Book __ Copyright^ i± COttT.ISHT DEPOSOi / o t - It Canadian Leaves History, Art, Science, Literature, Commerce A Series of New Papers READ BEFORE THE Canadian Club of New York Canadian Leaves History, Art. Science, Literature, Commerce A Series of New Papers 1 READ BEFORE I ill Canadian Club of New York ■ Awake, my country, the hour of dreams is > y, And now, l shall endeavoi i" brief!) discuss th( thrc< alternatives which the future holds i"i < anada : — First Federation with the Bmpire, Second Annexation i«» the United States, and Third The formation ot an independent nationality Federation is .1 vast scheme; nothing will ••<» capture and dazzle a Bmall mind as an omnipotent question I may state, for t he benefit ot those who maj have forgotten the fact, that the lust publit in. in ot note in ( anada to advocate Federation, was Sir Alexander Tilloch Gait; but, looking over the files of <>hl Canadian papers,] find that this same gentleman was at one time the leadei <>i .1 movcmenl In Montreal whi< i> soughl to bring about ann< Ration^ But, iui h as the idea is, I have to deny 1 redit for it', origination with Sir .Alexander, or for thai mallei with politician ll Was '"ii c cived \>y Mr. J ust in M < Carthy, who deals in somi very splendid kite-flying in the closing portion oi the history ot Oui Own rimes. Hut Mr. McCarthy derived the inspiration from Tennyson, who, as everyone acquainted with Locksley Hall knows, tells ns of .1 nine when the wai drum shall throb no longer, " And the battle flags i" furled, in the parliament "I man, the Fed< ration "I ii"- World I wonder that somebody ha not overtopped Lord Tcnny- on and taken in the moon. Sir John VI. k don.ild, on ,,< i ounl of whom I have hem blamed ("i having ovei praised him in my books, has latterly favored tlx Idea; hut Sir [ohn is now nearly seventy-two, and a medical friend of mine, Dr. Fergu on. // / ',/ n in i I 1 I, i ,i I ii i , ,i n• • i-r." Imagine the thin Collfi < III)) I J ii- ■ 11 affaii I m t)i< and tii' po ■■■• 1 oi ' •'• al \h glory, and the throb* oi tran port (ell ••' »li< heart oi th< Mi'/tli. rland thril but foi .ill th nhillii III. Ml I J . , | the brunt oi th 12 New Papers on Canadian History, for him, because they maintain and augment the potency of the British name ; but the Canadian tax-payer does not want, and will not bear, any share in such burdens. It would be only folly to expect otherwise, and this feature of the question is not worthy of further discussion. Having disposed of these two barriers, let us picture to ourselves a contingent of representatives from Canada crossing the seas to discuss at Westminster whether a projected railroad bridge in Ontario should cross Swan's Creek or Duck's Puddle, and how much compensation deacon Estabrook's widow should receive for the slaughter of her cow or her husband by a government engine. Imagine the widow setting out from her farm to cross the wintry ocean in order to establish her claim before a listening England ! I suppose the question of divorce would be taken from the fond hands of the Ottawa senators to the House of Lords ; and what a glorious occupation it would be for the Howards and the Stanleys to sit and hear the petition and the evidence of Martha Smith, and decide whether, after all, it was not best to turn the said Martha loose again into the matrimonial market. Some one, among those present, will probably say that the Parliament of the Empire would have cognizance of only such questions as treaties, but three or four treaties in a life-time are about the number that past history has produced. Let me repeat the fact that there is still a mightier question behind all this ; it is found in the position that the heart of the Empire would occupy in relation to its outskirts. I am aware that our statesmen leave India out of the programme; Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce, tj but, at the risk of repeating an old joke, I will affirm that this is like leaving Hamlet out of the play. Vet, even in doing this, I can, without danger of incurring the self-reproach of uiklness, permit my imagination to travel to a time when the population of Canada alone will exceed that of the Imperial Island: so, when the representatives of goodly Canada would move into the house at Westminster, you would have the spectacle which Dundreary has best described, that of the tail waggling the dog. Let those who smile remember that a federation on the mighty plan suggested is not a compact made for the span of a statesman's life, but a constitution fashioned to endure as long as the power and the glory of the British Empire last. For these reasons and for a score of other good ones, I do not deem the scheme of federation to be either wise or practicable. It is a splendid subject to talk about, and, after all. it would be a pity to deny politicians the opportunity of discussing something grand now and again. The second alternative is Annexation, and upon this I shall not waste many words. At the outset, allow me to remark that I can conceive of little in national ambition higher than a desire to form a portion of the mightiest Republic that the world has ever seen ; but, with Canada, annexation would not mean alliance, it would simply mean absorption. Canadian individuality of course would cease, while the material condi- tion of the people would not be improved. This, however, is a question about which we can only vaguely surmise. Hut 1 think that those who, like ourselves, have had an opportunity of comparing certain republican institutions with corresponding i/j. New Papers on Canadian History, ones under English monarchy, can have no difficulty in giving the preference to those of the latter. I shall not dwell upon the spectacle of the ermine trailed through the party mire and beholden to the bad men who pull caucus wires, for I should have to speak with some bitterness. I contend that the administration of justice in this country is not, nor can it be held above suspicion ; for, it is not likely that the judge upon the bench can ignore the men who gave him his eminence ; he would be more than human if he were able to forget those who can, at a stated time, give him that eminence again. Nor would I, without a struggle, surrender the mild, I might say fictitious, kingly prerogative for that of the veto — which may be as arbitrary and capricious as the dictum of a Roman Emperor. If the veto is never arbitrary and never capricious, the man is to be thanked and not the constitution. It would be well too, for those who contemplate the grandeur of a political brotherhood extending from the Isthmus of Panama to the land of the Esquimaux, to ponder whether or not there may not be somewhere a breaking point in national expansion. Lastly, I do not think that our political vocabulary would gain much in elegance by the addition of such candidates as the " Mugwump" and the " Bloody Shirt." But, whether there be any force or not in my objections, I think that I am not over bold in affirming that our people do not desire annexation and never will accept it. Finally comes the proposal of national independence. At the risk of shocking some of my hearers, I will state as Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 1 5 my belief that national independence is the more natural and logical future of Canada. I think it just as natural and just as logical that, in good time, the Dominion should end its con- nection with the cherished motherland, as it is for the boy, attaining man's estate, to leave his father's house and, single- handed, achieve his own fortune. But, come independence when it may, there will be no reddening of the land and no serious turmoil. Mr. Gladstone stated his belief, less than three years ago, that if Canadians were to inform the mother country of their desire and readiness to stand alone, Great Britain would not s.iv •' No." After all, it will not be necessary to kill my friend Colonel Dennison or any of those U. E. Loyalists who carry the integrity of Canada upon the blade of their sword. To put in a plea for Canadian independence, of course you are called upon to state the gains, and you are handed a bill of costs. Upon the list of gains I shall put first what some may count as nought, and that is sentiment : take sentiment out of the breast of man and he becomes a sordid grubber for his bread. Independence would stimulate national ambition ; it would give Canada a status in the eyes of the world, and divert immigration to her fertile lands. Furthermore, it would give her the power to make and fashion treaties in accord with her commercial needs, and give her a place among nations. Higher aims would prevail in the political sphere, and as a consequence ambition would be more lofty. In a word, it would eive that for which some of the noblest men that ever 16 New Papers on Canadian History, lived, fought and bled and laid down their lives. I do not care to deal in heroics, but if the position of the guardian be higher than that of the ward, I take it that the standing of the independent state is superior to that of the dependent one. I do not see how there can be any dispute on this score. Some will say : " Granted, but your independent Dom ; - nion will be a mere weakling among nations. " And others may ask : " What can she do against hostile guns ? What is to hinder the Republic at her side from swallowing her up?" I deny that she will be a weakling. Her population is greater now, and her defenses are stronger than were those of the American colonies at the time of their revolt. Her population is greater than any one of nearly a dozen indepen- dent European kingdoms, and she has a wider area of fertile land than any country on the face of the earth. Alone, the valley of the Saskatchewan, according to scientific computation, is capable of sustaining 800,000,000 souls. And along these boundless stretches of fertile wheat-land, herds and flocks live, without housing, through the winter season. In short, the capabilities of this country, about whose future the misinformed have doubts, are so great that an adequate recital of them would be simply amazing. Let us now consider the dangers of an attack by hostile powers. In spite of all what pessimists may say, this is an age of peace and not of war ; nations are not growing more warlike but more peaceful. We have reached at last the age of commerce, and to-day the battle is that of the ploughshare and not of the sabre. I do not think that we need fear to see any grapeshot sent across the Niagara, for our good friends the Americans are Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. iy quite too busy making money to embark into such a profitless occupation. They have given us abundant proof that war is not upon their programme ; for they maintain no mighty fleet nor grinding army, but only ships and muskets enough to serve as a police force on land and sea. Moreover, they remember that the Canadian volunteers knew how to fight as early as 1 8 1 2, and they have not forgotten some of the lessons we taught them at Chrysler's farm, Chateauguay, and Oueenston Heights. Looking into the future, I perceive my country spanning this broad continent, her bosom throbbing with life and great plenty. Upon the pages of her history I can read the record of her achievements, it is worthy of a land with so rich an inheritance. I see her artists kneel for inspiration before her majestic and lovely landscapes, while able pens are moulding the traditions and legends with which the land is so richly strewn into an imperishable literature, encompassing history, romance and song. Later on I imagine that I see a people— intelligent, thrifty and well-ordered— who, with roll of drum and the joyous waving of flags, celebrates the centennial anniversary of the birth of Canada; and I hear statesmen alluding to this nineteenth year of the Confederation, as the one which saw unworthy men strive to sever the ties of the sisterhood. Later on still, it seems as if I heard them relate with pride that in spite of these men's treason, the loyalty and faith of the people remained unshaken ; that they went on adding and building, striving and achieving, until they crowned their work with a nationhood that in the eyes of civilized mankind stood second to none in prosperity, intelligence and general contentment. THE SCHISM IN THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE. ( An Address delivered before the GOLD W IX SMITH. M. A., D. C. L. X ( Canadian Club of New York. N the strength of the Anglo-Saxon race, — of which British institutions, now- adopted by every European nation except Russia, the British Empire in India, and the American Republic, besides many a famous deed and glorious enterprise, are the proofs, — there lurks a weakness. It is the weakness of self-reliance pushed to an extreme, which breeds division and isolation. Races such as the Celtic race, weaker in the individual, are sometimes made by their clannish cohesiveness stronger in the mass. The 20 New Papers on Canadian History, Celt seems to have lingered long in the clan state and to have had his character permanently moulded by it, while the Anglo- Saxon as a sea-rover came early out of that state and was trained from the infancy of the race to self-government. In enterprise and peril Anglo-Saxon will be the truest of comrades to Anglo- Saxon. But except under strong compression they are apt to fly apart. Even in travelling they hold aloof from each other. They quarrel easily and do not easily forget. Their pride perpetuates their estrangement. In their spleen and factious- ness they take the part of outsiders against each other. It is thus that the race is in danger of losing its crown. It is thus that it is in danger of forfeiting the leadership of civiliza- tion to inferior but more gregarious races, to the detriment of civilization as well as to its own disparagement. The most signal and disastrous instance of this weakness is the schism in the race caused by the American Revolution with the long estrangement that has followed, concerning which I am to speak this evening. You and I, gentlemen of the Canadian Club of New York ; you, natives of Canada, and some of you perhaps descendants of United Empire Loyalists domiciled in the United States; I, an Englishman, holding a professorship of History in an American University — represent the Anglo-Saxon race as it was before the schism, as it will be when the schism is at an end. We remind the race of the time when its magnificent realm in both hemispheres was one, and teach it to look for the time when that realm will be united again, not by a political bond, which from the beginning was unnatural and undesirable, but by the bond of the heart. While the cannon of the Fourth of July Art, Science, Literature, and Commtrce, 21 are being fired, and the speeches are being made in honor of American Independence, we, though we rejoice in the birth of the American Republic, must toll the bell of mourning for the schism in the Anglo-Saxon race. We must ask ourselves, and so far as without offence we may exhort Americans to ask themselves, what the quarrel was about, whether it was such a quarrel as might reasonably breed, not only enmity for the time, but undying hatred ; whether it ought not long before this to have given place to kinder and nobler thoughts ; and whether by cherishing it and treating it as a point of national pride the Anglo-Saxon of the west does not disparage and traduce his own greatness. The relation of political dependence between an Anglo- Saxon colony and its mother country was probably from the beginning unsound, and being unsound it was always fraught with the danger of a violent rupture. Perhaps it may be said that nothing could have averted such a rupture except a prescience which the wisest of statesmen seldom possess, or the teaching of a sad experience such as has led England since the American Revolution to concede to Canada and her other colonies virtual independence. The Greek colonist took the sacred fire from the altar hearth of the parent state and went forth to found a greater Greece in perfect independence, owing the parent state no political allegiance but only filial affection. It might have been better if the Anglo-Saxon, fully the equal of the Greek in colonizing faculty and power of political organization, had done the same. In this way it was that England herself had been founded. But the sentiment of personal allegiance to the Sovereign in whose realm the emi- 22 New Papers on Canadian History, grant had been born was strong in all feudal communities. It shows itself clearly in the covenant made on landing by the emigrants of the Mayflower^ nor had it by any means lost its hold over the minds even of men who took part in the American Revolution. In the period during which the col- onies were founded this sentiment was universal. The colonies of the United Netherlands were dependencies as well as those of the Spanish, French, and British monarchies. They were dependencies, and as such they were protected and supported by the military power of the parent state. Had the British colonies not been protected and supported by the arms of England, would this continent have become the heritage of the English-speaking race ? The English colonist was stronger no doubt than the colonist of New France ; but was he stronger than the colonist of New France backed by the French fleets and armies? Might he not, instead of calling this vast and peerless realm his own, have merely shared it with three or four other races between whom and him there would have been a balance of power, rivalry, war and all the evils from which afflicted and over-burdened Europe sometimes dreams of escap- ing by means of a European Federation? Might he not even have entirely succumbed to the concentrated power of the French monarchy, wielded by the strong hand and the towering ambition of a Richelieu or a Louvois? These are contingencies unfulfilled, but unfulfilled perhaps because one memorable morning, on the Heights of Abraham, a British army and a British hero decided that Anglo-Saxon, not French, should be the language ; that Anglo-Saxon, not French, should be the polity and the laws of the New World. And when that day Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 2j was won there burst from the united heart of the whole race in both hemispheres a cheer not only of triumph but of mutual affection and of Anglo-Saxon patriotism which history still hears amidst the cannon of the Fourth of July. Was the connection felt by the colonists to be generally oppressive and odious, or was the cause of quarrel merely a dispute on a particular point with the home government of the day? In the first case it might be natural, if not reasonable or noble, to cherish the feud ; in the second, it clearly would be unnatural. That the connection was not felt to be oppressive and odious, but, on the contrary, to the mass of the colonists was dear and cherished, is a fact of which, if all the proofs were produced, they would more than fill my allotted hour. Franklin said, only a few days before Lexington, that he had more than once travelled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a variety of company eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, and never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expres- sion of a wish for separation or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America. Jay said, that before the second petition of Congress, in 1775, he never heard an American of any class or of any description express a wish for the independence of the colonies. Jefferson said, that before the commencement of hostilities he had never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain, and after that the possibility was contemplated by all as an affliction. The Fairfax County " Resolves " denounce as a malevolent falsehood the notion breathed by the Minister into the ear of the King that the colonies intended to set up for independent States. Wash- 24 New Papers on Canadian History, ington, on assuming the command, declared, in his reply to an address from New York, that the object of the war was a restoration of the connection on a just and constitutional footing. Madison, at a later, day, avowed that it had always been his impression that a re-establishment of the colonial relations to the parent country, as they were previous to the controversy, was the real object of every class of the people till the hope of obtaining it had fled. Dickinson was not more opposed to arbitrary taxation than he was to separation, and the fiery Otis might be called as a witness on the same side.* Men there were no doubt, like Samuel Adams, republicans in sentiment and devoted to political agitation, who from the beginning aspired to independence and meant to bring about a rupture ; but they found it necessary to cloak their designs, and that necessity was the proof that the general sentiment was in favor of the connection. There is another proof of the same fact which is familiar to every Canadian mind and of which Canada herself is the lasting embodiment. It is found in the number and constancy of the Loyalists whose annals have been written in a most generous spirit by a representative of their enemies, Mr. Sabine, and whose illustrious and touching heritage of mis- fortune is still the light and pride of not a few Canadian hearths in the land in which, by the insensate cruelty of the victor, the vanquished were compelled to seek a home. There seems reason to believe that fully one-half of the people, including a fair share of intelligence, remained at least passively * I owe most of these citations to Mr. Sabine. