La Nouvelle France

TEN years before Jacques Cartier set sail from St. Malo, the French Crown had appropriated to itself the American coast from Florida to Cape Breton, under the name of La Nouvelle France. A decade afterward Cartier opened up to French occupation the northernmost parts of then known America, and the colonists that settled the shores of the St. Lawrence were Frenchmen, who had no other notion of their work than that of making a new France out of these wilds. This object would be accomplished when they had created in the New World a France which was a reproduction of the France of the Old World. They never dreamed of changing their nationality, or even of suffering their new environment to qualify it in the least; nor did they ever do so; their enemy did it for them. They were Frenchmen-in-Canada, Canadian-French, down to 1759; then their hereditary foe took a hand in the matter, and when, as a result, the new oath of allegiance had severed the ties of blood they became French-Canadians.

What transformed the CanadianFrench into French-Canadians, then, was not their own ploughs, but the sword of their enemy. If ever a blessing fell upon a people in the shape of a calamity, it was when the French were forced from the Plains of Abraham by the British. Men are slow to recognize blessings, and it is no wonder that despair settled upon these people when the fall of Louisburg was followed by that of Quebec. God had turned his face from them. Nevertheless, out of the carcass came forth honey ; not in a day, it is true, but in a period of such short duration that, in the life of a people, is as a day. Heretofore the French-in-Canada had not been a people, they had not been even a colony: they had “ occupied ” the land; they had been but garrisons, mere warders of the north gate of French America. It is true that the change of flag altered this characteristic no more than to make them warders of the north gate of British America, but a Stupendous change was awaiting them. They were to be their own men, and, with the guns of their ancient enemy protecting them against the world, they were yet, indifferent to the sneer of Voltaire, to possess as their very own those “ leagues of frozen ground,” and to be living examples of the truth that peace hath its victories as well as war. Time brought along its opportunities, and that the conquered were not slow to take advantage of them is shown by the fact that in fifteen short years they had turned the tables upon their conquerors.

It happened in this way. The annual increase of 480 souls had at last, by 1759, given over 60,000 French to the valley of the St. Lawrence. Here was the beginning of a people. As soon as the British obtained complete control of the country, which was accomplished in the year following by the capture of Montreal, they subjected it to military rule. It cannot be said that this bore very hard upon the French, for they were secure in life and property; they were protected from foreign enemies; the restrictions put upon them were not excessive; and, what is more to the purpose, they had always been so habituated to military rule under the old régime that they had little excuse for finding fault with it under the new. They had merely exchanged one form of military government for another; and that the later one was not unduly repressive is disclosed by the fact that the right of petition was exercised as freely by them as by any other dependents of the British Crown. Nevertheless, they chafed at the mere appearances of subjection, and especially at the abrogation of their old laws, and the substitution of the common law of England, for which they could have no hereditary attachment, and which they did not understand. Discontent in this respect began to express itself immediately after the royal proclamation of 1763, in the form of protest and petition, which were maintained with such constancy and vigor as led to the conclusion that already the unfortunates were enjoying greater freedom of speech than they ever had done in the good old days of commandants and intendants. How long the British government would have turned a deaf ear can be conjectured only. Military rule lasted but four years, and the governors certainly did all they could to effect a transformation of the Gallic into an Anglican structure of society with as little derangement of the established order of things as possible. For all that, the French felt the subjection keenly, and chafed under it, until, of a sudden, every cause of irritation, except the feeling of alienage, vanished as if by enchantment, and liberation was thrust upon them by the very hands which until now had been so grudging.

