The French Canadian.
At Penetanguishene you see the original pioneer of the West, that
unmistakeable French Canadian, a good-natured, indolent man, who is
never active but in his canoe singing, or _a la chasse_, a true
_voyageur_, of which type of human society the marks are wearing out
fast, and the imprint will ere long be illegible. It makes me serious,
indeed, to contemplate the Canadian of the old dominant race, and I
shall enter a little into his history.
_Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare_; and never could an author impose
upon himself a greater task than that of endeavouring succinctly to
trace such a history, in this age of railroads and steam-vessels, or to
bring before the mind's eye events which have long slumbered in
oblivion, but which it behoves thinking minds not to lose sight of.
Man is now a locomotive animal, both as regards the faculties of mind
and of motion; unless in the schools, in the cabinet, or in amusing
fictions founded on fact, he rarely finds leisure to think about a
forgotten people.
Canada and Canadian affairs have, however, succeeded in interesting the
public of America and the public of Europe--the "go-ahead" English
reader in the New World--because Canada would be a very desirable
addition to the already overgrown Republic founded by the Pilgrim
Fathers and Europeans; because French interest looks with a somewhat
wistful eye to the race which at one time peopled and governed so large
a portion of the Columbian continent. Regrets, mingling with desires,
are powerful stimulants. An unconquerable and natural jealousy exists in
France that England should have succeeded in laying the foundations of
an empire, which bids fair to perpetuate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon
race in its Transatlantic dominion; whilst the true Briton, on the other
hand, regards Canada as the apple of his eye, and sees with pleasure and
with pride that his beloved country, forewarned by the grand error
committed at Boston, and so prophetically denounced by Chatham, has
obtained a fairer and more fertile field for British legitimate
ambition.
Tocqueville, a sensible and somewhat impartial writer, is the only
political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is
_par parenthese_ only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning,
nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless
hearts that democracy is a human necessity.
That the American nation will endeavour to put a wet blanket over the
nascent fires of Spanish ambition in the miserable new States of the
Northern Continent, and to absorb them in the stars of Columbia, there
can be no doubt. California, the most distant of the old American
settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is
annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do,
Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of
the Isthmus, must follow, and that too very soon.
But what do the people of the United States, (for the government is not
a particeps, save by force,) pretend to effect by their enormous
sovereignty? The control probably of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
is the grand object, and, to effect this, Canada and Nova Scotia stand
in the way, and Canada and Nova Scotia are therefore marked down as
other Stars in the American galaxy.
The Russian empire is cited, as a case in point, for immense extension
being no obstacle to central coercion, or government, if the term be
more pleasing.
We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates
centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to
war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in
Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very
considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the
lights and shades boldly.
Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain,
let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken
place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps
have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British
institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in
governing them.
Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes,
their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and
destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is
"Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.
Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the
unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are
ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.
In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a
lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and
horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks
in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources,
and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the
American armies to quell.
A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the
mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with
England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife
it must be.
American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not,
in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence
being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than
not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to
every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide
by that Machiavelian axiom--the end sanctifies the means.
An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the
employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in
this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as
their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it
failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.
Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian
employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the
writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little
York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I
dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved
heads of the South Sea islanders.
A war between England and the United States is a calamity affecting the
whole world, and, excepting for political interest, or that devouring
fire burning in the breasts of so many for change, I am persuaded that
the intelligence of the Union is opposed to it. America cannot sweep
England from the seas, or blot out its escutcheon from The Temple of
Fame. It is child's play even to dream of it. England is as vitally
essential to the prosperity of America as America is to the prosperity
of England; and, although American feelings are gaining ground in
England, by which I do not mean that the President of the United States
will ever govern our island, but independent notions and axioms similar
to those practised in the Union; yet the time has not, nor ever will,
arrive, that Britain will succumb to the United States, either from
policy or fear, any more than that her grandchildren, on this side of
the Atlantic, could pull down the Stars and Stripes, and run the meteor
flag up to the mast-head again.
The United States is a wonderful confederation, and Nature seems, in
creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the
summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes
things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a
decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and
the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America
it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country.
Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people
there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they
are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and
so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.
Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or
teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king _de
facto_, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast
for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a
Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated
minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study,
and they take a democratic road to learning.
And yet, _ceteris paribus_, the Union produces great men and great
minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the
literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old
World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors
than to tax the brains of the natives.
For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more
reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in
incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year,
who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters
wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to
answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by
you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every
day.
I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is
already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the
three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber
awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development:
I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me
as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we
should neither forget nor neglect him.
Canada, as it is well known, was French, both by claim of discovery and
by the more powerful right of possession.