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce, 25 loyal till the blundering arrogance and violence of the royal officers estranged multitudes from the royal cause. Twenty-five thousand Americans, as Sabine thinks, according to the lowest computation, were in arms for the crown. To the end there were whole batallions of them serving in the royal army. Sabine says that Sir Guy Carleton sent away twelve thousand exiles for loyalty's sake from New York before the evacuation. Judge Jones, in the history the publication of which we owe to the New York Historical Society, gives a much larger number. Two thousand took their departure even from the shores of Republican Massachusetts. When the Netherlands cast off the yoke of Spain, when Italy cast off the yoke of Austria, how many Dutchmen or Italians went into exile out of loyalty to the oppressor? This was not like the revolt of the Netherlands or of Italy, a rising against a foreign yoke : it was a civil war, which divided England as well as the United States. The American party in the British Parliament crippled the operations of the govern- ment and upon the first reverses enforced peace. Otherwise the loss of Cornwallis's little army would not have been the end. The contest would have been carried on by Great Britain with the same unyielding spirit which, after a struggle of twenty years, overthrew Napoleon. "It is the glory of England," says Bancroft, "that the rightfulness of the Stamp Act was in England itself the subject of dispute. It could have been so nowhere else. The King of France taxed the French colonies as a matter of course ; the King of Spain collected a revenue by his will in Mexico and Peru, in Cuba and Porto Rico, and wherever he ruled. The 26 New Papers on Canadian History, States-General of the Netherlands had no constitutional scruples about imposing duties on their outlying possessions. To England exclusively belongs the honor that between her and her colonies the question of right could arise ; it is still more to her glory, as well as to her happiness and freedom, that in that contest her success was not possible. Her principles, her traditions, her liberty, forbade that arbitrary rule should become her characteristic. The shaft aimed at her new colonial policy was tipped with a feather from her own wing." The reason why the colonies took arms, in short, was not that they were worse treated by their mother country than other colonists in those days, but that they were better treated. They rebelled not because they were enslaved, but because they were so free that the slightest curtailment of freedom seemed to them slavery. Whig and Tory, as Mr. Sabine says, wanted the same thing. Both wanted the liberty which they had enjoyed ; but the Whig required securities while the Tory did not. The Tory might have said that he had the securities which Bancroft himself has enumerated, those afforded by the tradi- tions, the Constitution, the political spirit of England herself, against any serious or permanent aggression on colonial liberty ; and that while he possessed, in municipal self-government, in jury trial, in freedom of conscience and of the press, in the security of person and of private property, the substance of freedom, he would exercise a little patience and try whether the repeal of the Tea Duty could not be obtained before he plunged the country into civil war. The Stamp Duty had been repealed, and though at the same time the abstract right of parliament to tax the colonies had been asserted, this had been Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce* 2j done with the full concurrence of Burke, and manifestly by way of saving the dignity of the Imperial legislature. The Tea Duty, trifling in itself, was a mere freak of Townsend's tipsy genius, to which the next turn in the war of parliamentary parties might have put an end, if colonial violence had not given a fatal advantage to the party of violence in the Imperial government. Nor does it seem to have been clear from the outset, even to the mind of Franklin, that the Imperial Parlia- ment, had not the legal power of taxing the colonies, unwise and unjust as the exercise of that power might be. It was the only Parliament of the Empire, and in regard to taxation as well as other matters, in it or nowhere was sovereign power. That it had absolute power of legislation on general subjects, including trade, was admitted on all hands ; and surely the distinction is fine between the power of general legislation and a power of passing a law requiring a tax to be paid. That there should be no taxation without representation might be a sound principle, but in the days of the unreformed Parliament it did not prevail in the mother country herself. Ship-money, to which the Tea Duty has been compared, was part of a great scheme of arbitrary government. It was intended, together with other devices of fiscal extortion, to supply the revenue for an unparliamentary monarchy, the reactionary policy of which in Church and State would, in Hampden's opinion, have quenched not only the political freedom but the spiritual life of the nation, and made England the counterpart and the partner in reaction of France and Spain. Nothing like this could be said of the Tea Duty. Bancroft acquits Grenville of any design to introduce despotism into the colonies. Such a 28 New Papers on Canadian History, design could hardly have entered the mind of a Whig who was doing his best to reduce to a nullity the power of the King. What Grenville desired to introduce was contribution to Imperial armaments, and he may at least be credited with the statesmanship which regarded the colonies, not as a mere group of detached settlements, but as an English Empire in the New World. The King may have had absolutist notions with regard to colonial as well as to home government, but the King was not an autocrat. The bishops may have wished to introduce the mitre, but the bishops were not masters of Parliament. Chatham was more powerful than King or bishops, and had his sun broken for an hour through the clouds which had gathered round its setting, the policy of the home government towards the colonies would at once have been changed. The preamble of the Declaration of Independence sets forth a series of acts of tyrannical violence committed by George III., and it suggests that these were ordinary and characteristic acts of the King's government. Had they been ordinary and characteristic acts of the King's government they would have justified rebellion; but they were nothing of the kind. They were measures of repression, ill-advised, precipitate and exces- sive, but still measures of repression, not adopted before violent resistance on the part of the colonists had commenced. No government will suffer its officers to be outraged for obeying its commands and their houses to be wrecked, or the property of merchants trading under its flag to be thrown into the sea by mobs. Jefferson, who penned the Declaration, is the. object of veneration to many, but his admirers will hardly pretend that he never preferred effect to truth. Ari % Science, Literature, and Commerce. 29 One count in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration he was obliged to withdraw. In inflated, not to say fustian phrase, and with extravagant unfairness, he charges George III., who, though he had a narrow mind, had at least as good a heart as Jefferson himself, with having been specially to blame for the existence of slavery and of the slave trade. " He has waged," it says, " cruel war against human nature, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the war of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing any legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." This count, as we know, was struck out in deference to the sentiments of patriots, heirs of the spirit of Brutus and Cassius, who were perpetuating and were resolved, if they could, to go on perpetuating the violation of sacred rights and the piratical warfare laid to the charge of George III. Not the least curious, surely, of historical documents is this manifesto of a civil war levied to vindicate the sacred principle that all men are born equal and with inalienable rights to liberty and happiness, when we consider that not only was the manifesto framed by a slave-owner and signed by slave-owners, but the Constitution to which the victory of the principle in the war gave birth embodied a fugitive-slave law and a legal- ization of the slave trade for twenty years. A stranger inducement surely never was held out to men to fight in the jo New Papers on Canadian History, cause of human freedom than that which was offered by Virginia to volunteers, three hundred acres of land and one sound and healthy negro. Equity compels us to admit that the want of a thorough grasp of the principle of liberty was not limited to the mind of George III. A Virginian planter fought not for freedom, the love of which had never entered his soul : he fought for his own proud immunity from control and for the subjection to his will of all around him. His haughtiness could hardly brook even association with the mercantile and plebeian New Englander in military command. Suppose the negro had taken arms in vindication of the prin- ciple that all men were born equal and with an inalienable right to liberty and happiness, his manifesto would have been tainted by no fallacy like that which taints the Declaration of Independence. The acts of tyranny and cruelty of which he would have complained, the traffic in human flesh, the confis- cation of the laborer's earnings, the chain and the lash, the systematic degradation of the slave, and all the wrongs of slavery, would have been not temporary measures of repression, adopted by authority in self-defence ; they would have been normal and characteristic of the system. On Jefferson's principle of framing indictments against governments what an indictment might the Loyalists again have framed against the government of Independence ! " We have adhered, " they might have said, " to a connection dear to all of you but yesterday, to the allegiance in which we were born, to a form of government which seems the best to us, and not to us only, but to Hamilton and others of your leading men, who avow that if Constitutional monarchy were here attainable Art, Science, Literature, ana Commerce. ji they would introduce it here. For this we have been ostra- cized, insulted, outraged, tortured, pillaged, hunted down like wild beasts. The amnesty which ought to close all civil wars has been denied us ; some of us have been hanged before the face of our departing friends ; and now we are stripped of all our property and banished from our native land under threat of death if we return. Even women, who cannot have borne arms in the royal cause, if they have property, are included in the proscription and in the sentence of death. The proscription list shows, too, that membership of the Church of England is practically treated as a crime ! " Surely these complaints would have been not less pertinent than those of Jefferson against George III. Atrocities had no doubt been committed by the Loyalists, but, as Mr. Sabine says, they had been committed on both sides. Conscientious error is no crime in politics any more than in religion, though it is treated as a crime by fanatical revolutionists as well as by inquisitors. Supposing even the Loyalists could have foreseen the present success of the American Republic, and with the success the evils and dangers which disquiet thoughtful Americans, would they have been very base or guilty in shrinking from revolution ? We are on the Pisgah of Democracy, but not yet in the promised land. No one is in the promised land at least, except Mr. Carnegie who, in his genial and jocund hymn of trfumph, pouring forth his joyous notes like a sky-lark of demo- cracy poised over the caucus and the spoils system, ascribes it to Democratic institutions that the Mississippi is as large as twenty-seven Seines, nine Rhones, or eighty Tibers. The Democracy which shall make government the organ of public j 2 New Papers on Canadian History, reason, and not of popular passion or of the demagogism which trades upon it, is yet in the womb of the future. Canada exults in having exchanged her royal governors for a government which is called responsible, though nothing is less responsible than a dominant party. In time, we trust, her exultation will be justified ; but there is too much reason to doubt whether the rule of an honorable and upright gentleman, trained not in the vote-market but in the school of duty, such as General Simcoe or Sir Guy Carleton, was not, politically as well as morally, better for all but professional politicians, than a reign of faction, demagogism and corruption. Forwards not backwards we must look, forwards not backwards we must go. Yet history may extend its charity to those who, when they were not smarting under intolerable or hopeless oppression, shrank from passing through a Red Sea of civil bloodshed to a Canaan which was beyond their ken. Besides the Tea Tax, no doubt, there were the restrictions on trade. These were in reality a more serious grievance, and probably they had at bottom at least as much to do with the Revolution as the Tea Tax. But such were the economical creed and the universal practice of the day. Chatham, the idol of the colonists, it was who threatened that he would not allow them to manufacture a horse-nail. The colonists themselves pro- bably, though they groaned under restrictions, shared the delusion as to the principle in pursuance of which the restric- tions were imposed, and they enjoyed privileges granted on the same principle and equally irrational which were supposed to be a compensation. The light of economical science had then barely dawned. Even now the shadows of the restrictive Arty Science ) Literature > and Commerce. policy linger in the valleys though the peaks have caught the rays of morning. There were Americans who desired a Republic. Samuel Adams we can hardly doubt was one of them. Judge Jones tells us that there was a Republican association at New York with classical phrases and aspirations. lh : patriotism of those days, the patriotism of Wilkes and Junius, was classical, not religious, like that of Hampden and Cromwell. It affected the Roman in everything, and was not unconnected with Roman Punch. Hut had George III. offered his colonial subjects a Republic, his offer would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority. Jefferson was a Rousseau ist and a French revolutionist in advance. When Jacobinism came on the scene his affinity to it appeared. He palliates, to say the least, the September massacres and gives his admirers reason for rejoicing that he was not a Parisian, since, if he had been, he might have canted with Robespierre and murdered with Billaud Varennes. " My own affections, " he says, " have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed I would have seen the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve kept in every country and left free it would have been better than it now is." So inestimable to this slave-holder appeared the boon of liberty, even the liberty of a bedlam turned into a slaughter-house, even the liberty which went yelling about the streets with the head of a Farmer-General or the fragments of a Court lady's body on a pole. Jefferson and his fellow Jacobins had not learned what the Puritans of the English Revolution had learned, that you cannot, merely by getting rid of kings, make the soul 34. New Papers on Canadian History, worthy to be free. They had not learned that tyranny is the offspring, not of monarchy, but of lawless passion in the possessors of power, and that it can wear the Jacobin's cap-of- liberty as well as the despot's crown. A true brother of Rousseau who preached domestic reform and sent his own children to the foundling hospital, Jefferson declaimed against slavery and kept his slaves. His theories may have been true and his sentiments may have been beautiful, but the British government could not have been reasonably expected to shape its colonial policy so as to satisfy a Rousseauist and a Jacobin. Hamilton, as I have said, avowed his belief that con- stitutional monarchy was the best of all forms of government. He thought the House of Lords an excellent institution. Mason said that to refer the choice of a proper character for a chief- magistrate to the people would be like referring a trial of colors to a blind man. Betwen the sentiments of these men and Jefferson's democracy the difference was as wide as possible. It would have been difficult for poor George III. to satisfy them all. It is unquestionably true that the conquest of French Canada, by setting the British colonists free from the fear of French aggression and rendering the protection of the mother country no longer necessary to them, opened the door for their revolt. But this, again, to say the least, is no proof that the colonies had been oppressed by the mother country. Had she left the French power on this continent unassailed in order that it might bridle them, her councils might have been reasonably branded with Machiavelism and bad faith. The ostensible cause of this civil war, of the schism in our Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 35 race and the violent rending of its realm, must be confessed, I submit, to have been inadequate. In their hearts the people felt it to be so, and their feeling showed itself, I cannot help thinking, in the languid prosecution of the war on the revolu- tionary side. States fail to send their contingents or their contributions, the armies are always melting away, brave men leave the camp on the eve of battle, the Federal cause is served without enthusiasm ; only the local resistance, where the people were fighting for their homes as well as on their own ground, is really strong. Better materials for soldiers never existed, and the colonies must have set out with many thousands of men trained in colonial or Indian wars. The royal armies were about the worst ever sent out from England, and every possible blunder, both military and moral, was committed by the royal generals, who allowed advantages to slip from their hands which WOlfe or Clive would certainly have made fatal while they estranged multitudes of waverers who were inclined to return to their allegiance. Yet Washington's last words before the arrival of succor from France are the utterance of blank despair. " Be assured, " he writes to Laurens, the agent in France, in April, 1 771 , "that day does not follow night more certainly than it brings with it some additional proof of the impracticability of carrying on the war without the aid you were directed to solicit." Nor is it only of want of zeal and vigor that Wash- ington and those who shared his responsibility complain ; they complain, and complain most bitterly, of self-seeking, of knavery, of corruption, of monopoly and regrating, heartlessly practised in the direst season of public need, of j6 New Papers on Canadian History, murderers of the cause who were building their greatness on their country's ruin. They complain that stock-jobbing, pecu- lation, and an insatiable thirst for riches, have got the better of every other consideration in almost every order of men, and that there is a general decay both of public and of private virtue. In order that contractors may fatten, armies go unfed and unclothed, tracing the line of their winter march with blood from their shoeless feet. Congress pays its debts with paper which it tries, like the French Jacobins, to force into circulation by penal enactment, and which, like the French assignats, opens an abyss of robbery, breach of contract and gambling speculation, an abyss so foul that Tom Paine himself afterwards proposed that whoever suggested a return to paper money should be punished with death. Washington's indig- nant hand lifts a corner of the veil of secrecy which covered the proceedings of Congress and the life of its members at Philadelphia. There was at least as much public spirit among these people as there was among any other people in the world. But the cause had not been sufficient to call it forth. As soon as the tar barrels of revolutionary excitement had burned out, the enthusiasm of the Sons of Liberty failed. The insur- gents of the Netherlands, when they struggled onwards through wave after wave of blood to independence, had behind them the hell of Spanish rule. The American insurgents had behind them no hell, but a connection in which they had enjoyed the substantial benefits of freedom ; and, after tasting civil war, most of them probably wished that things could only be as they had been before. The relation between a dependent colony and the imperial Arty Science Literature^ and Commerce. jy country, I repeat, was probably from the beginning false. At all events separation was inevitable; it was impossible that the Anglo-Saxon realm in both hemispheres should remain forever under one government, when the hour of political maturity for the colonies had arrived, especially as there was a certain difference of political character between the Anglo-Saxon of the old country and the Colonist which prevented the same policy from being equally suitable to both. What is to be deplored, if any foresight or statesmanship could have prevented it, is the violent rupture. What was to be desired, if human wisdom with the lights which men then possessed could have achieved it, was that the two portions of our race should have divided its realm in peace. Shelburne and Pitt seem to have wished and tried, when the struggle was over, to get back into something like an amicable partition of the Empire. Among other happy effects of such a settlement the fisheries' dispute would have been avoided. But the wound was too deep and too fresh. Shelburne and Pitt failed, and the two great Anglo-Saxon realms became absolutely foreign countries — unhappily, they became for many a day worse than foreign countries — to each other. Suppose, however, that not only the separation but the rupture was inevitable ; because the inevitable came to pass, were the two branches of the race to be enemies forever? Lei the Fourth of July orator ask himself what were the consequences to England, to America, to the French monarch}-, which, out of enmity to England, lent its aid to American revo- lution, and to mankind. To England the consequences were loss of money, which she could pretty well afford, and of j8 New Paper's on Canadian History, prestige which she soon repaired. The Count de Grasse, as the monument at Yorktown records, received the surrender of Cornwallis who, hemmed in by three or four times his effective number, could get no fair battle and was taken like a wounded lion pent up in his lair. But Rodney who did get fair battle did not surrender to the Count de Grasse. Spain, too, must needs interfere in the Anglo-Saxon quarrel ; but on the blood- stained and flame-lighted waters of Gibraltar sank the last armament of Spain ; and the day was not far distant when she was to invoke the aid of England as a redeemer from French conquest. England went into the fight with Napoleon, for the independence of Europe, as powerful and indomitable as she had gone into the fight with Philip II. or with Louis XIV. Her great loss was that of the political enlighten- ment which she might have received from an experiment in democracy tried by a kindred people at her side, while her politics have perhaps been somewhat deflected from the right line of development by the repellant influence of galling memories and of friction with an unfriendly Republic. The colonies having been the scene of war must have lost more men and money than England, besides the banishment, when the war had closed, of no small number of their citizens. This loss they soon repaired, but they also lost their history and that connection with the experiences and the grandeurs of the past which at once steadies and exalts a nation. What was worse than this, the Republic was launched with a revolutionary bias which was the last thing that it needed. At the same time there was engendered a belief in the right of rebellion and in the duty of sympathizing with it on all occasions, which was . Irt, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 39 dotincd to bear bitter fruit at last. The rebellion of the South in [86l was manifestly inspired by sentiments nursed and consecrated by the Revolution. I remember seeing some words of Abraham Lincoln, in his earlier days, on the right of rebelling as often as people were dissatisfied with their govern- ment, which it seemed to me would have justified Southern secession. Another consequence was the schism of the race on this continent, issuing in the foundation of a separate and hostile Canada, which, in the course of a few years, was to encounter the Revolutionary colonies in arms and to defend itself against them with at least as much energy and as much success as they had defended themselves against England. British emigration, moreover, was diverted from America to Australia ; Anglo-Saxon cities which might have grown up here grew up on the other side of the globe ; and the Anglo-Saxon