With the downfall of French power upon the St. Lawrence disappeared external pressure upon the British colonies, and the fear of the wolf no longer made the child press closer to its mother. “ They are caught at last! ” cried Choiseul. There was reason for his glee, for the rapid development of thirteen colonies showed signs of attaining such proportions as would permit these colonies no longer to brook the restrictions of distant parliaments. 1774 was the year of the Boston Port Bill, of the Massachusetts Regulating Act, of the first Continental Congress, and Lord North was in office. The same motives that formerly had actuated the French now compelled the British to make sure of the St. Lawrence as a highway to the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and state-craft was already busy in that direction. If Canada went out with the other colonies, and all made good their footing, the whole of British America was lost. On the other hand, if she stood fast, then, come what might, Great Britain would still hold the northern gate of the continent. The French seized the opportunity, and pressed their demands. This action was significant, and admitted of but one interpretation. There was nothing to do but to yield: and thus a mocking world was afforded the spectacle of British officials making room for French ; of a Protestant parliament setting up the Church of Rome ; of an English legislature ousting the common law of England, and putting the Coutume de Paris in its place; and of Britons taking from Britons the woods and waters they had helped to conquer, and giving them to the very Gauls from whom they had been wrested. The victor was vanquished, absolutely, completely vanquished, and had been made to eat his leek. It was enough to make Wolfe turn in his grave. Thanks to the “external pressure ” which, the tables being turned, was now exerted from the south upon the north, the compact — for such it was — has held good to the present day. The French-Canadians withstood the blandishments of the Americans, and have kept the gate for the English ever since; and as they certainly could not better themselves by trusting to the hazards of rebellion, they prudently stood firm for their old enemies and new friends. Each party got what it had bargained for: one, the valley of the St. Lawrence and dominion ; the other, religion, laws, customs, territory, honor. The Frenchman took the lion’s share.

Thus in the short space of fifteen years the French found themselves better off than ever they could have hoped to be had they remained subjects of France. At a stroke of the pen they became Canadians. Ever since the conquest, tlie only military character remaining to them had been a passive one, and was derived from the mere fact of their being a body in situ, of their being where fortune had placed them, and all the force demanded of them was the resistance of immobility. This was simple negation so far as military character was concerned, but it was the greatest blessing that could befall them ; for the last breath of Montcalm dissipated all the dreams of conquest that had stood so long between them and real prosperity,— dreams that had set up dominion instead of development, that had grasped at the emptiness of strife instead of the fullness of peace, that had pushed aside patient toil for the excitement of adventure, and had sacrificed in high places the real to the unreal. Had any one told a CanadianFrenchman in 1758 that he would be better off without a military constitution than with one, he would have thought the speaker mad. Had any one told a French-Canadian in 1778 that it would be better to have the old régime back than to go on without it, he would have handed the tempter over to custody as one unsafe to be at large, whether madman or traitor. In this brief period a great and enduring change had been wrought. The military constitution of society had pervaded the whole structure before the conquest. Every man felt himself to be a force in “ the occupation.” All eyes, thoughts, and impulses centred in the Château St. Louis, and what emanated from headquarters gave tone to everybody and everything. It was no more than natural, then, that the life, the very existence, of this little organism, so remote from its race-centre, seemed to its components to depend upon the artificial character that had become a second nature, and that, bereft of this, there was nothing left but to lie down and die. But the fact is that, so far from being essential to its existence, this military constitution was the greatest hindrance to its development ; it was the one thing which all along had been checking its growth, and putting it in a false light to itself and to the outer world.

When the agony of mortification was over, and the French took heart again, they were not slow to perceive that the loss of their arms was really beneficial to them. Their awakening was a rude but salutary one. The dreams of conquest dissipated, they had nothing to distract attention from their fields, and these, the very soil itself, form the first and last foundations of constitutional development. The conditions of social existence soon began to better in every way : growth that heretofore had been stunted took on an air of evolution; dependence on others gave way to dependence on self; and the blood that so long had been sluggish now coursed freely through its natural channels. The weight had been lifted, and the long nightmare was over. Military glory, with all its delusive and mocking phantoms, once gone, the soldier retired, and the citizen took his place. Society no longer huddled beneath the eaves of a guard-house, but entering into its natural abiding-place, the home, grouped itself about the hearth ; and lo, before the world had time to realize it, there stood a people ! Henceforth the FrenchCanadians had a distinct, political, almost a national existence. No longer the hangers-on of a mother who valued them only for the use she could put them to, they dictated to a step-mother who was only too glad to keep peace in the family by letting them have their own way. They had their own property, their own tenures, their own language, and their own religion. They virtually made their own laws and imposed their own taxes; they paid no imperial revenue, and they had no external enemies against whom Great Britain was not bound to protect them. Nay, they were preferred above the true heirs themselves, who sent over a vain petition for the repeal, or at least amendment, of the Quebec Act. This sounds like a chapter from the Arabian Nights, where the water - carrier at sunrise is grand vizier at sunset. It is, nevertheless, a chapter from the history of England. Such are the bare facts. The transformation did not terminate with mere physical facts, but reached to moral and political effects that have attracted the observation of politicians and philosophers, and have demonstrated for the hundredth time that a people’s development is best effected when left to the people themselves.

