AFTER THE CONQUEST.
The condition of the Canadian people at the time of the conquest by the
English was exceedingly miserable. Every man was in the ranks, and the
fields on which their maintenance depended lay untilled. The lucrative
fur trade had ceased, for the Indian hunter and the French trader were
fighting against the English. The scanty revenues of the colony no
longer yielded support to the officers of the Government, who plundered
the wretched people without restraint of pity or of shame. Famine
prevailed, and found many victims among the women and children, who
were now the occupants of the neglected clearings along the river-banks.
At length the conquest was accomplished, and those sad years of
bloodshed closed. The French soldiers, the rapacious officials,
were sent home to France, where some of the worst offenders, it
is gratifying to know, found their way quickly to the Bastile.
The colonists laid down their arms, and returned gladly to their
long-disused industries. At first the simple people feared the
severities of the new authority into whose power they had fallen.
Some of them went home to France; but these were chiefly the
colonial aristocracy, whose presence had always been a misfortune.
The apprehensions of the settlers were soon allayed. They had been
accustomed to arbitrary and cruel government. The rack was in regular
use. Accused persons were habitually subjected to torture. Trials were
conducted in secret, and without opportunity of defence. The personal
liberty of every man depended upon the pleasure of his superiors.
English rule brought at once the termination of these wrongs, and
bestowed upon the submissive Canadians the unexpected blessings of
peace, security of person and property, and a pure administration of
justice. It had been feared that the great mass of the population
would leave the province and return to France. But the leniency of
the Government, and the open-handed kindness with which the urgent
necessities of the poor were relieved, averted any such calamity; and
the Frenchmen accepted, without repining, the new sovereignty which the
sword had imposed upon them.
The English Government naturally desired to foster the settlement
of an English population in Canada. It was not, at first, without
hesitation that Britain made up her mind to retain the territory for
whose possession she had fought so stoutly. The opinion was widely
entertained, especially among the trading class, that united North
America would quickly become too powerful to continue in dependence on
the mother country; that the subjection of our existing colonies would
be guaranteed by the wholesome presence of a rival and hostile power
on their northern frontier. But wiser views prevailed, and Britain
resolved to keep the splendid prize which she had won. Every effort was
made to introduce a British element which should envelop and ultimately
absorb the unprogressive French. Large inducements were offered
to traders, and to the fighting men whose services were no longer
required. Many of these accepted the lands which were offered to them,
and made their homes in Canada. The novelty of the acquisition, and the
interest which attached to the conquest, brought a considerable number
of settlers from the old country. The years immediately succeeding the
conquest were years of more rapid growth than Canada had experienced
under French rule. In twelve years the population had increased to one
hundred thousand. The clearings along the shores of the St. Lawrence
increased in number and in area, and stretched backward from the river
into the forest. The influx of merchants caused a notable increase of
the towns. Thus far no printing-press had been permitted on Canadian
soil; for despotism here, as well as elsewhere, demanded popular
ignorance as a condition of its existence. But scarcely had the French
officials departed when two enterprising men of Philadelphia arrived in
Quebec with a printing-press, and began the publication of a newspaper.
The war in Europe continued for upwards of three years after the
expulsion of the French from Canada. Wearied at length with the brutal
strife, the exhausted nations desired peace. France had suffered
enormous territorial losses. The disasters which had fallen on Spain
humbled her haughty spirit, and hastened the decay which was already in
progress. Austria and Prussia desired rest from a wasteful contest, in
the advantages of which they scarcely participated. The enormous gains
which Britain had secured satisfied for the time the ambition of her
people, and she was contented now that the sword should be sheathed.
[Sidenote: 1763 A.D.] Peace was concluded. Britain added to her
dominions several islands of the West Indies, the Floridas, Louisiana
to the Mississippi, Canada, and the islands in the Gulf of the St.
Lawrence, as well as Senegal. “Never,” said the lately-crowned George
III., “did England, nor, I believe, any other power in Europe, sign
such a peace.”
While the war still lasted, a military Government ruled Canada, and
justice was administered by councils of officers. When peace was
restored, and the transference of Canada was formally complete,
arrangements of a more permanent character became necessary. The
situation was full of difficulty. The colony was substantially French
and Roman Catholic; only a small minority of its people were English
and Protestant. These, however, looked with the pride of conquerors
upon the old settlers, and claimed that the institutions of the
colony should be framed wholly on English models. Wise statesmanship
in this eventful hour would have averted enfeebling divisions,
wasteful strifes, discontents swelling at length into rebellion. But
wise statesmanship was denied to Canada. [Sidenote: October, 1763
A.D.] There came a Proclamation in the King’s name, promising to the
people self-government such as the Americans enjoyed, so soon as the
circumstances of the colony permitted; briefly intimating that for
the present the laws of England were the laws of Canada. It was a
revolution scarcely surpassed in its violence and injustice; and in
its results it delayed for generations the progress of the colony. At
one stroke the laws which had been in force for a century and a half
were swept away. A new code of laws, entirely new methods of judicial
procedure, of which the people knew nothing, were now administered
in a language which scarcely any one understood. In their haste the
Government did not pause to consider that the laws which they had thus
suddenly imposed upon this Roman Catholic colony included severe penal
statutes against Catholics. It was desired that the laws, the language
and the customs of England should displace those of France, and that
the French settlers should become absorbed in the mass of anticipated
English immigration. In course of years, by wise and conciliatory
treatment, these results would have been gained; but the unredeemed
injustice of this assault upon the rights of the colonists postponed
for generations the hope of the desirable reconciliation. The French
took up at once the position of an oppressed people--holding themselves
studiously separate from their oppressors, cherishing feelings of
jealousy and antagonism. To uphold French customs, to reject the
English tongue, and if possible the English law--these were now the
evidences of true patriotism. Henceforth, and for many long and unquiet
years, there were two distinct and hostile nations dwelling side by
side in the valley of the St. Lawrence.