element on this continent, in which the tradition and faculty of self-government reside, was thus deprived of a re-inforcement the loss of which is felt when that element has to grapple with a vast influx of foreign emigration untrained in self-government. To the French monarchy the consequence was bankruptcy, which drew with it utter ruin, and sent the King to the scaffold, and Lafayette to an Austrian prison. To humanity the consequence was the French Revolution, brought on by the bankruptcy of the French monarchy and by the spirit of violent insurrection transmitted from America to France. Of all the calamities which have ever befallen the human race the French Revolution, as it seems to me, is the greatest. If any one is startled by that assertion let him review the history of the zj.0 New Papers on Canadian History, preceding half century, see what progress enlightenment had made, and to what an extent liberal and humane principles had gained a hold upon the governments of Europe. Let him consider how much had been done or was about to be done in the way of reform by Turgot, Pombal, Aranda, Tanucci, Leopold of Tuscany, Joseph of Austria, Frederic. Catherine, and Pitt. The American Revolution brought the peaceful march of progress to a violent crisis. Then followed the catastrophe in France, the Reign of Terror, the military despotism of Napoleon, the Napoleonic wars, desolating half the world and lending ten-fold intensity to the barbarous lust of bloodshed, the despotic reaction of 1815, another series of violent revolutions, another military despotism in France, with more wars in its train ; and, on the other hand, Communism, Intransigentism, and all the fell brood of revolutionary chi- meras to which Jacobinism gave birth, and which, imported into this continent by political exiles, are beginning to breed serious trouble even here. Separation, once more, was inevi- table; but if it could only have been peaceful what a page of calamity, crime, and horror, would have been torn from the book of fate ! Then came the disastrous and almost insane war of 18 12, an after-clap of the war of the Revolution. So far as that war was on the American side a war for the freedom of the seas it was righteous. Nobody can defend the Orders in Council, or the conduct of the British government, and the only excuse is that Great Britain was then in the agony of a desperate strug- gle, not for her own independence only, but for the indepen- dence of all nations. So far as it was a war of anti-British Arty Science, Literature^ and Commerce. ji feeling and of sympathy with Jacobinism, as to a great extent it was, the protest of Webster and New England, it appears <» me, may be sustained. That strife over and its bitterness somewhat allayed, there came disputes respecting the bounda- ries of Canada and at the same time bickerings about the slave trade, which England was laboring with perfect sincerity to put down. Later still came the quarrel bred by the sympathy of a party in England with Southern secession. I saw something of that controversy in my own country, stand- ing by the side of John Bright against the dismemberment of the great Anglo-Saxon community of the West, as I now stand by the side of John Bright against the dismemberment of the great Anglo-Saxon community of the East. The aristocracy of England as a class was naturally on the side of the Plan r aristocracy of the South, as the Planter aristocracy of the South would, in a like case, have been on the side of the aristocracy of England. The mass of the nation was on the side of freedom, and its attitude effectually prevented not only the success but the initiation of any movement in Parliament for the support or recognition of the South. If some who were not aristocrats or Tories failed to understand the issue between the North and the South, and were thus misguided in the bestowal of their sym- pathies, let it in equity be remembered that Congress, when the gulf of disunion yawned before it, had shown itself ready not only to compromise with slavery, but to give slavery further securities, if, by so doing, it could preserve the Union. Not a few- friends of the Republic in England stifled their sympathy because they deemed the contest hopeless and thou ,ht that to encourage perseverance in it was to lure the Republic to her ruin. When /j.2 New Papers on Canadian History, Mr. Gladstone proclaimed that the cause of disunion had triumphed and that Jeff. Davis had made the South a nation, some there were who echoed his words with delight ; not a few there were who echoed them in despair. I first visited America during the civil war, when the Alabama controversy was raging in its full virulence. Even then I was able to write to my friends in England that, angry as the Americans were, and bitter as were their utterances against us, a feeling towards the old country, which was not bitterness, still had its place in their hearts ; and it seems not chimerical to hope that the feel- ing which was thus shown to be the most deeply seated will in the end entirely prevail. In England, already, a display of the American flag excites none but kindly feelings, and the time must surely come when a display of the flag which American and British hands together planted on the captured ramparts of Louisburg will excite none but kindly feelings here. The political feud between the two branches of the race would now I suppose be nearly at an end, if it were not for the Irish, or rather for the Irish vote. I am not going into the question of Home Rule, or as it would more properly be called, the question of Celtic secession. But I wish to impress upon my hearers one fact, which, unless it can be denied or its plain significance can be rebutted, is decisive, as it seems to me, of the Irish question. The north of Ireland is not more favored by nature than other parts ; its laws, its institutions, its connection with Great Britain under the Union, are pre- cisely the same as those of the other provinces ; the only dif- ference is that, having been settled by the Scotch, it is mainly Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, while the rest of the Island is Art, Science Literature ) and Commerce. jj Celtic and Catholic; and the north is prosperous, contented, law-abiding and loyal to the Union. This fact, I say, appears to me decisive, nor have I ever seen an attempt on the part of secessionists to deal with it or rebut the inference. To extend Anglo-Saxon constitutionalism and legality to the clannish and law less Celt, who after the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England Still had his abode in Cornwall, Wales, the Highlands of Scot- land, and Ireland has been a hard and tedious task. Cornwall was Anglo-Saxonized early, though traces of the Celtic temper in politics still remain. Wales was Anglo-Saxonized later by Edward the First, and the Kings his successors, who perfected his work. The Highlands of Scotland were not Anglo-Saxon- ized till 1745, when the last rising of the Clans for the Pre- tender was put down, and law, order, settled industry, and the Presbyterian Church penetrated the Highland glens with the standards of the United Kingdom. The struggle to make the Celtic clans of Ireland an integral and harmonious part of the Anglo-Saxon realm, carried on from age to age amidst un- toward and baffling influences of all kinds, especially those of the religious wars of the Reformation, form one of the most disastrous and the saddest episodes of history ; though it must be remembered that struggles not unlike this have been going on in other parts of Europe where national unificaiion was in progress, without receiving so much critical attention or making so much noise in the world. One great man was for a moment on the point of accomplishing the work and stanching forever the source of tears and blood. That Cromwell intended t<> ex- tirpate the Irish people is a preposterous calumny. To no man was extirpation less congenial ; but he did intend to make 44 New Papers on Canadian History, an end of Irishry, with its clannishness, lawlessness, supersti- tion, and thriftlessness, and to introduce the order, legality, and settled industry of the Anglo-Saxon in its place. To use his own expression he meant to make Ireland another England, as prosperous, peaceful, and contented. It is impossible that British statesmen can allow a separate realm of Celtic lawless- ness to be set up in the midst of the Anglo-Saxon realm of law ; if they did, the consequence would be civil war, murder- ous as before, between the two races and religions in Ireland, then reconquest and a renewal of the whole cycle of disasters. Nor can any government suffer the lives, property, and indus- try of its law-abiding citizens to be at the mercy of a murderous conspiracy, or permit terrorism to usurp the place of the law. Butchering men before the faces of their wives and families, beating out a boy's brains in his mother's presence, setting fire to houses in which men are sleeping, shooting or pitch-capping women, boycotting a woman in travail from medical aid, mob- bing the widow as she returns from viewing the body of her mur- dered husband, driving from their calling all who will not obey the command of the village tyrant, mutilating dumb animals and cutting off the udders of cows, blowing up with dynamite public edifices in which a crowd of innocent sightseers of all ages and both sexes are gathered —these are not things which civilization reckons as liberties. They are not things by which any practical reform can be effected, by which any good cause can be advanced. America has seen something of Celtic law- lessness as well as Great Britain, and more Irish probably were put to death at the time of the draft riots in this city than have suffered under all those special acts for the prevention of Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 45 crime in Ireland, miscalled coercion acts, the very number and frequent renewal of which only show that the British govern- ment is always trying to return to the ordinary course of lav. . Americans do not allow conspiracy to usurp the place of Legal authority, or one man to deprive another of his livelihood by boycotting at his will ; nor do I suppose that holders of real estate in New York regard with philanthropic complacency the proposal to repudiate rents. When the other European governments find it necessary to put forth their force in order to oppose disturbance, when Austria proclaims a state of siege, or Germany resorts to strong measures in Posen and Alsace-Lorraine, no cry of indignation is heard ; when Italy sends her troops to restore order and crush an agrarian league which is dominating by assassination and outrage like that of Ireland, no American legislatures pass resolutions denouncing the Italian government and expressing sympathy with the Camorra. It seems to be believed that Ireland is governed as a dependency by a British Viceroy with despotic power, who oppresses the people at his pleasure or at the pleasure of tyrannical England, I doubt whether many Americans are dis- tinctly conscious of the fact that Ireland like Scotland has her full representation in the United Parliament, and if her mem- bers would act like those from Scotland, might obtain any practical reform which she desired. The Lord-Lieutenant has been compared to an Austrian satrapy in Italy. An Austrian satrapy, with a full representation of the people in Parlia- ment, a responsible executive, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and a free press ! It happens that thirty years ago the British House of Commons voted by an overwhelming majority the 46 New Papers on Canadian History, abolition of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, but the bill was dropped, as Lord St. Germain, the Lord-Lieutenant of that day formally announced, in deference to the expressed wishes of the Irish people. I do not blame Americans for misjudging us ; the au- thority by which they are misled is apparently the highest. But they too know what faction is, and that in its evil parox- ysms it is capable not only of betraying but of traducing the country. Americans will presently see that the dynamite of Herr Most and that of Rossa is the same ; that the seeds of disorder and contempt for law scattered in Ireland will spring up here ; that war between property and plundering anarchy impends in this as well as in other countries, and that you can- not strengthen the hands of anarchy in one country without strengthening them in all. Openly, and under its own banner, anarchism is making formidable attempts to grasp the govern- ment of American cities. It is not only your neighbor's house that is on fire and the flames of which you are fanning, it is your own. Nor ought Americans to forget that they have re- cently themselves set us an illustrious example. By them Englishmen have been taught resolutely to maintain the integ- rity of the nation, even though it be at the cost of the most tremendous of civil wars. But then there is the social friction. At the time of the Revolution one ultra-classical patriot proposed that the language of the new Republic should be Latin, forgetting that Latin was the language of Nero and his slaves as well as of the Gracchi. I sometimes almost wish that his suggestion had been adopted, so that the two branches of our race might not ./;-/, Science, Literature, and Commerce. ./~ have had a common tongue to convey their carpings, scoffings, and gibings to each other. English travellers come scurrying over the I'nited States with notions gathered from Martin Chuzzlewit, seeing only the cities, where all that is least American and least worthy is apt to be gathered, not the farms and villages, in which largely reside the pith, force, and virtue of the nation ; ignorant of the modes of living and travelling, running their heads against social custom, carrying about their own bath-tubs, and dressing as though they were among hunter tribes. Then they go home and write magazine articles about American society and life. Americans go to England full of Republican prejudice and sensitiveness, with minds made- up to seeing nothing but tyranny or servility on all sides, — ignorant, they also, of the ways of the society in which they find themselves, construing every oversight and every word that they do not understand as a studied insult not only to themselves but to their Republic. I was reading the other day a book on British Aristocracy by a distinguished American, the lion's provider to one still more distinguished. He wa far free from prejudice as to admit that English judges did not often take bribes. But, in English society, he found a repulsive mass of aristocratic insolence on one side and of abject flunky- ism on the other. The position of the men of intellect, the Tennysons, Brownings, Thackerays, A'lacaulays, Darwins, Ilux- leys, and Tyndalls he found to be that of the Russian serf, who holds the heads of his master's horses while his master flogs him. He represents the leaders of English society as going upon their knees for admission to his parties, which ought to have mollified him, but did not. It seems that when he was nd there was only one high-minded gentleman there, and even that one was in the hah ig the hospitality I he enjoyed [f people - much as th< j saj the) do, would I ft so much about it S ar from the British the most ,. slaves of aristocracy, thej an the an in Europe which would ne\ . wcistenci — always insist the equality ligh-born and Ion e the law. \ stocrac] has survived in England for the that there alone its privih curtailed and its -- was jealously repressed. In England, as in other countries, aristocracy as a pol tkal power is about to pass away, and there will be other and more rational guarantees and stability for the future. But I that the British a' se ch and idle classes I do not believe it is worse than the idle s IS millionaires in V-u York, It has st some sen-.- v. dut •m. All its - is nmitted under an electric light and telegraphed to a prurient world, which - cravinj s . ... s - ■ : ■ h nkj > heart As to the pomps and vanities of 1 me to much the saa th sides tic Assured rank. ■ w ealth. Si all our studies of the ihilosopli the traditions ... s . i it cath< . in ers, legem As.— a land, ol which th« I ~ less Art, Science, Literature, and < ommerce, eg fourt( i ii i 'Hi hi ies of culture, I hi tructun ol tj i annot be the ame thai ii is in thi New World. W( ought to hav< philosophy enough to admit thai a itructun ol different from ours ma) lu\ . grai i , perhap i i \ en \ irl ui its own. rhe old cannot at a bound becomi as thi new, noi w mi Id it be better i"i us ii it could. Americanize the planet, .Hid you will retard noi quicken the march ol civilization, w h u l\ to propel it . i uin dh ei lit) and emulal ion. I ma) I"- politically behind America, and have ii isons to learn from America which ihe will learn thi mon readil) the mon kindly the) are imparted. Bui she is noi .1 land ol tyranl and slaves. Her m >narchy does noi cosl the peopli more than idenl ial ele< t i< m . I rood M r. Cai \ ho de< m ii t he special boon ol Democrac) thai he is perfectly the equal of ever) other man, is no more politically the e [ual ol .1 Boss than I .mi ni ,1 I >uke. < me liberty England , unli nr patriotism misleads me, in .1 degree peculiar to herself, and perhaps it 1 ol all liberties 1 he mo ii \ ital and the mo ii precious During this Irish contro . terribly momentous and exa | to us, Iri ih Nati malists and Ameri< an sympathi ers with Irisli nationalism, have been allowed freely pres 1 t heir opinion 1 e\ en in tanj 'uage far from 1 ourteou to En ;lishmen through .ill the magazine and 01 an of the English press. The English press is under thi irship neither oi kings, nor of the 1 1 1> »l ». Perhaps the cen 01 ihip ol t he mob 1 1 noi le - 1 inimical to 1 he fr< ion oi t rul h, I< harrowing or less degrading than that <>f kings. The literary men ol Amerii a, whose influeni e on lentimenl musl be great, an apl to be somewhat anglophobic. The) 5<9 New Papers on Canadian Histo?y, have reason to feel galled by the unfair competition to which the absence of international copyright subjects them. I was reading, not long ago, an American book of travel in Italy, very pleasant, except that on every other page there was an angry thrust at England, where the writer told us he would be very sorry to live, though it did not appear that the presumptuous Britons were pressing that hateful domicile upon him. Then, after harping on English grossness, brutality, and barbarism, he goes to worship at the shrines of Byron, Keats, and Shelley ; as though the poetry of Byron, Keats, and Shelley were anything but the flower of that plant, the root and stem of which are so coarse and vile. A Confederate flag is descried, floating probably over the home of some exile, on the Lake of Como. The writer is transported with patriotic wrath at the sight. Two Englishmen on board the steamer, as he tells us, grin ; and he takes it for granted that their grinning is an expression of their British malignity ; yet, surely, it may have been only a smile at his emotion, at which the reader, though innocent of British malignity, cannot possibly help smiling. " Heaven knows," a character is made to say in an American novel now in vogue, " I do not love the English. I was a youngster in our great war, but the iron entered into my soul when I understood their course towards us and when a gallant young sailor from our town, serving on the Kcarsage in her fight with the Alabama (that British vessel under Confederate colors) was wounded by a shot cast in a British arsenal, and fired from a British cannon by a British seaman from the Royal Naval Reserve transferred from the training-ship Excellent." The writer shows that by the very way in which he strives to color the facts that Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 5/ he knows the charge here levelled against the British govern- ment and nation to be unjust ; and art ill fulfills her miss when she propagates false history for the purpose of keeping up ill-will between nations. The soldiers, by whom it might be supposed that the traditions of hostility would be specially preserved and cherished, I have usually found not bitter; but soldiers seldom are. When Mr. Ingalls, or Mr. Fry, pours out his vocabulary upon England and upon us who rejoice in the name of English- men, I want to ask them, whether Ingalls and Fry are not English names. These gentlemen must have very bad blood in their own veins. Their education too must have been poor, if it is on English literature that their minds have been fed. The character of races, though perhaps not indelible, is lasting. It passes almost unchanged through zone after zone of history. The Frenchman is still the Gaul ; the Spaniard is still the Iberian. Abraham still lives in the Arab tent. Yet we are asked by American anglophobists to believe that of two branches of the same race, which have been parted only for a single century, and have all that time been under the influence of the same literature and similar institutions, one is a mass of brutality and infamy, while the other is unapproachable perfection. There has no doubt been a certain division, both of char- acter and of achievement, between the Anglo-Saxon of the old country and the Anglo-Saxon of the New World. The Anglo- Saxon of the New World has organized Democracy, with t he- problems of which, after the Revolution, he was distinctly brought face to face; whereas the Anglo-Saxon of the old 52 New Papers on Canadian History, country, having glided into Democracy unawares, while he fancied himself still under a monarchy because he retained monarchical forms, is now turning to his brother of the New World for lessons in Democratic organization. With the Anglo-Saxon of the old country has necessarily hitherto remained the leadership of literature and science, which the race has known how to combine in full measure with political greatness. With the Anglo-Saxon of die old country have also remained the spirit of Elizabethan adventure and the faculty of conquering and of organizing conquest. Surely, in the British Empire in India, no Anglo-Saxon can fail to see at all events a splendid proof of the valor, the energy, the fortitude, and the governing-power of his race. Remember how small is the number of the Anglo-Saxons who rule those two hundred and fifty millions. Remember that since the establishment of British rule there has never been anything worthy the name of a political revolt, that at the time of the great mutiny all the native princes remained faithful, that when Russia threatened war the other day one of them came zealously forward with offers of contributing to the defence of the Empire. Remember that the Sikhs, with whom yesterday England was fighting desperately for ascendancy, are now her best soldiers, while their land is her most flourishing and loyal province. Yet we are told that the Anglo-Saxon can never get on with other races! It is not on force alone that the British Empire in India is founded ; the force is totally inadequate to produce the moral and political effects. The certainty that strict faith will always be kept by the government is the talisman which makes Sepoy and Rajah alike loyal and true. In an American Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 5J i -inc. the other day, appeared a rabid invective against British rule