Prior to the fall of Quebec, the contrast presented by the barren character of the French occupation with the rich development of institutions in the British colonies was extremely unfavorable. It cannot be said that the change of sovereignty changed this, but it can be said that it transformed the Canadian - French into French - Canadians ; that, in doing so, it infused new life into this people, and gave them a new character, — in fact, made a people of them, — and started them so successfully on their feet that the Quebec Act marks an epoch of institutional development in their annals such as they never had before, and of which, so long as they were French subjects, they had never given the first hint or sign. In a word, the French-Canadians speedily took upon themselves the characteristics of a self-reliant people. Not that they surpassed other peoples under like conditions, or even equaled them ; but they rose rapidly to the level assigned them by nature, as a cork rises to the surface when pressure has been removed. The old-time lethargy diminished, and activity took the place of inaction.

The first and great change wrought was a result of the deprivation of their military character. Attack and defense were now in other hands. As a consequence. social energy directed itself toward domestic objects. The clash of arms was stilled in the presence of the law ; expeditions, that had for their object the acquisition of unneeded territory and spoils, gave way to projects for agriculture and trade. The fifteen years that had elapsed since the capitulation of Quebec had given the land a healthy, recuperative rest ; another generation, unused and indifferent to arms, was now coining on the stage, and was pushing off the lagging veterans who had grown incapacitated or out of touch with the new times; above all, the population had become fixed and producing, instead of being wandering and consuming. The Coutume de Paris, instead of remaining rigid, gradually modified and adapted itself to the requirements of the soil into which it had been transplanted. The criminal-process of England was accepted, with nothing more serious occurring than the murmuring that always accompanies the acceptance of what cannot be avoided. Education began to make its way among classes that heretofore could neither read nor write, and the bar, for which there had been little use under military rule, quickly assumed the importance that always characterizes it under free governments. The Canadians took the first steps towards having a literature of their own. Their orators made themselves heard, and gave promise of attaining the creditable position occupied by them to-day. The forests were invaded for timber rather than for fur; the trade in the latter product passing under British control. Descended from the thriftiest and most frugal of races, this people has cultivated to good purpose the commercial virtues of thrift and frugality. In a word, a change came over their condition, if not over their nature, and, quickly assuming the character to which they were entitled by birth, they afforded another instance of the rapidity with which untrammeled Nature asserts herself after release from repression.

In 1758, the French-Canadians numbered but 90,000, all told; to-day they number 2,250,000. This tells the story : in their competition with the British races, they have surpassed them in natural increase. The average French-Canadian household includes nine members, and families of fifteen and eighteen are common. This increase from 90,000 to more than 2,000,000 in a century and a third, it must be borne in mind, is natural increase ; for accession by immigration has been so slight as not to be worth speaking of. At the present rate of increase, the year A. D. 2000, less than a century and an eighth distant, should see 25,000,000 ; or, to state it in gross, in less than two centuries and a half, the French-Canadian population will have increased from 90,000 to 25,000,000.

