
Peltry was for a long period the only traffic to which importance was attached, and the cargoes of a few canoes, rich though they were in value, required little labour for their transfer to the hold of the European merchantman, and the market was managed by a very few agents of the great houses in France.
While furs were the only exports, the bateau was suited to the trade in both directions; but when agricultural exports commenced, grain was first sent down before 1800 on the rafts and in scows or “arks” which were broken up and sold as lumber in Montreal. Merchandise was at that time carted to Lachine, whence the bateaux and Durham boats took their departure (in “brigades” of five or more boats that their united crews might help one another at the rapids) and sailed through Lake St. Louis.
Still, such as the trade was, Montreal presented a most favorable site for carrying it on. Never was a place for shipment and transhipment more plainly indicated by natural laws.
For hence, more or less, navigable water courses spread out like a fan over hundreds of thousands of miles in the interior, and permitted the canoe of the Indian trader to penetrate in all directions, while on the other hand, a broad and safe river led to the great ocean.
When the labours of the voyageur and native hunter gave way before the steady toil of the agricultural settler, the advantages which had first prompted the selection of Montreal were by no means diminished. The articles of export had changed, but those by which they were followed could only reach Europe by water and could be sent only thence by the same means.
The St. Lawrence, however, with all its acknowledged capacity, was not without its drawbacks. Foremost was the long winter which sealed its waters during six months of the year, and next were the dangers of navigation of nearly nine hundred miles to the sea. The first could not be overcome, but the enterprise of the people has, to a great extent, done away with the other.
In years gone by, when, for instance, Jacques Cartier visited the town then upon the site of Montreal, he was compelled by the shallowness of the river to abandon his larger vessel and approach the town by means of his pinnace.