Stimulated by the fame of Cabot, and ambitious to be pilots of the Meta
Incognita, that visionary channel which was to conduct European valour
to the golden Cathay and to the rich Spice Islands of the East, French
adventurers eagerly sought the coveted honours which such a voyage could
not fail to yield them, and to combine overflowing wealth with chivalric
renown. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, sent forth those
daring spirits whose hopes were uniformly crushed, either by
encountering the unbroken line of continental coast, or dashed to pieces
amidst the terrors of that truly Cimmerian region, where ice and fog,
cold and darkness, contend for empire.
Of all those heroic navigators, who would have rivalled Columbus under
happier circumstances, none were successful, even in a limited sense, in
attempting to reach China by the northern Atlantic, excepting the French
alone, who may fairly be allowed the merit of having traversed nearly
one half of the broadest portion of the New World in the discovery of
the St. Lawrence and its connecting streams, and in having afterwards
reached Mexico by the Mississippi.
Even in our own days, nearly four centuries after the Columbian era, the
idea of reaching China by the North Pole has not been abandoned, and is
actively pursuing by the most enlightened naval government in the world,
and, very possibly, will be achieved; and, as coal exists on the
northern frozen coasts, we shall have ports established, where the
British ensign will fly, in the realms of eternal frost--nay, more, we
shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a
railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a
pleasure voyage.
I recollect that, about twelve years ago, a person of very strong mind,
who edited the "Patriot," a newspaper published at Toronto, Mr. Thomas
Dalton, was looked upon as a mere enthusiast, because one of his
favourite ideas, frequently expressed, was, that much time would not
elapse before the teas and silks of China would be transported direct
from the shores of the Pacific to Toronto, by canal, by river, by
railroad, and by steam.
Twelve years have scarcely passed since he first broached such an
apparently preposterous notion, as people of limited views universally
esteemed it; and yet he nearly lived to see an uninterrupted steamboat
communication from England to Lake Superior--a consummation which those
who laughed at him then never even dreamt of--and now a railroad all the
way to the Pacific is in progress of discussion.
Mac Taggart, a lively Scotch civil engineer, who wrote, in 1829, an
amusing work, entitled "Three Years in Canada," was even more sanguine
on this subject; and, as he was a clerk of works on the Rideau Canal,
naturally turned his attention to the practicability of opening a road
by water, by the lakes and rivers, to Nootka Sound.
Two thousand miles of water road by the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, and
the Welland, has been opened in 1845, and a future generation will see
the white and bearded stranger toiling over the rocky barriers that
alone remain to repel his advances between the great Superior and the
Pacific. A New Simplon and a peaceful Napoleonic mind will accomplish
this.
The China trade will receive an impulse; and, as the arms of England
have overcome those of the Celestial Empire, and we are colonizing the
outer Barbarian, so shall we colonize the shores of the Pacific, south
of Russian America, in order to retain the supremacy of British
influence both in India and in China. The vast and splendid forests
north of the Columbia River will, ere long, furnish the dockyards of
the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our
commercial and our military marine.
And who were the pioneers? who cleared the way for this enterprise?
Frenchmen! The hardy, the enduring, the chivalrous Gaul, penetrated from
the Atlantic, in frail vessels, as far as these frail barks could carry
him; and where their service ceased, with ready courage adopted the
still more fragile transport afforded by the canoe of the Indian, in
which, singing merrily, he traversed the greater part of the northern
continent, and actually discovered all that we now know, and much more,
since lapsed into oblivion.
But his genius was that of conquest, and not of permanent colonization;
and, trammelled by feudal laws and observances, although he extended the
national domain and the glory of France beyond his most ardent desire,
yet he took no steps to insure its duration, and thus left the Saxon and
the Anglo-Norman to consolidate the structure of which he had merely
laid the extensive foundation.
But, even now, amidst all the enlightenment of the Christian nations,
the descendants of the French in Canada shake off the dust of feudality
with painful difficulty; and, instead of quietly yielding to a better
order of things, prefer to dwell, from sire to son, the willing slaves
of customs derived from the obsolete decrees of a despotic monarchy.
Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the
rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult
for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and
simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the
change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising
American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented
ignorance.
The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way,
either by friendship or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons
of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of
the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn
taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the
splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and
coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a
hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed
as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was
everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.
The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning;
accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the
woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no
outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant;
unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for
alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly
without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth
spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the
best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received
with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had
taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became
thoroughly apparent.
To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French
influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his
forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now
penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois
Brule, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard
awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France,
as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.
Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give
due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or
dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long
acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent,
the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the
whole civilized world.
I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience
of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I
should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true
French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with
Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having
crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with
both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the
trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.
Honneur a Jean Baptiste!
C'est un si bon enfant!