This expansion of population is already making itself felt in the exclusion of those who stand in its way. With the disposition of the British to preserve their homogeneity, and with their indisposition to assimilate blood alien to their own, one of two things must happen: either they must eject the vanquished from the conquered territory, or they must themselves retire. The former course they pursued with the Acadians, the latter they are following in the valley of the St. Lawrence ; though it cannot be said that they actually settled and occupied the lands within the French limits to any great extent. The British emigrants do not tarry on the lower St. Lawrence, but, passing through the French provinces, make the Laurentian valley only the highway whereby to reach Ontario and the northwest. Great Britain has contented herself with holding the citadel of Quebec and securing the colonial trade. She has had to relinquish her monopoly of the trade, but she is determined to maintain her hold on the rock of Donnacona. To do this, the policy of which the Quebec Act was the expression is as tenaciously adhered to and as inflexibly enforced to-day as it was in 1774. This policy is, to maintain the French as the warders of the northern gate. In no respect has this been modified further than to garrison the citadel with Canadian instead of imperial forces. “ It is well for us,” says Lord Lorne, speaking of the habitans, in Canadian Pictures, — “it is well for us that, instead of being a desert, the littoral of the St. Lawrence is garrisoned for us by a population so orderly, contented, hardy, and enduring.” With the Quebec Act and its history before their eyes, the handful of Britons in the province of Quebec should have no difficulty in definitely comprehending their position.

There is one notable exception to the use of the province of Quebec as a place of transit merely for British immigration ; for what are known as the Eastern Townships, situated in this province, north of Vermont, were settled by English and Scotch, with the purpose, too, of breaking its Gallic homogeneity, — a vain attempt, as even these are being overrun by the French-Canadian, and the Briton is getting out of the way. Hitherto, the tendency of this invasion has been southward, and it has overleaped the boundary that separates the Frenchman from his ancient foe, the New Englander. But for some time past it has heen moving westward : it has crossed the Ottawa, and, with remorseless tread, has begun the conquest of the neighboring fields of Ontario. The counties of this latter province immediately bordering upon the Ottawa, to which he was long a stranger, are now familiar with the sight and sound of Jean Baptiste. He is a veritable camel in the Arab’s tent: let him get but his head in, and his whole body follows, while the family flies out at the other side ; for true it is that, as he advances, emigration from Ontario to the northwest increases. There are now 150,000 French in the province of Ontario; 12,000 in Prince Edward Island, where at the fall of Louisburg there were only 250 ; in Nova Scotia, 45,000 ; in New Brunswick, 60,000; in the province of Quebec, 1,250,000; and elsewhere in the British possessions, 25,000.

This expansion is not so much a matter of religion as of race ; the Catholic Irish fare no better than the Protestant English. In 1871, the Irish Catholic population of Montreal numbered about 35,000 ; in 1881, it had fallen to 27,000. The British population retired with equal step, and from having fifteen of the thirty members of the corporation in 1865, they can now muster but twelve. Thus a majority of six are in the hands of the victorious French; a good working majority out of thirty votes. In the Dominion or federal parliament at Ottawa they hold the balance of power, and they are effectively represented in the cabinet. That they are not backward in asserting their race characteristics is shown by the fact that, wherever they get the upper hand, English has to yield to French ; the very nomenclature of the streets betrays their shibboleth, for Queen becomes Notre Dame Street, and Princess, Ste. Anne.

