T rig CONQUEST Os' CANADA. * Ir, as we believe, the travels
in Amerio under the title of " Hochelaga were as completely by Mr. Eliot Warburton as, his Eastern tour, The Conquest of,.Ceetatla, taken in conjunetien,with the historical portions in his Memoirs of Prince Rupert, argues more of liking than of capaoity for historical composition. Mr. Warburton is deficient in that, quality of an historian which shines through the preliminary inquiries, of Gibbon after a subject—the judgment to determine whether the subject is new as well as interesting. The historian should ever ask himself, Does the world want the story I aro.about to tell? It is not enough that the tatb- ject is full of striking narratives, or furnishes scope for brilliant deseripa Lions, or contains, in its leading action some important truths, if the reader has had these things presented to him before, andha a great variety of waara, Mere style will not suffice:to sustain an interest through , two Imo :=vo- lumen, however powerful or brilliant it may be ; especially when a large portion of the narrative has been told already by, vigorous and brilliantwriters, writers, and the historian appears somewhat to eschew the labour of ori- ginal research, and often to content himself with What may be
light or dilettante reading. Charlevoix is undoubthdly an or3
thority on Canadian, affairs;. but the excellent Jesuit does not reit drudgery or research from any reader, much less an historian ; neither Sa' he particularly rare, or unknown ; and the same may be said of dilaki writers Who describe the, arly discoveries and settlements of the cOun These, however, are legitimate authorities ; they settle facts and cannot done without : but the author before us attaches a similar 'value to con- temporary productions not unlike his own, and which partly superseded its necessity. Bancroft 's and Graham's Histories of the United States, Mur- ray's America, Humboldt's Cosmos and Personal Narrative, Merivale's Co- lonization, with books of a similar accessibility, though of less merit-- as Montgomery Martin's Colonies—are among the historian's great guns ; and that not merely for some conclusion which he conscientiously refers to its author, but for matter or quotations. It may be said that facts are facts : but any one at all accustomed to investigation knowti how difficult it is to get even a fact truly repeated; and for everything beyond mere matter of fact, whoever consults a second-hand autherity receives /tis impressions instead of the original.' Such we, suspect, is too frequently the case in this eloquently written but unnecessary account of Canada till its conquest by Wolfe. The history of Canada embraces discovery and the attempts at settle- ment till the colony was at last permanently founded by Champlain ; the civil history and progress (or retardation) of the country; the wars in which it was engaged with the Indians and British settlements, now the United States, till the genius of the elder Pitt and of his selected General Wolfe overwhelmed the country by an European arma- ment. To these topics may be added the descent of the Mississippi, and the exploration of its tributaries by La Salle and those whom his enter- prise stimulated. Perhaps this last subject might advantageously have been extended to the foundation of Louisiana, and so embraced the history of the French settlements on the continent of North America. Of these topics the progress of the.colony and its, civil history—that is, its social and economical progress, and governmental administration—are the freshest. As furnishing an example of French colonization in com- parison with British, and contaiaing the philoaophy of its failure, it is the most important point in Canadian history. Unluckily, the materials are the scantiest; and perhaps Mr. Warburton has not turned such as exist to the best account. He has, however, handled the subject, but too gene- rally, and with too much of the ad captandum dash of the rhetorical school. We think his remarks, or conclusions—for he exhibits little in detail or in proof—form the most valuable part of the work. A large portion of the remainder is hackuied. Not a tourist ascenda the heights of Abraham or stands upon the ground of Braddock's' death but fights the battles o'er again. We have them, and the other striking actions of the colonial wars, in every manner and every length in all the histories of England during the last century. Most of them are so con- nected with the history of !America, that they:figure, in the lives of her worthies, and form a necessary part of her annals. It is-still more un- lucky that they are told by Bancroft, with a brilliancy and force of style quite equal to our author's, while the American's manner is more Sob% and his matter more solid. The voyages oounected with the early dia, cover), of Canada have been sufficiently narrated ,in accessible boa* upon the subject; the explorations of the valley of the Mississippi natu- rally fell into Bancroft's history, and were discussed iu reference to the; Oregon question, as regarded the Western boundaries of Louisiana, and the territorial rights them discoveries ,gave to France ; but we, think' that historically speaking these cubjeets :would have borne expausOrt; and the additional space they required haves rightfully. dieplaced Ahe rep same of the ancient ideas of the world, and discoveries of Columbus • The Conquest of Canada. Br the Anther-ur"Bocnelaita-" re twe *OlineelL: Published by Bentley. II and his successors ; the almost equally hacknied prdcis of the foundation of Virginia, New England, and the other United States ; and perhaps the disquisition on Red Indian habits and character. There is yet room for a critical inquiry into the French colonization of Canada, or of their American possessions, with a view to trace We causes of its non-success, and to deduce truths in the art of colonization ; and this would admit of historical narrative and of natural description. Mr. Warburton's His- tory of the Conquest of Canada is merely a very well written account of the impressions of his studies upon Canada, originally perhaps stimu- lated by his visit to the country, and by a liking for this kind of reading.