by one of those cultivated Hindoos, Baboos as they arc called, who owe their very existence to the peace of the Empire, and if its protection were withdrawn would be crushed like egg-shells amidst the wild collision of hostile races and creeds which would ensue. The best answer to the Baboo's accusations is the freedom of invective which he enjoys, and which is equally enjoyed by the native press of India. What other conqueror could ever afford to allow perfect liberty of complaint, and not only of complaint but of denunciation to the conquered? We, gentlemen of the Canadian Club of New York, heirs not of the feuds of our race, but of its glorious history, its high traditions, its famous names, can look with equal pride on all that it has done, whether in the Old World or in the New, from New York to Delhi, from Winnipeg or Toronto to Sidney or Melbourne, and rejoice in the thought that though the roll of England's drum may no longer go with morning around the world, and though the cun may set on England's military empire, morning in its course round the world will forever be greeted in the Anglo-Saxon tongue and the sun will newer set on Anglo-Saxon greatness. And if in the breast of any American envy is awakened by the imperial grandeur of his kinsmen in the ( )ld World, perhaps there is a thought which ma} - alia} - his pain. Power in England is passing out of the hands of the imperial classes. and those which gave birth to the heroic adventurers, into those of classes which, whatever ma}- be their other qualities, arc neither imperial nor heroic. It seems to be the -rami aim of statesmen, by protective tariffs and ecocomical legislation of 5^ New Papers on Canadian History, all kinds, to call into existence factory-life on as large a scale as possible, as though this were one thing needed to make communities prosperous and happy. Wealth, no doubt, the factory-hand produces, and possibly he may prove hereafter to be good material for the community and the Parliament of Man, but he is about the worst of all material for the nation. He is apt to be a citizen of the labor market and to have those socialistic or half-socialistic tendencies with which patriotism cannot dwell. England has been inordinately enriched by the vast development of her manufactures. But for her force, perhaps even for her happiness, it would be better if Yorkshire streams still ran unpolluted to the sea and beside them dwelt English hearts. It seems at all events scarcely possible that such an electorate should continue to hold and administer the Indian Empire. Some day we may be sure the schism in the Anglo-Saxon race will come to a end. Intercourse and intermarriage, which are every day increasing ; the kindly words and acts of the wiser and better men on both sides ; the influence of a common literature and the exchange of international courtesies and good offices — these, with all-healing time, will at last do their work. The growing sense of a common danger will cause Americans, if they hold property and love order, to give up gratifying their hatred of England by fomenting disorder in Ireland. The feud will cease to be cherished, the fetish 01 hatred will cease to be worshipped, even by the meanest members of either branch of the race. No peddler of inter- national rancor will then be any longer able to circulate his villain sheets and rake up his shekels by trading on the .7/7, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 55 lingering enmity of the Anglo-Saxon of the New World to his brother beyond the sea. But between the two branches of the race which the Atlantic divides, the only bond that can be renewed is that of the heart ; though I have sometimes indulged, a thought that there might at some future day be an Anglo-Saxon franchise, enabling a member of any English- speaking community to take up his citizenship in any other English-speaking community without naturalization, and that, in this manner, the only manner possible, might be fulfilled tin desire of those who dream of Imperial Federation. But the relations of the English-speaking communities of Canada to the English-speaking communities of the rest of this continent are manifestly destined by nature to be more intimate. I do not speak of political relations, nor do I wish to raise the veil of the future on that subject ; but the social and commercial relations of Canada with the United States must be those of two kindred communities dwelling not only side by side, but on territories interlaced and vitally connected in regard to all that concerns commerce and industry with each other, while united these territories form a continent by themselves. In spite of political separation, social and commercial fusion is in fact rapidly going on. There are now large colonies of Cana- dians south of the line, and Anglo-Saxons from Canada occupy, so far as I can learn, not the lowest grade, either in point of gy or of probity, in the hierarchy of American industry and trade. One name at all events they have in the front rank <>t American finance. Of those American fishermen, between whom and the fishermen of Canada this dispute has arisen, not a few, it seems, are Canadians. Not a little of Canadian 56 New Papers on Canadian History, commerce on the other hand is in American hands. The railway system of the two countries is one ; and they are far advanced towards a union of currency. Of the old estran- gement, which the Trent affair for a moment revived, almost the last traces have now disappeared and social reconciliation is complete. It is time then that the Anglo-Saxons on this continent should set aside the consequences of the schism and revert to the footing of common inheritance, instituting free- trade among themselves, allowing the life-blood of commerce to circulate freely through the whole body of their continent, enjoying in common all the advantages which the continent affords, its fisheries, its water-ways, its coasting-trade, and merging forever all possibility of dispute about them in a complete and permanent participation. The Fisheries dispute will have been a harbinger of amity in disguise if it leads us at last to make a strenuous effort to bring about a change so fraught with increase of wealth and other benefits to both countries as Commercial Union. The hour is in every way propitious if only American politicians will abstain from insulting or irritating England, whose consent is necessary, by reckless efforts to capture the Irish vote. Let us not allow the hour to pass away in fruitless discussion, but try to translate our wishes into actions. Nor need any Canadian fear that the political separation to which perhaps he clings will be forfeited by accepting Commercial Union. A poor and weak nationality that would be which depended upon a customs line. Introduce free-trade at once throughout the world and the nationalities will remain as before. Abolish every custom- house on the Pyrenees, France and Spain will still be nations . trt, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 57 as distinct from each other as ever. It political union takes place b.-tu ecu the United States and ( lanada, it will not be because the people of the United States are disposed to aggres sion upon Canadian independence, of which there is no thought in an} - American breast, nor because the impediments to commercial intercourse and of the free interchange of commercial services will have been removed, but because in blood and character, language, religion, institutions, law and interests, the two portions of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent are one people. ilflB ^<^e -£c4 _^*-% THE GREAT CANADIAN NORTH-WEST. / Rev. JOHN C. ECCLESTON, />. />. A'c\i'_. per cent, in copper. An expert says, " I feel safe in saying there are here two hundred million tons <>f ore in sight, and above the surface of the country." As Port Arthur is approached, the glorious scenery of Lake Superio and Thunder Bay make an imp ession which the traveller will never forget. Thunder Cape, like a mighty janitor of the harbor, rises abruptly 1,400 feet above the hike. Across the water, the dark mass of the McKay's mountains looms up majestically, while Pie Island sits astride the mouth of the harbor like a huge Monitor at anchor. These three gigantic upheavals stand in massive dignity, like three em- perors, each with a cloud}- crown about his head. Six miles from Tort Arthur is the rival ami once famous settlement of Fort William. When the North-west Fur Company was in its glory, Fort William was the place where the leading partners from Montreal proceeded in great State, once a year, to meet their agents and factor from the various trading-posts of the northern wilderness, to discuss the affairs of the Company and arrange plans for the future. Wrapped in rich furs, their huge canoes freighted with every convenience and luxury, and manned by Canadian voyageurs, these fur- lord ascended the Ottawa and the Matawan to Lake Nipissing, thence up the French River to Lake Sup< y8 New Papers on Canadian History, They had a retinue of cooks and bakers, casks of choice wines, delicacies of every kind, in fact everything necessary for the banquets which were indispensable adjuncts of these great meets. In an immense wooden building was the great council hall and which also served as a banqueting hall, decorated with Indian arms and acoutrements, and trophies of the fur- trade from the Rocky Mountains to the Arctic Ocean. There was a vast deal of solemn deliberation, hard Scottish reasoning and drinking. The tables groaned under the weight of game of all kinds : venison from the woods, fish from the lakes, with hunters' delicacies, such as buffalo tongue and beaver tail, and various luxuries from London, all served up by experienced cooks. While the chiefs thus revelled in the Hall and made the rafters resound with bursts of loyalty and old Scottish songs, chanted in voices cracked and sharpened by northern blasts and blizzards, their merriment was echoed and prolonged by a mongrel legion of Canadian half-breeds, Indian hunters and vagabond hangers-on, who feasted sumptuously on the crumbs that fell from the tables, and made the welkin ring with old French ditties, mingled with Indian yelps and yellings. The feudal state of Fort William is a thing of the past. Its banquet hall is deserted, its council chamber in ruins and the fur-lords of the lakes and forests have vanished forever like the buffalo and the beaver. Three hundred miles from Port Arthur, we reach Rat Portage, the capital of the enormous but not prepossessing district of Keewatin, the " country of the north wind," and the " Lake of the Woods' " station. This lake, — once supposed to be the source of the Mississippi River, .Irt, Science^ Literature, and Commerce. yg and the starting-point for a boundary line in every treaty between Great Britain and the United States, — is [ 80 miles long and a veritable paradise for hunters, fishermen and the lovers of nature, in her inner sanctuaries. It is a favorite place for summer excursionists from Winnipeg, and unequalled as a place for camping parties. Pierre Jaultier tie Varennnes, Lord of Verendroge, built forts on the islands of this lake one hundred years before Lewis and Clark saw tie waters of the "great river of the west." It was here one of Verendroge's sons, a Jesuit priest, and twenty men were massacred by the Sioux. The lake is so profusely dotted with islands that it seems, as it shifts and winds about in its devious channel, like a wondrously beautiful river. Just half way across the continent, 1,434 miles from Montreal, 1.486 miles from Vancouver and 1,827 miles from New York, we reach the city of Winnipeg, the ambitious rival of Chicago. It is one of the "seven wonders" of the New World — whatever the other six ma)- be; it is the central city of the continent and, probably within the very near future, one of the large t. In 1870, when General mow Lord) Wolseley reached Manitoba to quell the Red River rebellion, all there was of Winnipeg consisted in a few huts and cottages erected by the pioneers close to the walls of Fort Garry, as a protection against the knives and tomahawks of the savages. To-day it is a proud city of 30,000 inhabitants, with substantial and beautiful buildings and churches, which would do credit to London New York ; it claim- four hundred bu iness houses ; more than fifty manufacturing establishments, fifty good hotels and So New Papers on Canadian History, over a dozen banking-houses. Last year, 6,000,000 bushels of wheat passed through the Winnipeg elevators. Three daily papers furnish the citizens the news of the world. Six railroads center at Winnipeg and discharge at all hours of the day crowds of tourists, emigrants, farmers, merchants, and fill the streets with a busy, bu:tling concourse that reminds one of Broadway or Charing Cross. I spoke of six different railroads, but soon there will a seventh, which, according to the sanguine projectors, is destined :o revolutionize the traffic of the continent. Sir Hugh Sutherland, President of the Manitoba and Hudson Bay Railway, promises that in two years' time trains will be running from Winnipeg to Churchill Harbor — Hudson Bay— a distance of 715 miles. From Winnipeg to Liverpool, via Hudson Bay, is but 3,641 miles, that is 783 miles less than by way of Montreal, and 1,032 miles shorter than by Chicago. It is claimed by the projectors of this new route that it will considerably shorten the distance between the two great empires of the East and England's principal shipping port. Between Liverpool, China and Japan, a gain of 1,117 miles is made over the Montreal rou:e, while a gain of 2,136 miles will be effected over the San Francisco and New York route. The new route will not only control the wheat traffic of all the north-western Provinces of the Dominion, but likewise that of Minnesota, Dakota, Montana and Washington Territory. The farmer shipping direct to Liverpool via Hudson Bay, will receive at least 15 per cent, more for his grain and save the interference of middlemen. Time will prove the truth or fallacy of these fond hopes. Art, Science Literature y and Commerce. Si Deriding skeptics say that the first ship loaded with wheal th I gets blocked up, and has to spend six months in the i© Hudson Strait, will prick this bubble into flatulency. Others affirm that a safe and expeditious passage can be depended upon five months in the year. Evidently Sir Hugh believes in the road, and as the government has guaranteed the interest on §5,000,000 worth of bonds, it is more than likely that the road will be completed. The next step in order will be the building of a branch road to Fort Yukon ; and that wonderful child, already spoken of, may yet see the iron horse careering down the valley of the Yukon and cooling his heels in the icy waters of Behring Sea. Taking again our point of departure at Winnipeg, we have a stretch of 800 miles of prairie before reaching the foot of the Rockies. We pass on our way the thriving town of Brandon (which, before it was a year old, had grown into a city of 2,500 inhabitants i, and reach Regina, the capital of the new territory of Assinaboia. Regina is the head-quarters of the " mounted police," the most efficient organized body of 500 men in the world — the terror of evil-doers in general and rumsellers and drinkers in particular. Having already spoken in my preliminary remarks of the Province of Alberta, and its capital Calgary, we pause once more before climbing the mountains, at Bauff, which is destined, like the Hot Springs of Arkansas, to be the great sanitarium for rheumatic and other diseases of a chronic nature. Here, at .1 great elevation, surrounded by snow-clad mountains, we found hot sulphur springs of varying temperatures. 1 met a man who told me that he had suffered such 82 New Papers on Canadian History, tortures from chronic rheumatism that, despairing of relief, he had come to these springs resolved to kill himself if he did not find relief. After a few weeks bathing, his limbs relaxed from their fearful distorted condition, pain and agony subsided, and finally he was perfectly restored to health. The Canadian Pacific Railroad Company are erecting a first-class hotel on the spot, having every convenience for tourists and invalids, and unquestionably Bauff is destined for an important future. OVER THE MOUNTAINS. Forty-two miles from Calgary — up the Valley of the Bow River — we reach the foot of the hills, and the scenery becomes beautiful beyond description. At Padmore, 904 miles from Winnipeg, we are in the midst of the mountains, however the soil is still good and productive. The Stoney Indians, the best in the North-west, own large herds of cattle and horses, and hunt the wild-sheep and goats, the mountain-deer and the small fur animals of the mountain parks. Great mineral wealth is believed to exist in this portion of the route, not only gold and silver mines, but extensive and accessible coal-fields, both bituminous and anthracite. The " Yellow Head " pass — far to the north of the present route and near the source of the Fraser river — was the point first chos2n for crossing the Rockies, but after long and continued explorations the line was located thence down the North Thompson. However, after the road had been trans- ferred to a syndicate by the government, an air-line from Winnipeg was decided upon, and the gap of the Bow River, Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 83 known henceforth as the Kicking Horse River — so-called from the refractory steed of the engineer who mapped out the international boundaries — was the point finally chosen to ( the Rock\- Mountains. The adoption of this route saved 100 miles, while the road on that account was not more difficult to build nor more heavily graded than on the longer northern line, and its natural resources in land and minerals much greater. The highest peak above the pass was named Mount Stephen, aftei the President of the road. The bed of the road in the pass reaches an altitude of 5,300 feet above the sea-level, but its approaches from the east do not exceed the grade of 40 feet to the mile, save in the upper five miles of the Bow River where the rise reaches 75 feet per mile. The work of construction was easy through this pass. The scenery here is grand beyond description, with beau- tiful peaks and abrupt mountains 5,000 and 6,000 feet high. It is generally cold at night, but the " chinook " winds do not allow the snow to remain long on the ground, save upon the summit of the mountains. Sometimes a heavy snow-storm is seen raging far above, while the sun shines in the valleys below. The summit itself is a plateau four miles long dotted with lakes. The first, going west, is Summit Lake, the source of Summit Creek ; the second, Link Lake, seems to have neither exit nor entrance, no visible supply and no outlet ; whilst the third and largest is the source of the noisy, impetuous Kicking- Horse River, which springs from its parent head, a wild, strong stream 50 feet wide, gaining in volume and speed as it rushes down the Kicking Horse Valley. Although the total length 8 4 New Papei'S on Canadian History, of this river is but 47 miles, its fall, until it finally merges with the broad Columbia, the great river of the west, is over 2,800 feet The railway follows the Kicking Horse River for 45 miles, and upon this plateau the work was. not only extremely heavy, but the gradients and curves were more difficult than any yet encountered on the route. The lowest gradient obtained was 116 feet to the mile, or about 1 in 45 ; this rate of descent is maintained for 17 miles in one stretch. The heaviest work had to be performed upon the upper part of the plateau ; here, in the distance of six miles, three tunnels of an aggregate length of 1,800 feet had to be constructed, and the Columbia had to be crossed three times. The work on the next ten miles was tolerably easy although the gradient was heavy; the lower part of the plateau has two or three tunnels of about 1,400 feet ; the river is crossed no less than eight times, and the same heavy gradient, with curves of ten degrees, or 573 feet radius, had to be resorted to. The road follows the Beaver River to the summit of the Selkirk range, which is 96 miles from the summit of the Rockies, and is about 1,000 feet lower, or 4,316 feet above sea-level. In the ascent the heavy gradient of 116 feet to the mile is again resorted to for about 16 miles, and then for 20 miles further on in descending the western slope. At the head of the Loop, a magnificent glacier sweeps down almost to the very edge of the rails. More glaciers are seen in the distance, but this one towers upwards to the cloud line, just back of the station. A comfortable hotel is being erected at the foot of the glacier, where tourists can enjoy a refreshing sojourn and explore the mountain of ice. Art % Science^ Literature^ and Comment-. 