There is no question of the FrenchCanadian having nourished, ever since his appearance on these shores, aspirations of empire, and that, as the star of Old France waned in the east, he has watched with joy the star of New France waxing in the west. La Nouvelle France has never been a dream to him. La Nouvelle France it was in actuality to his fathers, and La Nouvelle France it is to him this day. First of all, he is French and Catholic ; after that, a British subject; never a Briton. Ever since the conquest he has bided his time and found his profit therein. On the surface he has been an opportunist; but really and at heart he is one who acts from indomitable race instincts, from ancient associations, from strong religious feeling, and from a lurking sense of wrongs to right, quite as much as from motives of personal interest. He has, too, the readiness and adroitness which dependence upon opportunity calls into play. The Quebec Act is a standing testimony to this character ; for, though the weaker party, and so weak as to be absolutely in the power of his conqueror, by the skillful use of opportunity he was enabled to fight Montcalm’s battle over again with success. He gained the field, so far as his province was concerned, and gained it so completely that henceforth he could make it the impregnable base of operations that have for their object the reduction of all British America to his possession. Nay, intrenched upon this vantage-ground, he could indulge in dreams which included within the borders of La Nouvelle France every foot of soil it ever possessed, and more too. Why should he not so dream ? Did not the Quebec Act give him liberty to do so without question, when it bade him take all this to himself, — all of La Nouvelle France and all of British America, save the narrow strip of sea-coast and uplands, from whose slopes rose to his delighted but obdurate ear the importunate appeals of Britons distressed by Britons? And who is to say nay to his crusade ? Not the trespassers who entered fields previously reserved for him by the lord of the manor. It does not lie in their mouths to deny his right to anything but the eminent domain. Not the Great Britain who bestowed upon this alien what she had taken from her own children : indeed, she does not deny his claims ; she recognizes them as valid, and frankly admits that “ these were guaranteed him by the inviolable honor of British law within the great province of Quebec.” The Quebec Act is still in force, and is working as much in his favor to-day as it ever did. Why not take it at its word ; and why may not the dreams of 1774 be the aims of 1889 and the realizations of the future ?

That such is the controlling motive of the French-Canadian is apparent in everything he does. Time was when he could not call even the little horn-work across the St. Charles his own, and when the morning sun saw him a fugitive from the sacred city. To-day he indignantly repudiates “ the conquest,” and brooks with ill - concealed chagrin the presence within his gates of the handful of detested and vanquished conquerors, “ L’état, e’est moi ! I, the Frenchman! ” is his exulting cry. He laughs to scorn all attempts to anglicize him, and retorts by gallicizing the very localities that are set aside as points d’appui from which to break his homogeneity. At late as February of this year (1889), we have concerning him the testimony of one whose business it was to reign over him, and this testimony is worth considering. Lord Lome affirms that a strong people is growing, purely French in thought, language, and religion; that they keep together as a political force ; that with them it is always “ notre nation,” “ nous Canadiens,” a homogeneous population, allowing no mixture with others of different religion ; that what they must have is “ nos institutions,” French law, French custom, none other ; that the sentiment of being still French is there ; that the power is growing to assert a separate policy, and to have a French state in the northeast conserving its “national” traditions apart from those of the rest of the continent; that, conservatives of the conservatives, the old Legitimist feelings in Church and State prevailing in Europe during the best times of French monarchy are the ideals after which they are taught to live ; that the tricolor is a flag hoisted with even greater pride than the union jack ; and that they cannot be changed unless they forswear all that they hold sacred. No ; the Church forbids. Whatever the future may bring, continues the marquess, there is no doubt that this large and rapidly augmenting people, of one faith, one blood, and animated by so intense a feeling of nationality, will exist as a factor largely influencing the condition of the northeastern corner of the American continent. If for the phrase “ will exist as a factor largely influencing,” etc., there be substituted one reading “ exist to-day as a factor absolutely controlling the condition of the northeastern corner,” the description will conform more closely to the facts. The French-Canadian is master, absolute master, of the valley of the St. Lawrence from the Ottawa to the Strait of Belle Isle, and of the valley of the St. John from Lake Pohenegamook to the Tobique. Throughout this vast but rather unfruitful land, nothing indicative of the presence of the Anglo-Saxon strikes the eye of the traveler from the deck of the boat that conveys him down the St. Lawrence, save the union jack that floats from the king’s bastion in the citadel of Quebec. It was to keep this flag waving on that spot that the Quebec Act was made the real, unchanging, and underlying constitution of Canada, and every interest of every English-speaking colonist staked upon the fidelity of guardians that refuse to be anglicized. How long will the unanglicized guardians of this flag suffer it to flaunt over them? Just so long as it is significant of their supremacy, and not a day longer.

