The Canadian Dominion [1]
unchallenged.
The old colony of Acadia, save only the island outliers, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, now ceded by the Peace of Paris, had been in British hands since 1713. It was not, however, until 1749 that any concerted effort had been made at a settlement of this region. The menace from the mighty fortress which the French were rebuilding at that time at Louisbourg, in Cape Breton, and the hostility of the restless Acadians or old French settlers on the mainland, had compelled action and the British Government departed from its usual policy of laissez faire in matters of emigration. Twenty-five hundred English settlers were brought out to found and hold the town and fort of Halifax. Nearly as many Germans were planted in Lunenburg, where their descendants flourish to this day. Then the hapless Acadians were driven into exile and into the room they left, New Englanders of strictest Puritan ancestry came, on their own initiative, and built up new communities like those of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Other waves of voluntary immigration followed--Ulster Presbyterians, driven out by the attempt of England to crush the Irish woolen manufacture, and, still later, Highlanders, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, who soon made Gaelic the prevailing tongue of the easternmost counties. By 1767 the colony of Nova Scotia, which then included all Acadia, north and east of Maine, had a prosperous population of some seven thousand Americans, two thousand Irish, two thousand Germans, barely a thousand English, and well over a thousand surviving Acadian French. In short, this northernmost of the Atlantic colonies appeared to be fast on the way to become a part of New England. It was chiefly New Englanders who had peopled it, and it was with New England that for many a year its whole social and commercial intercourse was carried on. It was no accident that Nova Scotia later produced the first Yankee humorist, "Sam Slick."
With the future sister province of Canada, or Quebec, which lay along the St. Lawrence as far as the Great Lakes, Acadia or Nova Scotia had much less in common than with New England. Hundreds of miles of unbroken forest wilderness lay between the two colonies, and the sea lanes ran between the St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, or Halifax and Havre or Plymouth, and not between Quebec and Halifax. Even the French settlers came of different stocks. The Acadians were chiefly men of La Rochelle and the Loire, while the Canadians came, for the most part, from the coast provinces stretching from Normandy and Picardy to Poitou and Bordeaux.
The situation in Canada proper presented the British authorities with a problem new in their imperial experience. Hitherto, save for Acadia and New Netherland, where the settlers were few in numbers and, even in New Netherland, closely akin to the conquerors in race, religion, and speech, no colony containing men of European stocks had been acquired by conquest. Canada held some sixty or seventy thousand settlers, French and Catholic almost to a man. Despite the inefficiency of French colonial methods the plantation had taken firm root. The colony had developed a strength, a social structure, and an individuality all its own. Along the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu the settlements lay close and compact; the habitants' whitewashed cottages lined the river banks only a few arpents apart. The social cohesion of the colony was equally marked. Alike in government, in religion, and in industry, it was a land where authority was strong. Governor and intendant, feudal seigneur, bishop and Jesuit superior, ruled each in his own sphere and provided a rigid mold and framework for the growth of the colony. There were, it is true, limits to the reach of the arm of authority. Beyond Montreal stretched a vast wilderness merging at some uncertain point into the other wilderness that was Louisiana. Along the waterways which threaded this great No Man's Land the coureurs-de-bois roamed with little heed to law or license, glad to escape from the paternal strictness that irked
The old colony of Acadia, save only the island outliers, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, now ceded by the Peace of Paris, had been in British hands since 1713. It was not, however, until 1749 that any concerted effort had been made at a settlement of this region. The menace from the mighty fortress which the French were rebuilding at that time at Louisbourg, in Cape Breton, and the hostility of the restless Acadians or old French settlers on the mainland, had compelled action and the British Government departed from its usual policy of laissez faire in matters of emigration. Twenty-five hundred English settlers were brought out to found and hold the town and fort of Halifax. Nearly as many Germans were planted in Lunenburg, where their descendants flourish to this day. Then the hapless Acadians were driven into exile and into the room they left, New Englanders of strictest Puritan ancestry came, on their own initiative, and built up new communities like those of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Other waves of voluntary immigration followed--Ulster Presbyterians, driven out by the attempt of England to crush the Irish woolen manufacture, and, still later, Highlanders, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, who soon made Gaelic the prevailing tongue of the easternmost counties. By 1767 the colony of Nova Scotia, which then included all Acadia, north and east of Maine, had a prosperous population of some seven thousand Americans, two thousand Irish, two thousand Germans, barely a thousand English, and well over a thousand surviving Acadian French. In short, this northernmost of the Atlantic colonies appeared to be fast on the way to become a part of New England. It was chiefly New Englanders who had peopled it, and it was with New England that for many a year its whole social and commercial intercourse was carried on. It was no accident that Nova Scotia later produced the first Yankee humorist, "Sam Slick."
With the future sister province of Canada, or Quebec, which lay along the St. Lawrence as far as the Great Lakes, Acadia or Nova Scotia had much less in common than with New England. Hundreds of miles of unbroken forest wilderness lay between the two colonies, and the sea lanes ran between the St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, or Halifax and Havre or Plymouth, and not between Quebec and Halifax. Even the French settlers came of different stocks. The Acadians were chiefly men of La Rochelle and the Loire, while the Canadians came, for the most part, from the coast provinces stretching from Normandy and Picardy to Poitou and Bordeaux.
The situation in Canada proper presented the British authorities with a problem new in their imperial experience. Hitherto, save for Acadia and New Netherland, where the settlers were few in numbers and, even in New Netherland, closely akin to the conquerors in race, religion, and speech, no colony containing men of European stocks had been acquired by conquest. Canada held some sixty or seventy thousand settlers, French and Catholic almost to a man. Despite the inefficiency of French colonial methods the plantation had taken firm root. The colony had developed a strength, a social structure, and an individuality all its own. Along the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu the settlements lay close and compact; the habitants' whitewashed cottages lined the river banks only a few arpents apart. The social cohesion of the colony was equally marked. Alike in government, in religion, and in industry, it was a land where authority was strong. Governor and intendant, feudal seigneur, bishop and Jesuit superior, ruled each in his own sphere and provided a rigid mold and framework for the growth of the colony. There were, it is true, limits to the reach of the arm of authority. Beyond Montreal stretched a vast wilderness merging at some uncertain point into the other wilderness that was Louisiana. Along the waterways which threaded this great No Man's Land the coureurs-de-bois roamed with little heed to law or license, glad to escape from the paternal strictness that irked