85 The whole region between the main range <>f the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific is a vast disturbed rock formation. For 800 miles in a north-west and south-cast direction there is a valuable belt of metalliferous rocks, and in addition much of the country is heavily wooded. The Canadian Pacific Railway having penetrated here, the whole of this immense mining district has now a great future, and the gold of the Columbia and Kootenay rivers as well as the galena along Kootenay Lake is made accessible. The country lying around the mother lakes of the Columbia, and much of the Kootenay River valley, is interspersed with forest and prairie lands favorable to settlement, and admirably adapted for cattle rais- ing. It only needs means of communication to make it equal to any part of the Dominion. The " bunch " grass, which grows constantly and is green at heart, even in mid-winter, is one of the most valuable pasture grass in the world, and is found everywhere in abundance, even at an altitude as high as l,ooo feet above the sea-level. The climate in the Kootenay district, from the Rocky Mountains to the Shuswap Lake, is very much like the mountainous portion of France, whilst west of the Rockies to the Pacific it compares favorably with that of the south of England. The vast region surrounding the beautiful Shuswap Lake, close to the railroad Station of Sicamous, is a veritable haven for the lovers of the gun and rod ; as much can be said of the district in the vicinity of the famous Okanagan Lake, which is reached by the same lailroad station and thence by the Spila- macheen River. The water of these lakes is alive with fish, and their surface which is seen from the car-windows, is liter- 86 New Papers on Canadian History, ally covered with swan, geese and ducks of every variety. The Okanagan region is also famous for its delicious bunch grass, and it is claimed that its valleys can produce the finest wheat in the world. The tourist should not fail to stop at Yale, where the scenery is magnificently beautiful, affording all, in the form of raging torrent and snow-crowned mountain, that the most vivid imagination can paint. If time can be spared a visit to the once famous Cariboo gold mines, up the roaring Frazer River, will well repay the traveller. Here may be found wild mountain scenery unsurpassed for grandeur on our globe, and yet in the midst of this wildness there is a vegetation luxuriant in freshness. Wherever there is a crevice, even at the very base of the snow- clad peaks, are found clumps of the beautiful Douglass pine ; lower down, and wherever a handfull of soil can rest, are myriads of wild-flowers and lilies of the valley. Skirting further on the north bank of the Frazer River to within a few miles of New Westminster — where the river leaves the Frazer Valley and crosses the lowlands of the Pitt River marshes — the road reaches Port Moody, at the extremity of the southern arm of Buward Inlet. The grand terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway is established at Vancouver, six miles further down the Inlet, where the government of British Colum- bia has given the railroad company a tract of land nine square miles in extent. Here is the prospective site — as I was told — of the great metropolis of the Pacific coast, a contemplated rival of San Francisco. I was offered a building lot 25x50 feet, with the primitive forest still standing on it, for $1,000, but I did not purchase it. Meanwhile, as an injunction at present Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. Sj hinders the train from running through to Vancouver, we have to take the steamer at Port Moody for Victoria, 75 miles distant across the Gulf of Georgia, which is, for all passen the real terminus of the road. VANCOUVER ISLAND. The termini question of the Canadian Pacific Railway has been a cause of great anxiety to dwellers on the Pacific slope of the Dominion, and the occasion of no little bad blood on the part of disappointed speculators. Sir John A. Macdonald, with his wonted astuteness, essayed to cut the gordian-knot at a reception given him by the people of Victoria last An " We are not, said he, to be limited to Halifax, Quebec, Montreal or B itish Columbia, whether it be Port Moody or Victoria — the termini of the Canadian Pacific Railway are- Liverpool and Hong-Kong ! " Victoria, the chief city of the island, and the capital of the Province, is a charming place ; it has a population of 12,000 which is increasing rapidly. Founded in 1843 by the Hudson Bay Company, it received the name of Fort Camosun. In 1843, in honor of the Prince Consort, the name was changed to that of Albert, but later on and in the same year, it was definitely named Victoria. In 1857-58, the discovery of gold on the main-land attr. crowds of adventurers, and Victoria experienced the same kind of "boom" that cursed Winnipeg in 1XS2. Thirty thousand gold hunters from California and the American territories invaded the Province, and made incursions into the wilds of 88 New Papers on Canadian History, the Frazer River placers. The destruction of the fur-trade and the almost total disorganization of society were the results of this invasion. A few hundreds — surviving to famine and every hardship — secured bags of gold ; but the rest perished miser- ably, or drifted back to Victoria, demoralized and ruined. During this period of aggressive rowdyism, the main-land was constituted into a colony. In 1866, Vancouver Island was legislatively united to the main-land and the name of British Columbia was given the colony, which became in 1871 a Province of the Dominion. Until the first train from Montreal arrived at Port Moody, the Union was little better than one on paper ; but now, with daily trains bringing mails and passengers in twelve days from England, with her three hundred miles of gold-bearing quartz mountains, her splendid harbors, her coal-fields, her fisheries and forests, the future of British Columbia is assured. She is destined to gravitate to the very front rank of the communities on the Pacific, if not to become some day the strongest and richest Province of the Dominion. The climate of Victoria is the most equable in the world. The winter is especially mild, the mercury seldom reaching the freezing point. The summer is temperate, heat seldom rising above 72 . Southerly winds prevail two-thirds of the year. Summer lasts from April to October; flowers bloom out-doors the whole year. And yet in Victoria we are here six degrees north of Quebec, in latitude 50. The softness of the climate is due to " Kuro Siwo," which brings the warmer temperature of the Japan and China seas, in the same way as the gulf-stream tempers the climate of the British Islands. The weather of Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce* 89 Vancouver Island is said by those who have thoroughly tested the matter to be milder and more agreeable than that of the south of England, the summers longer and finer, the winters shorter and less rigorous The harbor proper of Victoria is small, with a difficult pass : but the adjacent harbor of Esquimault, across a narrow neck of land, affords all the requisites of a first-class naval station. The Imperial Government is spending large sums here, and in the outer royal-roads the largest men-of-war can ride safely. At an early future Esquimault will undoubtedly be the emporium of an immense trade with the Asiatic ports, and fortnightly lines of first-class steamers, subsidized by the Home Government, will ply regularly between Victoria, Hong-Kong and Australia. The coast fisheries are almost illimitable, and their capab- ilities have hardly been put to contribution ; yet, the principal species are halibut, salmon, cod and herring. In some of the narrow estuaries and bays, at flood-tide the water is so densely packed with salmon struggling to reach a spawning-ground. that it is actually possible sometimes to lay boards upon the backs of the swarms and walk over dry shod. Halibut, from 100 to 500 lbs., are common. For ten cents Indians will furnish enough fish to feed ten men. Herring are raked out of the \\ iter by boat loads. Here is a grand and exhaustless industry awaiting develop- ment ; and, as if Providence had designed to indicate a way to utilization, salt-springs of great value, yielding 3446 gr. of salt to each gallon of water, have been discovered near Nanaimo. go New Papers on Canadian History, It would pay the Dominion Government a handsome dividend to transport bodily the starving population of the icy coasts of Labrador to the prolific shores of British Columbia. Some day the wheat-fields of Manitoba may become exhausted and refuse to yield their tribute ; the forests of Ontario and Quebec may perish before the woodman's axe and the devastating flames, but the riches of the ocean are inex- haustible, and each recurrent tide will bring to the inhabitants of this favored land abundant food. Ladies and gentlemen, I have detained you longer than was my purpose, but my excuse for this encroachment upon your patience and comfort lies in the fact that even a partial development of the subject under consideration was out of proportion to the one-hour time to which I should have con- fined myself. I may have been incoherent and sometimes perhaps inconsequential in my remarks ; but I shall be content if I have succeeded, even in an imperfect degree, in diffusing a knowledge of what Lord Beaconsfield once happily phrased : " The boundless regions and illimitable possibilities of the great North-west." In concluding, I may be permitted to remark to the mem- bers of the Canadian Club of New York, that my countrymen, the great people of the United States, entertain no petty jealousies for such noble competitors as I have told you of to-night, but taking only into account the good secured, they hail with joy the opening of this new route to the riches of the mighty West. The honors of knighthood were never more worthily bestowed by royalty upon any subject, than by Her Majesty Queen Victoria upon the President of the Canadian Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 9* Pacific Railroad. Sir George Stephen, in recognition of his great abilities and persevering industry in bringing this great work to so speedy and happy a completion. THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF CANADIAN HISTORY. /. //'. BEXGOL'GH, Editor Toronto Grip. Read before the Canadian Club of New York. AN I convey to you, in the hour at my disposal, as much solid information as you may be in need of? Probably yea, because the lectures given in this course, under the auspices of the Canadian Club, have naturally pertained to that glorious country, Canada. But, so far as I am aware, no speaker has yet dealt systematically with the history of Canada. Pending the arrival of Mr. Goldwin Smith, who is at present engaged umpiring for the foot-ball club at Cornell, I propose to devote my hour to the subject suggested, and in case Mr. Smith should feel offended by my intrusion into his special domain, I will endeavor to mollify him in advance by pj New Papers on Canadian History, making a pretty portrait of him right here. [A rapid sketch here set forth a picture at once recognized by the audience as —not Goldwin Smith— but Mr. Whitelaw Reid.] Perhaps, before going on, I ought to apologize to the American portion of my audience for not having chosen a theme of greater novelty to them than the History of Canada. I had anticipated an audience made up chiefly of Canadians, but it is too late now to rectify the mistake. I am well aware that the citizens of the United States are just as familiar with Canada, her history and her affairs, as they are with Chinese Tartary, and I can hardly hope to tell them anything they do not know. But in view of the fact that Canada and the Republic have many features in common, besides baseball, and that many more or less distant relatives of American citizens are residing in that country, having in a few cases been struck somewhat suddenly by its charms as a place of residence, and having since exhibited a clinging affection for it, which few native Canadians can rival, it seems to me that all will be interested in the theme I have selected. Canada is the name given to the greater portion of the continent of North America, and politically it is an integral portion of the British Empire. I mention this because there is an impression prevailing in Ohio and some other foreign coun- tries, that Canada is owned by a railway syndicate. This is a mistake. Nominally Canada belongs to Great Britain, it con- tributes the adjective to the title, as Britain itself is only a small affair, but really and practically the vast Dominion is owned and run by the handsome and picturesque people so well represented in blanket suits on the present occasion. [Allud- Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 95 ing to the uniformed snowshoers ranged upon the platform.] I may just remark here, en passotig, as they say in Montreal, that the Canadian people when at home, invariably dress in the costume here shown, just as the people of New Jersey weai long-tailed coats and short breeches with straps to them, and bell-crowned beaver hats, with stars on their waistcoats and stripes on their pantaloons. It's the national costume you know, but they rarely venture out of the country with such good clothes on. When a Canadian makes up his mind to settle in New York, he invariably adopts the New York style of dress. He changes his clothes at the border, and then he goes in like a regular American, to Wall Street " born." Before long, so far as outward appearance goes, he would pass for a native New Yorker, and you could only tell he was a Canadian by contemplating the number of islands he owns and the magnitude of his fern- franchises. And this leads me to remark that when M. Bartholdi dressed that statue of his in Greek clothing, he availed himself of a poetic license. Canadians of the sterner sex never dress that way, never. To illustrate this point I will here make a rough sketch of the statue, as pictures of it are so rare in this city that its shape may have escaped your memory. Not only in the matter of costume, but also in the features, Bartholdi, with true French naivete, endeavored to conceal the fact that in this great work of art he was paying a delicate- compliment to a Canadian. He was afraid Mr. Wiman mightn't like it if made too literal. For I suppose it is pretty well known by this time that the statue is really meant for Wiman. The very fact that it stands there bossing an island is enough to suggest this, even if Bartholdi had never confessed his 96 New Papers on Canadian History, design. To be sure, mustache and mutton-chops do not look well in bronze, but they're all right on paper, and they're necessary in this case to expose Bartholdi's pleasant allegory. All that remains to be changed now is the legend, which is not " Liberty Enlightening the World," but " Wiman Defying New Jersey." This, however, is a digression from our historical subject. Canada was discovered by Jacques-Cartier, while engaged in a fishing cruise around the banks of New Foundland. From the banks to Canada would seem to be an unerring impulse of the Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. yj human mind. It is not true, however, that Cartier is French for cashier, and time has fully vindicated this gentleman's character, as the banks of New Foundland are to-day as sound as ever. The coincidence was startling, it must be confessed, and we can therefore excuse the newspapers of the day for hinting that there was something fishy about his sudden departure. This event occurred some time after Christopher Columbus had got in his work. And Columbus, by the way, as an illus- tration of patience and perseverance is worthy even of the study of those good Democratic statesmen who are waiting for Cleveland to " turn the rascals out." I don't know what Columbus looked like, but I feel sure that upon his counten- ance was stamped a calm tranquil expression that no delays and discouragements could change. If so, he didn't look much like this. [Here a wild-looking sketch of Mr. C. A. Dana was given.] Consider what Chris had to go through before he got started on that memorable voyage to India. It took him just twenty years to get started. Now, if it had been that he had to wait for Mrs. C. . . to get dressed, we wouldn't have wondered so much. But the trouble wasn't of that kind, it was purely financial. He couldn't sail without raising the wind, and mark his wonderful patience in raising it. Twenty years. The trouble was, nobody believed in his scheme as sound, and in the public interest. If it had been a surface-line franchise he was after, he might have convinced the Aldermen, but Christopher wasn't Sharp. It never occurred to him to get the ladies of the Congregation to go around with the book, though as a matter of fact he succeeded at last by the aid of a lady, Queen Isabella g8 New Papers on Canadici7i History, of Castile, whose name is to this day a sweet smelling savor, embalmed in an immortal kind of soap, " Matchless for the complexion.— Yours truly, LlLY Langtry." Columbus went from court to court after the boodle, it's a way boodlers have of going from court to court, if you notice — and at last he found a friend in Ferdinand. Ferdinand had a lot of the proceeds salted down, as was generally suspected, and he gave Columbus a check for the required amount, remarking, " Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Thus was patience rewarded. The voyage was a severe one, everybody was sick of it and mutinied. Columbus stood on the quarter deck with his guitar and sang to the moon about everything being at sixes and at sevens. A bird alighted on the topmast ! Omen of success : Land must be nigh. With one rapid glance the piercing eye of Columbus seizes the happy portent. The fact that it was an Eagle proved that land must be near ; while the shield of stars and bars upon its breast, the Canada codfish falling from its talons, the ninety-cent dollar hanging from its neck, and finally its piercing cry of E Pluribus Unum proved that that land could be no other than America, where all men are born free and equal, but don't stay so. America was discovered ; no longer could it bashfully avoid the gaze of the other nations, and it doesn't. Columbus' work made a boom in the discovery business, and that's how Cartier happened to be around in time to discover Canada. Cartier was a Frenchman, and he handed over the country to the king of France, as a matter of course. This one action is enough to show that Cartier had no connec- tion with the Standard Oil Company ; but his simplicity in giving Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 99 away the country when he might have kept it himself has modified Mr. Gould's opinion of his otherwise admirable char- acter. This was the first time Canada was given away. The offence was repeated, I've heard, at the time of the Wash- ington treaty. Public opinion over there is opposed to this, as a regular thing, and at present there is a disposition to conserve the public interests, as it were. Perhaps I can convey the idea with a sketch. ioo New Papers on Canadian History, When Mr. Cartier first landed in Canada there were Indians there. I do not wish to pose as a sensationalist, nor to rudely upset your settled convictions for the mere purpose of startling you, but I do allege that there were more Indians in Canada then than there are now. Several more. In fact, the majority of the present inhabitants are white, though President Cleveland seem to think our Government doesn't act that way. The fact is the Indians are comparatively scarce now. They don't any longer pitch their tents in the main streets of Toronto, Montreal and Quebec. Most of them have been killed, though they still persist, the survivors, in playing Lacrosse. Had foot-ball, I mean the Yale and Andover variety, been known amongst them, the race would no doubt have been extinct. Then politics has no doubt helped to exterminate the Red Man. An Indian can eat most anything, but he must have pure air, and when the party caucus was established in Canada, the Indians had to go further back. You never find any Indians in the lobby at Ottawa. They couldn't stand it. I am informed that Indians take an active part in politics of Tammany Hall in this city, but that only shows that pure, mugwumpy politics isn't so fatal to them as the corrupt kind. At the same time I suspect that the Tammany politicians are not really Indians of a delicate type. In Cartier's time the popu- lation of Quebec was sixty, that is the pale-face population. As the uncivilized red men ruled on both sides of the St. Lawrence in those days, it is not likely that there were refugee defaulters. The Indian is pretty mean, but he isn't mean enough to have an extradition law that protects that sort of thief from justice. These white men were honest French voyageurs, but ./;-/. Science. Literature, and Commerce. TOl there are probably sixty of the other fellows in Quebec to day. Such is progress and civilization. The manners of the early Indian tribes of Canada arc interesting. Their way of bringing up children, for example, was peculiar. The infant was strapped to a board and placed against a tree outside of the tent. This kept the youngster straight, which is more than the modern white method does : and besides it inured the child to the hardships of boarding out. I might also mention the Indian system of writing. In signing treaties, they used symbols for their names, thus the Great Chief Wise-Owl-YVho-sees-in-the-Dark, would sign in this way. [Here a rough outline sketch of an owl was given]. Now such a signature wasn't much as a work of art, but it was worth more on a treaty generally than the white man's. In too many cases the words our Canadian poet Mair has put into the mouth of an Indian character were true : " Our sacred treaties are infringed and torn, Laughed out of sanctity, and spurned away, Used by the Long Knife's slave to light his fire Or turned to kites by thoughtless boys, whose wrists Anchor their fathers lies in front of Heaven !" This Indian method of conveying ideas by means of pictures, is a great scheme, and is now in vogue in the highest journalistic circles. It forms the basis in fact, of the colossal and well-earned fortunes of Messrs. Keppler. Xa-t, Gillam, Opper. De Grimm, Hamilton, Zimmerman, Taylor and many other smart young men well known to you all. Of course in their hands it is § improved. They color their symbols 102 New Papers on Canadian History, more or less gaudily, and sell them for ten cents a copy. And they finish them up better than the Indian artist used to. For instance, in this case they would put on the modern improvements in this way, and call it, Wise-Man-Looking-Two ways-for-a-Presidential-Nomination. [An owl was here trans- formed into General B. F. Butler.] The institution known as the lodge was universal among the aborigines, and one of their most striking characteristics was a fondness for display in the matter of dress. Nothing so tickled the untutored child of the forest as to be rigged in regalia, with feathers, sashes and ribbons, and the letters A. F. & A. M., or I. O. O. F., or other mysterious symbols be-spangling his bosom. In such a costume he thought nothing of fatigue, but would willingly travel on dusty roads all day in the hottest weather. When the savage denizens of Hochelaga (now Montreal) wanted to go on the war-path, they would just stick orange lilies in their hair and marched through that village on July 12th. That was all that was necessary. The Indian women didn't have a vote, but the men folks let them carry everything by acclamation, especially tent poles and camp-fixtures, and they never endeavored to deceive them by subsequently chewing cloves. In vain Miss Anthony, who arrived a little before Cartier, advocated the female franchise and dress reform. No doubt the latter was needed, as you will see when I roughly sketch the costume then in vogue. To show that the absurdity was not confined to one sex, I will try to give you an idea also of the costume of the young bucks of the Iroquois tribe. [Here an amusing carica ture of an Indian dude and dudene was given.] Art. Science, Literature, and Commerce. ioj The domestic arrangements of the Canadian Indians were, as we might reasonably anticipate, no better than those of other barbarian people. They were especially faulty, however, on the very important subject of marriage. In the first place the courtship was peculiar. Sometimes the principal parties were not consulted at all. The young woman's mamma simply took a fish pole and went abroad to catch whatever she could in the shape of a man. No mere Indian, however handsome, had any chance while there were young lords and counts visiting at Cartier's house. The Indian girls were just crazy after blue blood, but sometimes they eloped with a low down Indian, because then the papers always described them as beautiful and accomplished. There is no mention in this early history of divorce proceedings, and so we are left in the dark as to how ladies, without talent even, became actresses in those days. The Indians had two very noticeable vices, gambling and cruelty. As to the first it is alleged that in the excitement of the game (Stock Exchange or whatever they called it), players often staked their lives on the result, whence no doubt is derived the phrase : " You bet your sweet life." Their cruelty was proverbial, they were the original inventors of the spoils system, and after a victory they tortured and scalped their captives without any fine distinction as to offensive partisan- ship. I am glad to say this is no longer the practice in Canada. We now enjoy civil-service reform and the victorious party doesn't murder its enemies. It only removes them from office. To return to Jacques-Cartier, he appears to have been a 104 New Papers on Canadian History, man of great magnetism and chivalry, as he earned the popular title of the Plumed Knight amongst the simple and unsophis- ticated aborigines. Just here it might be interesting to introduce his portrait, which I have copied from historical documents discovered in Maine. Maine at that time belonged to Canada you know, and does yet by rights, some folks say. [Here a portrait of Jas. G. Blaine.] Cartier was succeeded by a long train of other French gentlemen whose deeds I have not time to dwell upon. At length, the country passed into the hands of the British, after some preliminary ceremonies on the plains of Abraham, near Quebec. You are familiar, of course, with the incidents of that memorable battle, and especially with the last words of Wolfe, which are so often quoted. Somebody said to him : " They run." " Who run ?" he asked. " The Republicans." " Then I die happy," he replied. I think that was it, if I haven't got it mixed with the third- party vote in Pennsylvania in November. The British flag was still waving over the land when 1 left. Attempts have been made on a couple of occasions to put a showier piece of bunting in its place, but without success. A certain Republic, which shall be nameless, had something to do with the attempts I refer to. If you had only told me of your intention I could have saved you a great deal of worry and expense by informing you that the Canadians cannot be conquered by force of arms. I don't blame you for trying though, for everybody who knows what Canadian girls are like would be anxious to conquer or perish just as you were. It is a tribute to American shrewdness, however, that you have Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 105 dropped the military plan, and resorted to this present scheme. I have no doubt your calculation is correct that as soon as the absent boodle aldermen and bank presidents form a majority of our population over there, they will cast a solid vote for annexation on condition of a general amnesty being granted. And I have only this to say, that as soon as a clear majority of our most wealth}" citizens so decide, annexation will be all right. But I see that my time is up, and I must drop this interesting theme and bid you good night. f * *-V- j7 - sfy?