It was one of the unhappy results of these ill-considered arrangements
that no Frenchman could fill any public office, in consequence of his
ignorance of the language in which public business was conducted. All
such offices were therefore occupied by Englishmen. For the most part
the appointments were made in London, with small regard to the fitness
of the persons who received them. Men came out to administer the
affairs of Canada in absolute ignorance of the country, of the habits
of the people, even of the language which they spoke. These officials
received no salaries, but were suffered to indemnify themselves by
fees, which they exacted rapaciously and ruthlessly. They treated the
old inhabitants with harshness and irritating contempt. [Sidenote:
1766 A.D.] There were even darker charges than these preferred against
them, warranting the assertion of the good General Murray, who was then
Governor, that “they were the most immoral collection of men he ever
knew.” The conduct of these officials aggravated the alienation of the
French settlers, and helped to prepare the unquiet future through which
the colony was to pass.
But the French Canadians were a submissive people, and although they
perceived that they were wronged, they did not on that account turn
aside from the path of peaceful industry which opened before them.
Trade was prosperous, and steadily increasing; many persons who had
left the colony returned to it; agriculture extended; gradually the
deep wounds which years of war had inflicted were healed. The people
remained long profoundly ignorant. When Volney, the French traveller,
visited them towards the close of the century, he found that they
knew almost nothing of figures, and were incapable of the simplest
calculation. They indicated short distances by telling how many pipes a
man could smoke while he walked; a longer distance was that which a man
could or could not traverse between sunrise and sunset. But ignorance
did not prevent that patient, incessant toil, which year by year added
to their possessions and improved their condition.
In course of time a desire for representative institutions sprang up
among the English settlers. During all these years they had lived under
the despotic sway of a Governor and Council appointed by the Crown.
They alone among Englishmen were without part in their own government,
and they wished the odious distinction to cease. [Sidenote: 1773 A.D.]
They petitioned for the House of Assembly which the King had promised
them ten years before, and for the permanent establishment of English
law among them. The French were not sufficiently instructed to care for
representative government, but they earnestly desired the restoration
of the laws which had been so hastily abolished after the conquest.
It was during a season of anxiety and apprehension that these
conflicting opinions were pressed upon the attention of the British
Government. The differences which had arisen between England and her
American colonies were evidently now incapable of settlement otherwise
than by the sword. The men of Boston had already thrown into their
harbour the cargoes of taxed tea which England sought to force upon
them. All over New England men were hastening to obtain muskets and
to accomplish themselves in military drill. A strong English force,
which was being steadily increased, held Boston, and waited for the
expected strife. In view of impending war, it was the desire of the
English Government to satisfy Canada, and gain such support as she
was able to afford. The great mass of the Canadians were Frenchmen
and Roman Catholics.[17] It was not doubted that in course of years
men who were English and Protestant would form the population of
Canada. But the danger was present and urgent, and it must be met by
conciliating the men who now formed that population. [Sidenote: 1774
A.D.] An Act was passed by which the Proclamation of 1763 was repealed.
The Roman Catholic religion was set free from legal disability,
and reinstated in its right to exact tithes and other dues from all
persons who owned its sway. French civil law was reimposed, but the
barbarous criminal code of England was set up in preference to the
milder system of France. The House of Assembly was still denied, and
the province--extended now to the Ohio and the Mississippi--was to be
ruled by a Governor and Council appointed by the Crown, one-third of
the Council being composed of French Canadians. This was the Quebec
Act, under which Canada was governed for the next seventeen years. It
inflicted many evils upon the colony, but it served well the immediate
purpose for which it was intended. It satisfied the old settlers, and
held them firmly to the side of England during the years of war which
England vainly waged against her alienated children.
Thus far the affairs of the colonies had been administered by the Board
of Trade. The administration had been negligent; for the greatness of
the colonies was recent, and the importance of the interests involved
was not yet fully appreciated. But the variance which was to cost
England the greatest of her colonial possessions had already revealed
itself. England was impressively reminded of the imperfections of her
management, and of the urgent need of a better system. She set up a new
but not a better system. [Sidenote: 1774 A.D.] A Colonial department
of Government was created; a Colonial Secretary was appointed; an
official regulation of colonial interests began, based upon imperfect
knowledge--formal, restrictive, often unreasonable and irritating.
For many years, until the growing strength of the colonies enabled
them first to modify and then to overthrow it, this strict official
government continued to discourage and impede settlements whose prime
necessity was wide freedom of action.