The causes assigned by Mr. Warburton for the inferior progress of Canada, and its subsequent loss, are the ecclesiastical and feudal systems on which it was founded, and the selfishness of the French Government, which looked to its own aggrandizement, not to the prosperity of the co- lonists. This opinion is unfolded in, a comparative view of the French and English colonization of America, which precedes the history, and is incidentally reiterated in the course of the work. " France," says the author in his Introduction, ".founded a state in Canada ; she established a feudal and ecclesiastical framework for the young nation, and into that Procrustean bed the growth of population and the proportions of society were forced. The State fixed governments at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Que- bec; there towns arose: she divided the rich banks of the St. Lawrence and of the Richelieu into seignenries; there population spread: she placed posts on the lakes and rivers of the far West; there the fur-traders congregated: she divided the land into dioceses and parishes, and appointed bishops and curates; a portion of all produce of the soil was exacted for their support: she sent out the people at her own cost, and acknowledged no shadow of popular rights; she organized the inhabitants by an unsparing conscription, and placed over them officers either from the Old Country or from the favoured class of seigneurs: she grasped a mo- nopoly of every valuable production of the country, and yet forced upon it her own manufactures to the exclusion of all others: she squandered her resources and treasures on the colony, but violated all principles of justice in a vain endea- vour to make that colony a source of wealth: she sent out the ablest and best of her officers to govern on the falsest and worst of systems: her energy absorbed all individual energy; her perpetual and minute interference aspired to shape and direct all will and motive of her subjects. The state was everything, the people nothing. Finally, when the power of the state was broken by a foreign foe,there remained no power of the people to supply its place. On the day that the French armies ceased to resist, Canada was a peaceful province of British America." There is truth here, but not the whole truth or anything near it. Monopoly of colonial trade by the mother-country was nearly if not quite as much a characteristic of the English as the French colonies. The systematic plan upon which France proceeded of at once selecting the leading positions of Quebec and Montreal for principal settlements, and her efforts to transplant a complete French society into Canada, are worthy of praise and imitation. It is true that her system of land- tenures, and the prejudices of the old rkime, introduced a mode of land- holding and a state of society ill adapted to colonize a new country ; but this is a national fact, not a fault of the government : it at last amounts to the sum-total that the colony was French. The selfish objects, the sacrifice of the colonists to the glory of the mother-country, though seemingly attributable to Louis the Fourteenth and his successors, is really a national trait, and as much displayed under one form of govern- ment as another. To what extent French blood in its best state is adapted to colonization, is a curious question, not easy to decide, and too long to enter upon here ; but as far as the facts are open, the French character was quite as much a cause of the ruin of Canada as the ecclesiastical or feudal systems. Men of a chivalrous sense of honour and of great abilities were frequently employed in Canada ; but hardly one of them was above diplomatic artifice, or shrank from snatching an apparent advantage without regard to the morality of the act or its consequences upon the feelings and opinions of mankind. The breach of faith with Abd-el-Kader under Louis Philippe, the diplomatic fraud with the Pope and the Roman Republic under universal suffrage, were frequently exhibited in Canada on a smaller scale. Chieftains were beguiled into conference and seized; friendly Indians were carried off; capitulations were not always kept ; so that several of the tribes, and the British co- lonists, were exasperated against the French with a feeling beyond mere hostility. Even Montcalm was not altogether free from this charge ; and though the accusation as to complicity with a massacre by Indians was untrue, yet the truth of another charge made this to be believed. A further cause of Canadian depression was official corruption. That, indeed, pre- vailed largely in all governments in those days, it still does on the Con- tinent more or less ; but France, whether Monarchical, Imperial, or Re- publican, has shone preliminent in that respect. A more honourable cha- racteristic, but one nearly as mischievous to material prosperity, was the martial spirit of Frenchmen. These points will receive a brief illus- tration in the following extracts ; though from the rhetorical style of the author there is a want of specificality in some of the statements. " In the summer of 1687, M. de Denonville marched towards Lake Ontario with a force of 2,000 French and 600 Indians; having already received all the supplies and reinforcements which he had expected from France. His first act of aggression was one that no casuistry can excuse, no necessity justify—one alike dishonourable and impolitic. He employed two missionaries, men of influence among the savages, to induce the principal Iroquois chiefs to most him at the fort of Cataracouy, under various pretences; he there treacherously seized the unsus- pecting savages, and instantly despatched them to Quebec, with orders that they