^ && /%^ THE HEROINES OF NEW FRANCE. /. .)/. LEMOIXE, E. R. S. C. i An address delivered before the I Canadian Club of A'e-u/ York. ERTAINLV. your cordial greeting this evening overcomes much of the diffidence I felt in making my first bow to a cultured New York audi- ence. However, in your presence, I feel as if I required but scant apology for my subject : The noble devotion to duty of three of the remarkable women, whose brave deeds have illumined the early times of Canada. This evening, I witness what to a Canadian is a very gratifying spectacle : an array of Canada's most hopeful sons. io8 New Papers on Canadian History. striking out boldly and successfully as merchants, manufac- turers, professional men, writers, in fact an arrray of energetic men invading ever)- important path open to the human intellect and human industry in this great metropolis of the western world. Had I to dilate on the patriotism of De Longueuil ; the daring achievements of his worthy brothers d'Iberville and De Ste.-Helene ; the self-sacrificing Dollard des Ormeaux and his Spartan band of heroes; the saintly memories of Jogues, De Brebceuf and L'Alleman ; the lion heartedness of grim old Count de Frontenac, answering admiral Phips from the mouths of his cannon, as well as of other worthies whose careers constitute, according to a well-remembered Vice-Roy of ours, Lord Elgin, what he happily styled " the heroic era of Canada." easy would be my task, ample the material. The pregnant though silent past abounds with grand figures in our historical drama ; of men illustrious in life, glo- rious in death ! But it is not my purpose to entertain you this evening with man's prowess in the early history of Canada. My object is to recite to you the plain and unvarnished tale of three of the purest, bravest and most devoted women that have illustrated the early part of our history, whose heroic deeds cast a guiding-hallow in the path of toiling and tottering humanity, and to whose spotless record thinking men cannot remain indifferent. We have had on our side of the frontier, as you have had on yours, several noteworthy women, who have left their foot- prints on the sands of time. One of the first recalled is the helpmate of the dauntless Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. log founder of Quebec, Helene Boulle, the girlish-bride won by Samuel de Champlain from her gay and refined Parisian home, and whose sweetness later on, in 1620, made fragrant Canadian wilds. On the 5th December, 1610, Champlain was wedded to Mademoiselle Helene Boulle, whose father, Nicolas Boulle, was private secretary in the King's household. The damsel had not yet attained her twelfth year; she had been brought up a Calvinist, the faith of her father. Her mother, Marguerite Alixe, originally a Roman Catholic, had also espoused her husband's creed : but presently we shall see the youthful Helene adopting Champlain's religious tenets and becoming, in later years, quite an enthusiast in her newly-pledged faith. It was soon rumored that the daring founder of Quebec had not only won the hand of a handsome, high-born French girl, but also the heart of an heiress: 4,500 livres of her dowry of 6,000 livres were forthwith placed at the disposal of her liege lord to fit out vessels for his return to Quebec. However, it does not appear that until her landing in Quebec, the youthful bride had seen much of her elderly husband, who was constantly engaged about 161 8 in distant sea-voyages, land explorations and Indian wars. Champlain spent two years in France, and having realized upon all he possessed there, he persuaded his spouse, who had then attained her twenty-second year, to accom- pany him to Canada. She cheerfully consented, taking with her three maids-in-waiting. Intense was the joy of the struggling colonists at the return of their brave Governor, their trusted and powerful protector; no New Papers on Canadian Histc?y, great was their admiration of the winsome and lovable wife that accompanied him. The first lady of Canada very soon realized what meant a Quebec home in 1620. It was a life of incessant alarms, with scurvy and periodical famines for the colonists ; of gluttony and pagan rites, of debauchery on the part of the greasy, naked and uncouth savages hutted round the fort. Within two years after Madame de Champlain's arrival, a large band of Iroquois hovered on the outskirts of Quebec. The recollection of the fatal effects of Champlain's arquebuse alone deterred them from raiding the town. One day Champlain and the greater portion of his men being absent, the war-whoop was sounded ; the women and children shut themselves in the fort, the Recollet Convent on the banks of the St. Charles was assailed. The friars fortified their quarters, and made a bold front ; the Iroquois retired after capturing two Hurons, whom they tortured and burnt. Judge of the alarm of the gentle deserted lady in the fort and of her French maids. For four successive winters January storms and prowling Indians had gathered round the battlements of the grim old fort, and still Madame de Champlain remained firm at her post of duty. One of her favorite occupations was that of ministering to the spiritual and temporal wants of the Indian children, and visiting them in their wigwams. Soon she appeared, in their simple and grateful eyes, as a species of superior being ; they felt inclined to worship her. History recalls the charms of her person, her winning manners, her kindliness. The Governor's lady, in her rambles in the forest, wore an article of feminine toilet not unusual in those days : a small mirror hung to her Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 1 1 1 side. The savages took particular delight in seeing their swarthy face reflected in the magical glass. It appealed irresistibly to their simple nature : " A beauteous being, they said, who watched over them in sickness, who loved them so much as to carry their image close to her heart, must be more than human." Blessings and offerings attended her footsteps. The graceful figure of the first lady of Canada gliding noiselessly, more than two centuries ago, by the side of the murmuring waters of the wild St. Lawrence, a help-mate to her noble husband, a pattern of purity and refinement, was indeed a vision of female loveliness and womanly devotion for a poet to immortalize. Daily alarms, solitude, isolation from the friendly faces of her youth, soon began to tell on the forlorn chatelaine. Four years of existence in this bleak wilderness was too much for the high-born dame, nurtured amidst the amenities of Parisian salons. She longed for the loved home beyond the seas. In her dreams another solitude had been revealed to her : the mystic solitude of the cloister, where, undisturbed, she might send up her prayers on high for her absent husband. One bright August morning in 1624, [the 15th], all Quebec sorrowfully watched the sails of a white-pennoned bark, reced- ing beyond Pointe Levi, conveying to less lonely climes the released captive. . . . Nineteen years after the death of her valiant knight, Madame de Champlain founded at Meaux, in France, a Convent of Ursulines nuns, to which she retired. On the 20th December, 1654, her gentle spirit took from thence its flight to less evanescent scenes. ii2 New Papers on Canadian History, \\ shall shift the scene from the old Stadacona's heights to the rugged though fertile land to which the magic pencil of Longfellow has lent unfading glamour: to Acadia, now Nova Scotia. More than one hundred years before the forest primeval and golden wheat-fields of Grand Pre had echoed the sighs of Longfellow's Acadian Maidens, there lived, loved and died on the historic shores of the river St. John, at Fort St. Louis, an accomplished French lady, known to history as the Lady de la Tour. Claude de St. Etienne. Sieur de la Tour, was allied to the noble French house of Bouillon, but had lost the greater part of his estates in the civil wars. He came to Acadia about the year [609 with his son Charles, who was then only fifteen years of age. Charles, after the destruction of Port-Royal by Argall, became the fast friend of Biencourt and lived with him, both leading a free and easy woodman's life. Biencourt claimed important rights in Port-Royal. At his death, he bequeathed his claims to the young- Huguenot, Charles de la Tour, namingh im his lieutenant and successor in the Government of the colony ; he could not have selected a bolder, a more enterprising and successful leader. In 1625, or thereabout, Charles de la Tour married the lady whose adventurous career it is my object to depict. Shortly after his marriage he removed to a fort he had erected near Cape Sable, which he called Fort St. Louis, and which he also intended to make a convenient depot for Indian trade. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. iij About this period the French colonists were becoming sensible of the weakness of their settlements in Acadia in case of foreign aggression. Claude de la Tour, the father of Charles, was sent to France to represent the matter to the French Gov- ernment. Returning with ammunition and supplies intended for Port- Royal and Quebec, the squadron, in 1628, was captured with Roquemont's fleet by Sir David Kirk, and Claude de la Tour was sent a prisoner to England. Far from losing heart, he seems to have made the most of his captivity to forward his own ends. A Huguenot of note, he found favor at once among the French Huguenots who, exiled from their own sunny land by intolerance, had sought an asylum in London. The English Monarch sought them as useful allies. Claude de la Tour was introduced to Court, fell in love and married one of the ladies in waiting of Queen Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles I., and was dubbed a Nova Scotia knight. He, as well as his son who then commanded in Acadia, was pro- mised a grant of 4,500 square miles in the new Scotch colony to be founded there by Sir William Alexander, provided he could persuade his son to hand over his fort to the representa- tives of the English king. The unscrupulous parent, on mentioning to his son the price which those flattering distinctions and emoluments were to cost, soon found out that something greater than all they might represent existed, that was summed up in the word " Honor." Charles de la Tour indignantly scorned the parental offer. Trouble was in store for Charles the moment D'Aulnay I! j New Papers on Canadian History, Charnisay, Razely's lieutenant, came to Acadia in command of another settlement. Charnisay was restless, ambitious, revenge ful : " Acadia seemed too small for two such aspiring men.'' Soon Charnisay set to work to supplant his rival at the French Court, and succeeded through powerful friends. The blow fell on De la Tour in 1641 ; his commission as the King's Lieutenant was revoked and a vessel sailed from France to earn- back the deposed Governor. Encouraged by his spirited wife, Charles refused to bend his head to the storm — urging that the King's good faith had been surprised. He fortified the fort, applied to Boston for help and sent a representative to the Huguenots of La Rochelle seeking aid against their great enemy, Richelieu. De Charnisay, in the meantime, had gone over to France to prosecute his deadly plans of revenge against De la Tour, and he heard of the arrival of the Lady De la Tour, whose influence he dreaded very much. He at once pro- cured an order for her arrest, as being an accomplice in her husband's treason. She fled to England and succeeded in chartering a ship in London, which she freighted with provis- ions and munitions of war to relieve her husband at Fort La Tour. Instead of steering straight for the Fort, the English captain spent several months trading on the coast for his own account. De Charnisay had not remained idle in the mean- while. On returning he laid watch and succeeded in inter- cepting the ship ; the master had to conceal in the hold his daring passenger, the Lady De la Tour, pretending his vessel was bound for Boston. De Charnisay then gave him a message to deliver to the Boston authorities and he reached there a few days after. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 115 This change of itinerary, added to the untoward delay which had already occurred, was a grievous loss and incon- venience to the Lady De la Tour. She brought suit in Boston against the English captain on the charter-party for dam which were awarded to her to the extent of .£2,000 by a full bench of magistrates. She seized the cargo of the ship and hired three vessels to convey herself and property to Fort La Tour, where she arrived in 1644, to the great joy of her hus- band, after an absence of more than twelve months. De Charnisay, after storming at Governor Endicot and the Boston people generally, for having given help to Lady De la Tour, took advantage of the absence of Governor De la Toui from his fort to attack it fiercely, after having first apprised himself of its weak condition. The garrison, 'tis true, was small, but there was at its head an indomitable spirit worth a whole garrison, the Lady De la Tour. She stationed herself on the bastion, directing the cannonade and infusing into the combatants her own heroic spirit. Soon she had the satisfac- tion of seeing De Charnisay's ship making cover behind a point to prevent her sinking, and twenty of the besiegers laying dead and thirteen wounded. This repulse took place in February, 1645. De Charnisay's last attack on Fort La Tour occurred on the 13th April, 1645. This time the attack was directed from the land side. Unfortunately, the fort was in no better condi- tion than on former occasions to make an attack ; moreover, De la Tour was absent and in Boston, unable to reach the fort, owing to the armed cruisers with which De Charnisay patroled the Bay of Fundy. The Lady De la Tour, though Ii6 New Papers on Canadian History, despairing of making a successful resistance, resolved to defend the fort to the last.* For three successive days and nights the storming continued, but the defence was so well managed that the besiegers made no progress and De Char- nisay was compelled to retire with loss. Treachery, however, finally achieved what valor had failed to effect. Charnisay found means to bribe a Swiss sentry who formed part of the garrison, and on the fourth day, an Easter Sunday, while the garrison were at prayers, this traitor per- mitted the enemy to approach without giving any warning. They were in the act of scaling the walls before the inmates of the fort were aware of their attack. Lady De la Tour instantly rushed out at the head of her soldiers and fought the besiegers with so much vigor that Charnisay, who had already lost twelve men besides many wounded, despaired of the success of his undertaking. He therefore proposed terms of capitulation, offering the garrison life and liberty if they consented to sur- render. Lady De la Tour, persuaded that successful resistance was no longer possible and desirous of saving the lives of those under her command, accepted the terms offered by Charnisay and allowed him to enter the fort .... It was then that the full baseness of Charnisay 's nature was revealed. With the exception of one man, he ordered the * Madame De la Tour's career is the subject of one of John Greenleaf Whittier's sweetest poems, entitled : Saint /o/in, 164J. The noble con- duct of her husband in refusing to surrender to his father's sollicitations, for the English king, the French fort he held, was immortalized in verse by the late Gerin-Lajoie, one of our leading writers, in a drama, entitled : Le J tune La tour. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. i/y whole garrison, French as well as English, to be hanged ; the one life he spared was on the dreadful condition that he should become the executioner of his comrades in arms. Even the slaughter of these poor soldiers failed to satisfy his blood- thirsty instincts. Had he dared, he would doubtless ha*ve had Lady De la Tour assassinated with the rest ; but the Court of France, venal though it was, might not have tolerated such an outrage. Charnisay did what was almost as contemptible ; the heroic woman, with a rope around her neck, like one who should also have been executed, but who by favor had been reprieved, was forced to be present at the execution of her soldiers. It mattered nought to her what further schemes of vengeance her implacable foe might devise. None could move her, her great heart was broken. She was far away from her husband, to whose fortunes she had been so faithful ; she dared scarcely hope to see his face again, except, like herself, a cap- tive. Her work in life was done ; she felt she was not born for captivity, so she faded away and drooped day by day, until her heroic soul left its earthy tenement. Within three weeks after the capture of the fort she was laid to rest on the green banks of the St. Johns River, which she had loved so well, and where she had lived for so many years, " leaving a name as proudly enshrined in Acadian history," says the historian, "as that of any sceptered Queen in European history." Let us now review one of those energetic characters which marked one of the proudest epochs in Canadian history : The era of Frontenac. You have all heard of the dashing French regiment of Carignan, commanded by Colonel de Salieres, which the Grand Ii8 New Papers on Canadian History, Monarque, Louis XIV., in 1664, had given his haughty Vice- Roy, the Marquis de Tracy, as an escort to Quebec. It was officered by sixty or seventy French gentlemen, many of whom were connected with the French noblesse. Four companies, some six hundred men, were disbanded shortly after their arrival in New France. The officers and privates were induced, by land grants, supplies of cattle and other marks of royal favor to marry and settle in the New World. Many of them acquiesced and became the respected sires of the leading French families in after years. Among them De Chambly, Sorel, Du Gue, La Valtrie, Vercheres, Berthier, Granville, Contrecoeur, De Meloises, Tarieu de la Perade, Saint-Ours, De la Fouille, Maximin, Lobeau, Petit, Rougemont, Traversy, De la Nouette, Lacombe and others, worthy comrades in arms of De Lon- gueuil, dTberville, and de Ste-Helene. One of them, M. de Vercheres, obtained in 1672, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, near Montreal, where now stands the flourishing parish of Vercheres, a land-grant, of three miles square, which the King materially increased in extent the following year. In those troublesome times, the seigneur's house meant a small fort, to stave off Indian aggression. " These forts," says the historian Charlevoix, "were merely extensive enclosures, surrounded by palisades and redoubts. The church and the dwelling of the seigneur were within the enclosure, which was sufficiently large to admit, on an emergency, the women and children, and the farm-cattle ; one or two sentries mounted guard by day and by night ; with small field pieces, they kept in check the skulking enemy and served to warn the settlers to Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. I ig arm and hasten to the rescue. These precautions were sufficient to guard against a raid," but not in all cases as we shall soon see. Taking advantage of the absence of M. de Vercheres, the ever-watchful Iroquois drew stealthily around the little fort and took to climbing over the palisades. On hearing which, Marie- Madeleine de Vercheres, the youthful daughter of the seigneur, seized a musket and fired it. The marauders alarmed, slunk away, but on finding that they were not pursued, they returned and spent two days hovering like wolves around the fort, however not daring to enter, as ever and anon a bullet would reach the man who first attempted an escalade. What increased their surprise, was that they could detect inside no living creature except a woman ; but this female was so active, so fearless, so ubiquitous, that she seemed to be everywhere at once. Nor did her unerring fire cease, so long as there was an enemy in sight. The dauntless holder of the fort Vercheres was Mile de Vercheres, then in her twelfth year. This hap- pened in 1690. Two years later, the Iroquois returned in larger force, having chosen the time of the year when the settlers were engaged in the fields, tilling the soil, to pounce upon them. Mile de Vercheres, then aged fourteen, happened to be saun- tering on the river bank. Noticing a savage aiming at her, she eluded his murderous intent by rushing homeward at the top of her speed ; but for swiftness of foot the Indian was her match, terror added wings to her flight. With tomahawk up- raised, he gradually gained upon her, and was in fact rapidly closing as they neared the fort, another bound and she might 120 New Papers on Canadian History, be beyond his reach. Straining every nerve, the Indian sprang and seized the kerchief which covered her throat. Rapid as thought, and whilst the exulting savage raised his arm to strike the fatal blow, Mademoiselle tore asunder the knot which fastened her kerchief, and, bounding within the fort like a gazelle, closed the door against her pursuer. " To arms ! To arms ! ! " Without heeding the groans of the inmates, who could see from the fort their husbands and brothers carried away as prisoners, she rushed to the bastion, where stood the solitary sentry, seized a musket and a soldier's cap, and ordered a great clatter of guns, so as to make believe the fort was fully manned. She next loaded a small field-piece, and not having a wad at hand, thrust in a towel instead, and discharged the piece at the enemy. This unexpected rebuff, struck terror in the marauders, who saw their warriors one after the other grievously hit. Thus armed and with but the aid of one soldier only, she continued the fire. Presently the alarm reached the neighborhood of Montreal, when an intrepid officer, the Chevalier de Crisasi, brother to the Marquis of Crisasi, then Governor of Three Rivers, rushed to Vercheres at the head of a chosen band of men ; but the savages had made good their retreat with three prisoners. After a three days pursuit, the Chevalier found them with their captives strongly intrenched in the woods on the borders of Lake Champlain. The French officer completely routed the murderous crew — cut them to pieces only a few who escaped. The prisoners were released, all New France resounded with the fame of Mile de Vercheres who was awarded the title of heroine. Another instance of heroism on her part, added fame to her Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 121 reputation for courage. A French commander, M. de La Nau- diere de la Perade, was pursuing the Iroquois, some writers say in the neighborhood of the river Richelieu, according to others in the vicinity of the river Ste.