Few Americans appreciate the presence of the French-Canadian on our own territory as an important and pregnant fact. It is true that he does not bring with him the significance that he carries, for example, into Ontario ; for, thus far, he has not endangered our principle of assimilation, and his appearance here is uniformly accompanied with the declaration that he intends to return home, whereas in Ontario it is plain enough that he goes to stay. It is the difference, as the lawyers say, between the animus revertendi and the animus manendi. Nevertheless, the constant presence among us of 600,000 of these living arguments is not to be ignored, especially as, in spite of the efforts made to keep them at home, their neighbors seem bent on joining them. Moreover, whatever the intention to return, the result is habitation, and this disposition to remain is strengthening. The report of the commissioner of the Connecticut State Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Massachusetts census of 1885, betray some striking facts. One is that the FrenehCanadians, so far, have kept east of the Connecticut River ; another is that they appear in large groups or masses. This latter characteristic may yet arouse apprehension. Both conditions are to be attributed to the same cause, being necessitated by the topographical requirements of manufacture in that part of the country. But who would suppose that already they had penetrated almost to Long Island Sound ? Nevertheless, the commissioner’s report shows that in Wndham County, Connecticut, one fifth of the entire population is French-Canadian; an element, “in fact, larger than exists in any other county in the United States, except in the border county of Aroostook, in Maine. There are districts where the French-Canadian population quite overshadows the American element.” The Massachusetts census reveals a very low order of educational attainments among them, for it shows that over fifty-one per cent of the French-Canadian aliens are illiterate, and that, of the total of illiterate aliens, they constitute more than thirty-two per cent. They have their societies and benevolent institutions, and their interest in acquiring permanent domicile, in becoming naturalized, and in learning the English language is increasing.

The tranquillity with which we regard our allotment of the French invasion is not shared by the English-speaking provinces of Canada. Instinctive dread heralds the enemy’s approach. No one can journey throughout the province of Ontario without being constantly met by evidences of fear and distrust of the French-Canadian. If there be a skeleton in the Ontarian’s closet, it is that he or his children may live to see his province gallicized and romanized. It is the same in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the other provinces where the French are still in a minority. Much thought of evil is taken for the morrow, and the time when the French - Canadian may return a majority is daily anticipated by those who behold in his supremacy the downfall of Protestantism and the humiliation of the English-speaking races at the hands of their hereditary foe. This fear crops out at all times and in all places, and is the motive of those bursts of feeling towards annexation to this country which have of late manifested themselves with increasing force and frequency. “ French influence,”it is said, “ is the one now predominating at Ottawa ; it holds the balance of power, and, when fortune permits it to strike, it is certain, speedy, and remorseless. What is this but. subjection to French rule ? We will not be ruled by the French ; yet, so long as the Quebec Act is in force, there can be no other outlook, and Great Britain must continue to lean towards the French side and to strengthen French interests at the expense of British interests. What, then, is to be done ? We have one of four courses to pursue : either to remain as we are; to take the matter into our own hands, and repeal the Quebec Act with fire and sword; to secede and set up as an independent state; or to seek annexation with the United States. To adopt the first course would be submissively to fold our hands, and to accept as cravens the situation that has become intolerable to us as men. To take the matter into our own hands means civil war, perhaps rebellion, with ourselves as rebels ; for what assurance have we of the countenance of the mother country, when the present intolerable condition is the result of that countenance being turned from us ever since 1774? To secede and set up for ourselves independently of the world would not be permitted by the mother country, and this would be to plunge into the horrors of civil war and rebellion, with the absolute certainty of the imperial government being against us and to the full extent of her power. Moreover, even success would be a doubtful gain. Inland and cut off from communication with the outer world, we should not be relieved from the encroachments of our ancient enemy ; while to our friendly but overshadowing neighbor on the south, we should become a standing temptation to conquest. Thus, if we remain as we are, we must either submit to the rule of an alien blood, an alien tongue, and an alien religion, or resist with arms ; if we set up for ourselves, we become isolated, our best estate can never be more than that of a petty power, and we hold ourselves forth a constant temptation to conquest. There is but one way of escape from the body of this death: to take time by the forelock, and, entering the Union of our own motion, cast in our lot with those of our own tongue and blood, with those whose federal affairs are not the arena of conflicting faiths, and with those whose cardinal doctrine of political constitution is, that each State shall manage its own affairs absolutely, and, moreover, shall have its due weight in the federal, councils. Thus should we enter the Union free agents, and so should we ever continue on an equality with our own blood, our own tongue, and our religion will be free from constantly impending subversion. The security of our future draws us in one direction only, and there is nothing left but annexation.”