should be forwarded to France to labour in the gallice. The missionaries who had been instrumental in bringing the native chiefs into this unworthy snare ware altogether innocent of participation in the outrage, never for a moment doubting the honourable intentions of their countrymen towards the Indian depu- ties. One, who dwelt among the Onneyouths, was immediately seized by the ex- asperated tribe, and condemned to expiate the treachery of his nation and his own supposed guilt in the flames ; he was, however, saved at the last moment by the intervention of an Indian matron, who.adopted him as her son. The other, Lam- berville by name, was held in great esteem among the Onnontagnds, to whose in- struction be had devoted himself. On the first accounts of the outrage at Cats- racony, the ancients assembled, and called the missionary before them. They then declared their deep indignation at the wrong whichthey had suffered; but at the moment when their prisoner expected to feel the terrible effects of their wrath, a chief arose, and with a noble dignity addressed him—' Thou art now our ene- my, thou and thy race. We have held counsel, and cannot resolve to treat thee as an enemy. We know thy heart had no share in this treason, though thou wart its tool. We are not unjust; we will not punish thee, being innocent, and hating the crime as much as we do ourselves. But depart from among us; there are some who might seek thy blood, and when our young. men sing the war- song we may be no longer able to protect thee.' The magnanimous savages thee furnished him with guides, who were enjoined to convey him to a place of safety.
In this case a poetical justice, aided by sickness and famine, followed more quickly than it often does in this life.
" The whole country West of the river Sorel, or Richelieu, was occupied by a savage host ; and the distant fort of Cataracouy on the Ontario shore was with difficulty held against eight hundred Iroquois, who had burned the farm-stores with flaming arrows and slain the cattle of the settlers. The French bowed be_ fore the storm they could not resist; and pence was concluded on conditions that war should cease in the land and all the allies should share in the blessings of repose. M. de Denonville farther agreed to restore the Indian chiefs who had been so treacherously torn from their native wilds and sent to labour in the gul- lies of France."
The following exhibits the condition of the colony a few years before its final subjugation.
"Under the rule of M. de la Jonquiere a great and growing evil cankered the spirit of Canada. The scanty salaries allowed to the Government officers afforded a great inducement to peculation; especially as the remoteness of the colony rendered retribution distant and uncertain. The Indian trade opened a field for enormous dishonesty; M. Bigot, the Intendant, discontented with his inadequate stipend, ventured to farm out trade licences for his own profit and tbat of his creatures, and speedily accumulated considerable wealth: he, the Governor, and a few others, formed themselves into a company, and monopolized nearly all the commerce of the country, to the great indignation of the colonists. M. de la Jonquiere and his secretary, St. Sauveur, also kept exclusively to themselves the nefarious privilege of supplying brandy to the Indians: by this they realized im-
mense profits. • •
"For two years past the scarcity of grain and other provisions had almost amounted to famine. The inhabitants of the country, constantly employed in warfare against their English neighbours, were forced to neglect the cultivation of the soil, till absence from their own homesteads was almost as ruinous to them- selves as their destructive presence to the enemy. Although the scanty supply of corn was too well known, the intendant Bigot, with infamous avarice, shipped off vast quantities of wheat to the West Indies for his own gain and that of his creatures. The price of food rose enormously, and the commerce of the country, hampered by selfish and stupid restrictions, rapidly declined. "The Marquis de Vandreuil de Cavagoac, the successor of the Marquis da Qat:line as Governor, soon lost the confidence of his people. To him they had looked hopefully and earnestly for protection against the fatal monopolies of the Merchant Company ; but they found that he readily sanctioned the oppression under which they suffered, and indeed rather increased its severity. Great stores of wheat had been purchased from the settlers by the Company iu anticipation of a scarcity ; when they had obtained a sufficient quantity to command the market, they arranged with the intendant to fix the price at an immense advance, which was maintained in spite of the misery and clamours of the people. Again, the Intendant pretended that the dearth was caused by the farmers having secreted their grain, and in consequence issued an order that the city and troops should be immediately supplied at a very low rate; and those who would not sub- mit to these nefarious conditions, had their corn seized and confiscated without any remuneration whatever. "Abuses and peculations disgraced every department of the public service; the example set in high places was faithfully followed by the petty officials all over the colony. The commissaries who had the supply of the distant posts, enriched themselves at the cost of the Mother-country, and to the detriment of the hardy and adventurous men occupying those remote and dreary settlements, boats were not allowed to visit them without paying such heavy fees that the venture became ruinous, and thus the trade was soon altogether confined to the commissaries."
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