-Anne, when there sprang, unexpectedly, out of the underbrush, a swarm of the implacable foes. Taken unaware M. de la Perade was just on the point of falling a victim to their ambush when Mile de Vercheres, seizing a musket, rushed on the enemy at the head of some resolute men and succeeded in saving him from the Indian toma- hawk. She had achieved a conquest, or better she became the conquest of M. de la Perade, whose life she saved. Henceforth, in history, the heroine de Vercheres will be known as Madame de la Perade, the wife of an influential seigneur. The fame of the heroine reached the banks of the Seine, and Louis XIV. instructed his Vice-Roy in New France to call upon her in person and procure her version of her courageous deeds. The simple statement pleased the French Monarch very much. It was my intention to close the career of the Heroine of Vercheres with this last episode, but on the eve of my leaving for New York, an antiquarian friend, a lineal descendant also of this noble woman, the Hon. Justice George Baby, of the Court of Appeals, placed in my hand an unpublished memoir revealing Madame de la Perade, as possessing the uncommon courage and presence of mind you have just admired, not merely in the spring-tide of her existence, but retaining it as well in the autumn of life. This document, aside of its historical value, gives interest- ing glimpses of the vicissitudes of the daily life of the Canadian 122 New Papers on Canadian History, seigneurs in those time. Possibly you will forgive me for trespassing on your indulgence a few moments longer, to give you in English a few extracts. " Many years," says the Memoir,* " after Mile de Vercheres' marriage to M. Tarieu de la Naudiere, Sieur de la Perade, she was instrumental in saving his life a second time. The Iroquois, true to their sanguinary instincts and to their deadly hatred of the French, never pad- dled past Ste.-Anne de la Perade without leaving there some trace of their hatred. About sunset, one mellow September afternoon, either believing that M. de la Perade was absent and that they had a chance to surprise the settlement, they landed. The seignorial manor stood apart from other dwellings, a short distance from the river, secluded from public gaze by a thick- growth of forest trees. Madame de la Perade's aged husband was confined to his bed grievously ill. Except his wife and a young maid servant sixteen years of age, no other inmates were inside. "The marauding Indians suddenly, landed from their canoes which the rushes hid from view. One party marched *This narrative, adds Judge Baby, I had from my aged aunt, Mile Marguerite de La Naudiere, a granddaughter of the heroine, who expired at Quebec on the 17th of November, 1856, at the age of 81 years. The venerable Mile de La Naudiere was for years in Quebec a kind of landmark between the past and the present. Her memory, conversational powers and repartees, made her sought after by the highest in the land ; her dignified and courteous manners reminded one of the old school. More than once our Governors General and their families called on her, in her St.-Louis Street mansion ; among others, the Earl of Elgin, Sir Edmund Walker Head, Lord Monck. After his departure, Lord Elgin, kept up with her a friendly correspondence until her death. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 123 towards the house, whilst another crouched behind the trees waiting for a signal. " A glimpse at the savages revealed to Madame de la Perade what fate awaited her and her husband. She forthwith bolted and barricaded the front door as best she could, coolly- directing her maid to fetch the only two fire-arms left by the absent farm hands, she determined to face the foe, and if possible- keep them outside. " The leader of the band and his blood-thirsty crew, had scarcely ascended the wide flight of steps which led to the front door of the manor, when she, without even allowing him to speak, addressed him in his own dialect and in a firm voice asked what he wanted. " The chief, taken aback at hearing a white woman speak his language, replied, in a subdued tone, that he wished to confer with M. de la Perade— that he was the bearer of an important message, stating that he and his friends knew enough of the hospitality of M. de la Perade to warrant their visit to his house and to expect meat and drink as well ; chat they were hungry and thirsty, adding also that a little fire -water would be acceptable. •' Madame de la Perade, without exhibiting the slightest fear, replied that her husband was engaged, could not see them told them to leave. "The chief, convinced that he had merely to deal with a lone woman, exchanged in a whisper a few words with his followers ; then, raising his tone, insolently answered that if the door was not instantly thrown open, that they would soon find a way to enter. " Well did Madame de la Perade know the treatment which 124 New Papers on Canadian History, awaited her, should the Indians enter. Her husband lay help- lessly ill, within hearing of all this. Something had to be done, and that instantly. Sending up to heaven a prayer for help, she felt stronger, and, undaunted, spoke as follows : ' The door shall remain closed, and if you refuse to go, I shall find means to compel you.' " The savages used their utmost strength in order to break in ; in those days the door of a Canadian manor required to be strong, as you may be sure. " Baffled, the Indians rushed down the steps, uttering their terrible war-whoop. Then crowding abreast a window, through which they felt sure to find a passage, they poured in a volley of shot and bullets which went crashing through the sash and lodged in the wainscot and rafters. "Quick as lightning, Madame de la Perade fired on the murderous redskins, first one gun, then another. Astonished by this vigorous reception, the marauders wavered, shrank back, and finally retreated bearing one of their comrades wounded in the leg. Instantly reloading, Madame de la Perade, had just time, under the gathering shadows of evening, to give the retreating horde another volley. One of those panics common to Indians seems to have occurred ; and fancying the place was protected they ran to their canoes. " The brave woman's trials were only half over, for at this moment, her young maid came rushing to her, saying: 'The roof is on fire!' Parthian like, in their retreat, the Iroquois, had directed flaming arrows towards the old peaked moss- covered gable. How could her sick husband escape the flames? Even if she should succeed in carrying him beyond their reach, Art % Science, Literature, and Commerce* 125 were not the Indians lurking in the neighboring woods and watching for a chance to pounce upon them? She was not yet aware that the defeated savages were retreating in their canoes from an imaginary pursuing foe. Her first impulse was to ascend to the burning roof with her maid and pour water on the flames ; her next thought was to rush through the smoke and fire to the apartment where M. de la Perade lay, and implore him to rise and save .himself. But all in vain, he was too enfeebled. Thanking his devoted wit ;, he replied that it seemed as if it were the will of God he should die then. 'Adieu! Adieu! my kind and true friend,' said he. 'twice under God's dispensation your heroism has saved me from the Indian tomahawk. To-day, God calls me ! I am ready. Adieu.' " Madame de la Perade, momentarily crushed by this har- rowing scene, suddenly felt herself endowed with a supernatural fortitude, and, seizing her sick husband in her arms she carried him out, deposited him on the grass, and then, physically and mentally exhausted fell insensible by his side. The evening was calm and the fire smouldered slowly on the house-top. Soon a shower which had been threatening, broke, and in a measure put out the fire whose reflection had attracted the tenantry- who came to the rescue. - ' The heroine of Vercheres expired at Ste.-Anne, on the ;th August, 1737. Have these remarkable careers no lessons ? In Madame de Champlain, we have a lady of noble birth, youth and beauty : a life pure and gentle, and kindliness combined to such a degree as to make the possessor appear " more than human " to those among whom fate had cast her. 126 New Papers on Canadian History, Madame de la Tour exhibits a sterner, more Spartan spirit, ready at all times to confront war contumely, adversity in its direst form ; a model of sweet, womanly devotion to her husband and of self-sacrifice to duty. In Mile de Vercheres, you have to admire the warm blood of youth blending with the cool courage of maturer years ; the masculine daring of the sterner portion of humanity pulsating through a heart of fourteen summers, and gathering strength with the weight of years. Allow me to close my remarks with the sentiment expressed in my opening : May Providence, in its clemency, continue to send us more of those true, tender and brave spirits, beacons from on high, to light up the rugged path of erring, mortal man ! Works on Canadian History consulted : — Histoire de la Colorize Francaise en Canada. — Faili.OU, Vol. I, pp. 17, 185, 252. Cours d' Histoire dn Canada. — Ferland, Vol. I, p. 234. First Conquest of Canada. — KlRKE, p. 69. Relations des Jisuites. Chroniques des Ursulines de Meaux. — JOURNAL DE Quebec, 1854. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. I2j History of Nova Scotia. — Beamish Murdoch. History of Acadia.— }. CAVENAY. Histoire des Grandes Families Francoises du Canada. — Daniel. Histoirc du Canada. — CHARLEVOIX, Vol. Ill, pp. 124, 125. Histoire du Canada. — Bib AU D pere. Pantheon Canadien. — BlBAVTt j'eune, p. 295. Histoirc dc /' ' Ame'riquc Septentrionalc. — BAQUEVILLE DE LA POTHERNE. ttimoires et Lcttrcs defamille. — Hon. Judge Geo. Baby. i w im^ § LITERATURE IN CANADA. GEO. STE WA R T, Jr. , D. C. L., F. R. C. S., F. R. S. C. Read before the Canadian Chid of New York. EING deeply sensible of the honor which the Canadian Club has paid me this evening, in asking me to be its guest, I beg of you to accept in return my heart-felt thanks. I thank you also for the very flattering invi- tation which has been given me to address you on a subject, in which all Canadians must, I am sure, take a warm and appreciative interest. To have my name inscribed on your list of guests, is an honor which I need not assure you, I value most highly. The Canadian Club of New York, ijo New Papers on Canadian History, is an institution of which we Canadians feel justly proud, because we know that it is a credit to our countrymen in every way, that it is continually extending and broadeninr its influence and importance, and that its roll of mem- bership represents all that is best in the political, social and commercial activity of Canada's sons in the great American metropolis. But admirable as its character for hospitality unquestionably is, the Club is more than a means for supplying a place of pleasant resort for resident and visiting Canadians in New York. It is an educator, in a certain sense, and the present series of literary and social entertainments, will do much to stimulate Canadian sentiment, patriotism and aspira- tion. The pleasure of these meetings too, is materially heightened by the happy manner in which your Committee considers the claims of that element in our population which is always fair and gentle, and to whose refining influences the sterner sex owes so much. With such sharers of your exile from your native land, as I see before me to-night, radiant and charming as they all are, I am forced to the conclusion that your self-imposed banishment cannot be so very hard to bear after all. You do right, Mr. President, in opening your splendid rooms to the ladies on occasions like the present one, and it is an example which I think ought to be followed, and no doubt will be, by other clubs. But, you have asked me to address you a few words on the subject of literature in Canada. As you are aware, ladies and gentlemen, Canadian authorship is still in its infancy. The plough has proved a mightier engine than the pen, and author- ship has been followed feebly and precariously by men and Art Science, Literature, and Commerce. iji women, who have never lost heart in their work, but whose labors have been rewarded in too many instances, I fear, by those soft words, which, however sweet to the ear, fail entirely to butter our parsnips. No one has been able, in Canada, to make the writing of books his sole means of living. We have had to write our books under our breath, as it may be said, and the marvel is that we have been able to produce, under such depressing circumstances, so many works of even respectable merit. The Canadian author is either a professional or a business man, and his literary work- must be done, almost as an accomplishment, during the leisure moments which may be snatched from the exacting occupa- tions of real life. Of course, authorship prosecuted under such disadvantages, must suffer, but notwithstanding many draw- backs, the mental output of the Dominion is not inconsiderable. At the recent Indian and Colonial Exhibition, in London, no fewer than 3,000 volumes, all by native authors, were shown in the library of the Canadian section, and this exhibit, as you know, by no means exhausts the list of books actually written by Canadians, during a century of time. The collection repre- sented Canadian authorship in every department of its literature, science, history and poetry being especially large and note- worthy, while the other branches were not neglected. Territorially, our country is extensive, and our literary sons and daughters are to be encountered, now, from British Columbia to Cape Breton, doing work which is good, and some of it destined to stand. Frechette, the laureate of the French Academy, not long ago, said, " Be Canadians and the future is yours." " That which strikes us most in your poems," ij2 New Papers on Canadian History, said one of the Forty Immortals to the poet, " is that the modern style, the Parisian style of your verses is united to something strange, so particular and singular it seems an exotic, disengaged from the entire work." This perfume of originality which this author discovered was at that time unknown to Frechette. What was it ? It was the secret of their nationality, the certificate of their origin, their Canadian stamp. And it is important never to allow this character to disappear. There is much in this. Our country is full of history, full of character, full of something to be met with nowhere else in the world. A mine of literary wealth is to be had in every section of the dominion, and it only awaits the hand of the craftsman. Bret Harte opened up a new phase of American character as he discovered it in wild California. Miss Murfree found the Tennessee mountains rich in incident and strong in episodes of an intensely dramatic color, and Mr. Cable developed in a brilliant and picturesque way life and movement among the Creoles of the South. Have we no Canadian authors among us, who can do as much for us? Lesperance, it is true, has dealt with one period of our history, in a captivating way. Kirby has told the story of " The Golden Dog " with fine and alert sympathies. Miss Macfarlane's " Chil- dren of the Earth " depends on Nova Scotia for its scenic effects. Marmette has presented, with some power, half a dozen romances of the French regime, while Frechette has dramatized the story of Papineau's rebellion. But Canada is full of incident and romance, and the poet and novelist have fruitful themes enough on which to build many a fanciful poem and story. In history, we have much good writ- Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. ijj ing, and I trust you will permit me to say, that I think our young historians would do well not to attempt to do too much. I would advise them to deal with periods rather than to write complete histories of the whole country. Mr. John Charles Dent has been most successful on two occasions, giving us the history of old Canada, from the Union of 1 841 to the present time, and following up his labors with the " Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion." Mr. Edmund Collins has written of Canada under Lord Lome's administration, and in the Life and Times of Sir John A. Macdonaid he has discussed, with considerable independence, Canada's political and economical progress during a burning period of our history. The Abbes Casgrain and Faillon, Judge Gray, Mr. Globensky, Mr. Tur- cotte, Mr. George E. Fenety and Mr. de Gasp£ have also dealt with epochs, and so have Messrs. David, Carrier, Bryce and Adam. In works relating to parliamentary procedure and prac- tice, we have the notable contributions' of Alpheus Todd, John George Bourinot and Joseph Doutre. And in books of purely antiquarian character, we have the investigations of Scadding, Haw kins, Lemoine and Lawrence, while our annals, from day to day, have found an industrious exponent in Mr. Henry J. Morgan. Our larger historians are chiefly Ferland, Faillon, Garneau, Withrow, Campbell, Suite, Beamish Murdoch and McMullen. In biography we have the names of Fennings Taylor, Alexander MacKenzie, Charles Lindsey, P. B. Casgrain and William Rattray. In poetry we have a good showing, but I need scarcely name more than Reade, Roberts, Mair, Murray, Heavysege, Miss Machar, Mrs. Harrison (" Seranus ") among /JY New Papers on Canadian History, the English ; and Cremazie, Frechette, Le May, Legendre and Routhier among the French. The list would not be complete were I to omit a few of our essayists and writers on special topics, such as Col. G. T. Denison, whose history of Cavalry won the great Russian prize, Principal Grant, Chauveau, Le Sueur, Samuel Dawson, Oxley, Jack, Griffin, Ellis, Faucher de St. Maurice, Harper and George Murray. To studies on political economy and finance we have contributed no promi- nent names as writers of treatises on those subjects, but George Hague and the late Charles F. Smithers of Montreal have presented the banking side of the argument, in sound, practical papers of great value. In almost every department of scientific investigation and thought we have an array of men of whom any country might be proud, some of them having a fame which is world-wide. Briefly, I may mention a few of these, such as the Dawsons, father and son, Drs. Wilson, Hunt, Hamel, Selwyn, Bell, Laflamme, Lawson, MacGregor, Bailey, and Messrs. Sandford Fleming, Matthews, Murdoch, Carpmael, Johnson, Hoffman, Bayne and Macfarlane. Of course, this list, by no means, includes all. The education of the French Canadian is much more literaiy than scientific. His taste for letters is cultivated at quite an early age, and oratory, belles-lettres and the classics form by far the stronger part of his mental outfit on leaving college. Higher thought and scientific research have few charms for him which he cannot withstand, and he turns, with passion almost, to poetry, romance, light philosophy and history. He is an insatiable reader, but his taste is circum- scribed and narrowed, and following the bent of his inclinations, Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 135 he eschews all the troublesome paradoxes of literature, avoids speculative authors, and reads with delight and appreciation the books which furnish him with the most amusement. He seeks recreation in his reading matter, and, sympathizing with Emerson, though he scarcely knows a line of that author, he makes it a point to read only the books which please him the best. He likes clever verses and a good novel, and as the printing-press of France furnishes exemplars of these in abundance, he is never put to straits for supplies. Naturally enough, when the French Canadian attempts authorship, he writes poetry, romances, ckroniques and history. The latter he does very well, and exhibits industry and skill in the arrange- ment of his materials and the grouping of his facts. His work- rarely fails in artistic merit, and its strength lies in the easy flow and elegance of its diction, and the spirit in which the author approaches his subject. Quebec's list of poets is a long one. Almost every fairly-educated young man can, at will, produce a copy of well-turned verse, but fortunately all do not exercise their power, nor do those who print poems in the newspapers always make volumes of their lays afterwards. Strange to say, Quebec is singularly badly-off for female poets. I know of but one or two ladies who have courted the muses and printed their verses. We must not forget, however, that a poem is often emphasized in the tying of a ribbon, in the arrangement of the hair, and in the fashioning of a bow, and it would be unfair to describe Quebec's young women as unpoeti- cal merely because they have not seen fit to put their thoughts into song. There are many male poets in the province, but it will be unnecessary to concern ourselves, at rj6 New Papers on Canadian History^ this time, with more than half a dozen of the better-known ones. These are Cremazie. Frechette. Le May, Garneau, Routiner and Suite, each distinct from the other, in style, touch and motive; Joseph Octave Cremazie deserves, perhaps, the special title of national poet of French Canada, but Louis llcnorc Frechette, whose versatility and fancy rise to great heights, is not far below him. There are few prominent novelists, as 1 have said, oi either French or English origin. The name of James de Mille, a New-Brunswicker, stands out prominently, but his fiction is little tinctured with the Cana- dian flavor. Among the French, we have only Chauveau, Marmette, Bourassa and Le May. Literature in Canada, owe- much to the various literary and historial societies, which exist in nearly all the chief towns of the Dominion. The parent of them all is the old Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, which was founded in 