It, may be a long time before the descendants of the United Empire loyalists bring themselves to this pass, — they who sought the depths of Ontario’s forests, and became hewers of wood and drawers of water, sooner than share with us the mastery of our rebellious tents. Nevertheless, who will to Cupar maun to Cupar ; and when, of the two leading journals of Ontario, one breathes forth fire and slaughter against the French, declaring that, in the event of another subjection by the British, the truce of the former conquest will not be repeated, and when its rival as emphatically avers that the solution of Canadian difficulties may be nearer at hand than people suppose, and glances in the direction of Washington, it is time to heed the straws that are flying before the wind.

The Dominion of Canada is a device to keep the peace between those to whom Nature has allotted an irrepressible conflict. This conflict is between adversaries of different and irreconcilable races, different and irreconcilable methods, different and irreconcilable tongues, and different and irreconcilable religions. The blood of Riel assuaged the wrath of Ontario only for the moment, and staved off, without preventing, the day of disruption and of hostile contact; on the other hand, by exasperating Quebec and wounding its sense of nationality, it threatens to hasten the inevitable climax. Assuming, however, that the bellicose and mysterious utterances of the Toronto press have no more solid foundation than the irritation of the moment; that the loyalty that brought Ontario into the world will prevail against forebodings that tempt her to cut loose from a dominion that dares not dominate ; that both parties will take counsel of right reason and good-will, and, at the worst, will agree to disagree and to substitute rivalry for antagonism, the French-Canadian, in the peaceful contest for territory and political supremacy, will have the great, the very great advantage of consummate organization, of effective discipline, of complete homogeneity, and of greater natural increase, ft is this latter force that is pressing the Briton helplessly to the wall, and that will inexorably carry the day against him in the decisive battle for race supremacy.

La Nouvelle France has had its ups and downs, and has now reached the point where humility is discarded for aggression. The step from the antechamber to the closet has been taken, and the servant has become greater than the master; in fact, he bullies him. The new squire has put on new garments befitting his change of condition, and shows the usual effects of elevation. He talks of “us Canadians” and of “ our institutions,” declares that he will permit nobody on his premises but his own people, threatens his neighbors, and has grand plans for the future. He is a little sensitive to anything that recalls the past too abruptly ; refers to his former subordinate position as incident to the rude game of war; calls Heaven to witness that his family was the oldest in the neighborhood, that it bowed to circumstances, but was never broken by them ; regards himself as a man of destiny, and firmly believes in his star. La Nouvelle France is the great political fact of his existence : Old France may have changed, but New France, never. It may have been beaten to the ground by hereditary enemies, but has he not seen it rise, stronger than ever, endued with new life, mastering the master, — and this before the babe, born in the moment of humiliation, was half-way through his teens ? Though he has lately called back to Ontario that the spectre of annexation has no terrors for him, he has never taken kindly to the project. Our prodigious receptivity and power of assimilation have aroused a dread, that expresses itself in his determination never to be " absorbed,” like Louisiana. He has therefore given himself to every effort that would keep his children from crossing our border, and has set in motion what it pleases him to style the project of repatriation. Canada is good enough for him, he says, and there is no place like home, — which means that, for him, a dinner of herbs in the abodes of the godly is better than plenty in partibus infidelium ; that he regards the valley of the St. Lawrence as his natural habitat, and that French empire in America, if ever such exist, must emanate thence.

Of this empire time must be the great creative force; he will also have to work for it. We have seen the FrenchCanadian patient and persistent when in the dust; will lie be less so beneath the burdens of the future ? Is La Nouvelle France a dream, or is it written in the stars ? The twentieth century will determine.

Ehen Greenough Scott.