1824, by the Karl of Dalhousie, then Governor- General. This institution owns many rare manuscripts and printed books, relating to the early history of the country, and every year its treasures arc explored and investigated by historians and enquirers from all parts of the Continent. The Society has published sonic valuable memoirs, transactions and manuscripts in French and in English, and these are held in high repute by scholars everywhere. In Montreal. Toronto. Halifax, St. John. N. B., and Winnipeg, similar societies enjoy a flourishing and useful existence. Four years ago. the Marquis of Lome, founded the Royal Society oi Canada. The membership was limited to eight)- men. and the objects of the society may be thus described : firstly, to encourage studies and Art, Science i Literature, and Commerce. ijy investigations in literature and science; secondly, to publish transactions containing the minutes of proceedings at meetings, records of the work performed, original papers and memoirs of merit, and such other documents as might be deemed worthy of publication ; thirdly, to offer prizes or other inducements for valuable papers on subjects relating to Canada, and to aid researches already begun and carried so far as to render their ultimate value probable ; fourthly, to assist in the collection of specimens, with a view to the formation of a Canadian Museum of Archives, Ethnology, Archaeology and Natural History. The society is divided into four sections; I. — French Litera- ture, with history, archaeology and allied subjects ; 2. — English Literature with history, archaeology and allied subjects; 3. — Mathematical, chemical and physical sciences; 4. — Geological and biological sciences. The sections meet separately for the reading and discussion of papers, or other business, during the annual session of the society, which has so far assembled at Ottawa in the month of May. These meetings have been most successful, in point of attendance and work actually performed, and the usefulness of the society has been greatly extended by its catholicity and liberality towards kindred institutions, almost every one of which, in Canada, has been invited annually to send delegates to the Royal. These representatives have the privilege of taking part in all general or sectional meetings for reading and discussing papers. They may also communicate a statement of original work done, and papers published during the year by their own societies, and may report on any matters which the Royal Society may usefully aid in publication or otherwise. The rj8 New Papers on Canadian History, Dominion Government aids the Royal Society by an annual grant of §5,000, which is set aside for the publication of the transactions and proceedings. Thus far, four large volumes have been published, and a glance at their contents affords convincing testimony of the value ' of the work which the society is doing. Its weak point, doubtless, rests in the literary sections. But even those departments may be made valuable and eminently useful in time. In archaeology, history and ethnology the field is wide, and it is satisfactory to note that the two first sections are already devoting their energies to their special line of work with vigor and zeal. In one branch of study, in particu- lar, that of ethnology, the Royal Society has an important duty to perform. The Indian population is fast disappearing. In a few years, the characteristics of the red races will be wholly lost. It is necessary to preserve these, while the tribes remain, and this work is being done by the second section of the Royal Society, and it is a work which possesses a value that cannot be over estimated. Of course, in historical research, and in archaeological investigation, the extent of the society's labors is practically unlimited. Royal societies, with similar objects in view, exist in various quarters of the globe. Canada surely, is old enough and advanced enough to have one also. In a paper such as this, some reference should be made to the really admirable Department of Archives, which is main- tained by the Dominion Government at Ottawa. It is under the charge of that competent and zealous officer, Mr. Douglas Brymner, whose tastes and training well fit him for the duties of his office. He has really created the department and made it one of the most efficient in the public service of Canada. . //-/, Science, Literature, and Commerce. ijg Fifteen years ago the historical records of Canada had scarcely an abiding place. We had no regular system by which letl pamphlets, printed books and documents and manuscripts relating to the commercial, literary and political activity of the country could be preserved, and rendered accessible to the student. Thousands of valuable papers were in imminent danger of being lost ; many undoubtedly did perish. In 1 87 1, a number of literary men of Canada, petitioned the legislature to organize a branch of the public service by means of which historical data might be preserved. Parliament promptly acceded to this request, and the Minister of culture added the Archives branch to his department. Mr. Brymner was placed in charge, and he began his wcrk of collecting absolutely ab ovo, not a single document of an}- sort being in hand when he commenced. To-day, the shelves of the Department contain upwards of seven thousand volumes of historical papers on every conceivable subject of interest to Canadians. The work of indexing these enormous collections goes on daily, and fresh matter is constantly being added. Mr. Brymner's aim being to make the Archives truly national in every respect and as complete as possible. Much has been written about the law of copyright. Canada passed a fairly good act in 1875, Dut as •* contravened the Imperial statute, it was not long before the authorities in London declared the act ultra vires, and our publishers have been in a most unhappy frame of mind ever since. In a word, the business of publishing books in Canada is at a pretty low ebb, and publishers find little encouragement in extending their trade. The Canadian author is not so badly off, just now. 140 New Papers on Canadian History, Under the old British act, a very good rule only worked one way. Thus, the English author who copyrighted his book in England was fully protected in every colony flying the British flag. The Canadian or Australian author, however, could only obtain copyright in the colony or province where his book was published. The other day, an amendment was made to the act by the Imperial Parliament, and by its terms, any work published in the Queen's dominions is fully protected all over the vast empire. The various colonial governments were communicated with on the subject, and all but New South Wales replied favorably. That far-off dependency remains to be heard from. Meanwhile, the act was passed, and for the benefit of New South Wales a clause was inserted exempting any colony from the operation of the measure, should it prefer to keep to the old order of things. And, just here, is a good place to ask, do Canadians read the productions of their own authors? What encouragement do they give the writers of Canadian books? It is a fact that Canada cannot support a really first-class magazine. The experiment of magazine publishing has been tried in all the chief cities of the Dominion, but it has failed in every instance, though the trial has been made honestly and at considerable sacrifice on the part of the promoters of the enterprise. Every now and then we hear the question : Why does Canada not have a magazine ? The Canadians read magazines, and pa)' for them. This is true ; but it is also true that they want the best. Their standard is high, and unless the publisher can supply a publication which can compete with the important old world and United States serials, they will not have it, no matter how Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. iji patriotic they may suppose themselves to be. Of course, the day is coming when Canada will have its great monthly and still greater quarterly, but the time is not yet ripe. In the meantime, the question which presses for solution is, what are we doing, in a helpful way, for our own authors in the Dominion ? Are we encouraging them to write and publish ? We know that men like Dr. Daniel Wilson, Prof. Clark Murray and Mr. Grant Allen, and some others who could be named, never think of publishing their books in Canada. They have something to say, and expression to their views is always given in the largest possible field. They find it to their advantage- to publish in England or in the United States. Small editions of their books are sometimes sold to Canadian booksellers, either in sheets, or bound up within cloth covers, but the copies so disposed of, yield scarcely a tithe of the remuneration which reaches the successful author, from the sale of his books in the great markets in which they first see the light. The Canadian author cannot be blamed for making the most of his opportu- nities, in this way. The market in Canada is limited, and, as a general thing, if a Canadian book is published in Canada, little can be realized out of the venture. There are exceptions to every rule of course, and a few Canadian books, written and published in the Dominion, have repaid their authors very well. Mr. Dent's Last Forty Years and his Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion, Principal Grant's Ocean to Ocean, Mr. Bourinot's book on Parliamentary Practice, Picturesque Canada. Mr. Bengough's amusing Caricature History of Canadian Politics, Mr. Lemoine's historical sketches, and perhaps, half a dozen other books, have yielded handsome returns to 14.2 New Papers on Canadian History, their authors, but the great majority of our Canadian books have hardly paid the publisher in his outlay for printing and binding. Mr. John Lovell, whose experience in the business of book-publishing has been varied and extensive, used to call the fruits of his enterprise, his " housekeepers." Eventually, thousands of these volumes found their way to the trunk- makers and the auction shops. And the same thing is still going on. Now what can be said on the subject ? We cannot force the public of Canada to buy and read the works of Canadian writers. Our people are a reading community, and judging from the collection of books which may be seen in most houses, their literary taste is good. It might be said that Canadian books are not bought because the style of their authors is not of the highest excellence, that crudity and not elegance is their chief characteristic, and that in point of topic and treatment they possess little that is calculated to commend them to the book-buyer. But is this true ? We often speak of Canadian literature, but let us ask ourselves the question : Have we a literature of our own ? Certainly, we have writers of books ; but does the literary work which they perform constitute a literature, in the fullest mean- ing of the term ? Mr. Charles Dudley Warner has voiced the idea that the lack of intellectual activity of the Canadians is due to the fact that they have to put forth so much of their physical energy in an endeavor to keep warm. But Mr. Warner's delicious satire is often extravagant, we know, and we also know that he is never quite so extravagant as when he undertakes to deal with Canadian affairs. Mr. Carter Troop, the other day, discussed Mr. Warner's views, in some sharp Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 143 paragraphs, in the New York Critic • but, at the same time, he felt constrained to acknowledge that in Canada there was con- siderable " literary feebleness." The cause of this he ascribes to our " humble political status." " As a colony," he writes. '• Canada possesses neither the higher attributes nor the graver responsibilities of national existence ; and where such attri- butes and responsibilities are wanting, national life and feeling, the source and inspiration of all literary achievements, will be equally wanting." Of course, this simply means that the colonial position is fatal to the development of our higher intellectual life and movement, — literary genius in fact, — and that the panacea for our ills in that respect is independence alone. I cannot go as far as that, though I must admit that the idea is suggestive and may be discussed. American letters, we know, during the colonial period, were feeble and insignifi- cant. After years of independence came a literature, full of promise and character. But has its present robust condition been reached by independence merely? Must Canada pursue a similar course of political advancement, if she would have a literature of marked individuality, color and strength ? I should be sorry to think so. Canada is still young in years, and time will work a change. American literature has grown with the increase in the ranks of the leisure class in the United States, and educa- tion has done the rest. Only a few decades ago, the people of the great Republic, were largely dependent on British and European authors for their intellectual food. Even the serials in the leading magazines of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, were from the pens of English novelists. The literature which we all admire to-day, is really almost of yesterday. Most of 144 New Papers on Canadian History, us can remember when America had hardly more than three or four fiction writers of repute, while half a dozen gentlemen only were writing the ballads and poems of the nation, and of the half-dozen, not more than four were distinctively American in their treatment of scenery and incident. Give Canada a chance. Give her time to have a large leisure class. Give to her literary men and women, the incentive and encourage- ment they need, and Canadian authorship will not lack in individuality and robustness. Much has been done in the way of education. Our wealthy men are endowing colleges, and founding scholarships in the universities. Our schools are practically free ; in some of our provinces, they are entirely free. Perhaps, we are crowding too many men into the professions, but in time, even this error, if it be an error, will regulate itself. The country is beginning to pay attention to what men of culture and of thought have to say about the various problems of life and of human experience. Our lectures attract larger and more appreciative audiences. The people read more, and they are exercising greater discrimination in their reading than they ever did before, and, from all these signs, I feel that I am safe in predicting that the day of successful Canadian authorship is not far distant, and that we will yet have a literature of which we may feel reasonably proud, and that too, without changing our allegiance or altering our system of political and national life. ECHOES FROM OLD ACADIA. Prof. CffAS. G. D. ROBERTS, Kings College, Windsor, N. S. { Read before tin- Canadian Club \ of .Ye;,' York. THE LIFTING OF THE CURTAIN. ART of the making of our beloved maple-leaf land has been played by the seaward sister province which once together formed Acadia. Walled round with fogs, and rocks and inhospitable seas, Acadia, now- divided into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is lovely at heart with sunshine and fertility. Her harbors are gateways leading from a region of storm and wild tides into a land of delicious summers, a land of tumbling I./.6 New Papers on Canadian History, streams and blue lakes, of ample meadows deep with grass and flowers drowsing through the long afternoons, of vast forests so thick that their grim shadows know scarcely touch of sun. And one of these well favored Acadian havens lured to itself the first settlement that struck root in the whole broad country, now called Canada. This was the harbor of Port Royal, wherein de Monts set a colony in 1605. It was seventy years before this that a drama had been opened upon the Acadian stage. On the 30th of June, 1534, it began, when Cartier sighted Cape Escuminac (locally now Skiminac), on the gulf shore of New Brunswick. Coming from the bleak, forbidding coasts of Newfound- land, which he deemed to be Cain's portion of the earth, the harshest corner of Acadia appeared to Cartier a Paradise. The wide water in which he found himself was Miramichi Bay. Not discovering the Miramichi itself, whose mouth lay hidden close at hand, behind long ranges of sand pits, chains of islands, and intricate shoals, he landed on the banks of a lesser river, not identified among the thousand that overlace that region with their silver courses. This stream rippled shallow over its gleaming pebbles, and swarmed with trout and salmon. The wide woods about were of pine and cedar, elm and oak, birch, willow, fir, maple and tamarack, and the sailor's hearts rejoiced over such unlimited possibilities of ships. Where the woods gave back a little space, the ground was covered with wild fruits. Great melting strawberries betrayed themselves by their red gleams piercing the matted grass. The bronze- green blackberry thickets were heavy with their yet unripened fruitage, and the wild pea trammelled his footsteps with its Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. Ijj ropes of purple and pale green. This prodigal land was popu- lous with game. When wild pigeons in innumerable flocks streamed past and darkened the air. the heavens seemed as thick with wings as the sea and streams with the countless salmon passing the shoals. Every sedge-grown marsh was noisy with ducks. Plover and curlew piped clearly about the edges of the pools. And the people possessing this land were friendly and few. Bearing northward, Carrier's weather-darkened sails were soon wafting him over the fairest bay his eyes had yet rested upon. Its waters were clear green, and scarce rippled under the steep sun of mid-July. No reefs, no shoals, but here and there a dark green island asleep on the sleepy tide. On either hand a long receding line of lofty shores drawing close together towards the west, and shading gently from indigo to pale violet. So great was the change from the raw winds of the gulf to this sultry sea that Cartier named it Baie des Chaleurs. Here they passed some days very sweetly in indolent exploration, in trading with the hospitable Micmacs, in feasting on seal flesh and salmon. So commercial were the natives of this land that they bartered the clothes they wore for trades and trinkets. Then Cartier sailed on to the north, to discover the St. Lawrence. And the picture of this visit of his to Acadian shores is the mere fleeting revelation of a light- ening in the night, with thicker darkness following after it. A I I 111: ST. CROIX M(H ."I II. .After a lapse of nearly three-quarters of a century, Acadian history makes a real beginning at the St. Croix mouth. To 148 New Papers on Canadian History, the Sieur de Monts were given letters patent, conferring on him the title of Lieutenent-General of the Territory of Acadia, with full power, between the 40th and 46th parallels, to divide and bestow the land as he might see fit ; with power also of monopolizing trade, of making war and peace, and ordinances and law. With him set sail from Havre de Grace, in March 1604, Baron de Poutrincourt, and the father of Canada, Champlain. In June the prospective colony, in search of an abiding place, having rejected Port Rossignol and the pastoral valley of Port Royal, having traversed the yellow turbulence of the Bay of Fundy and discovered the rock-bastioned harbor hollowed by the outflow of the St. John, found itself among the myriad islands of Passamaquoddy Bay. Even Clamplain, the faithful chronicler, could keep no count of these islands. A vast sweeping curve of the shore, leagues in extent, clasped the sunny archipelago as a handful of jewels ; and at the apex of the curve a broad river emptied itself quietly, between wooded low-lying lands, watched over by a solitary peak. This now they called the St. Croix, and on a little island within its mouth they resolved to set their colony. The waters round about were alive with fish, the islands in the bay with birds. At the south or seaward end of the island, which was long and narrow, containing about half a score of acres, rose a grassy knoll upon which to set their watch. Save for a stray elm or water-ash, the island bore but grass from brink to brink, and the two or three trees they found they cut down to go to the building of the fort. This was raised at the north end, and around it clustered the dwelling-houses, the storehouse, the chapel, and a great baking oven of burnt brick. On the main Art, Science, Li I era hire, and Commerce. i^g land near by they built a mill, and sowed, though it was now full .summer, their rye and barley ; and they laid out garden plots, in loving likeness to the thyme closes and beds of marjoren which sweetened the air around their Norman houses. Strange in their nostrils were the heavy aromatic odors of the wild parsnip, cloying the mid-day breeze. Strange in their ears was the intricate metallic bubblings from the bobolink's throat, the chide of the grackles in the alder and swaying elm-tops. They cut the elm for building and the alder for fagots, and the bobolink moved further off as he saw his loved wild-parsnip heads laid low. So with digging and building the summer passed merrily along. But, by and by, the summer went out in a sudden blaze of scarlet and gold ; it " Had glared against the noonday and was not ;" and a dispiriting greyness stole across the landscape. When the late October winds began to pipe over the shelterless island, bending the sere, long grasses all one way, and ridden by such a legion of dead leaves that every brook was choked and the still pools hidden from sight, their hearts turned home- ward very longingly. At last the Acadian winter broke upon them, and it caught them unawares. The pleasant river grew dark, of the hue of steel, and chafed past their thresholds with a burden of ice and debris. The cold was such as France had never taught them to endure or to conceive of ; sleet and pitiless winds drove in through the chinks of their rough walls, till they crouched over the meagre fires and grew sorely wretched at heart. No fuel nor water was on the island, and for both they had to face the fury of the weather and the 150 New Papers on Canadian History, danger of the sweeping ice-cakes. A band of Indians came to their camp upon the island ; and the colonists, not yet acquainted with the friendliness and good faith of these " Iouriquois," were harassed with continual fear and watchings. Champlain's hope and cheerfulness nothing could daunt, and he strove to sustain the flagging spirits about him. But in vain. Then from their despondency and homesickness, from the cold on their bodies ill-inured to it. and from the salt unwholesomeness of their fare, came disease upon them. It was a plague, strange and terrible, for which they could find no remedy. The mouths of those stricken swelled, and their throats, till they were choking. Their teeth dropped out and their limbs, grown horribly enlarged, were altogether useless. So swift was the disease that hardly could the sick be given service, and the dead buried. When spring came, and kindlier skies, there remained alive but forty-four persons, out of a band of nearly four score ; and these, as soon as strength returned, took ship with the first propitious weather. South as far as Cape Cod they searched the coasts, and found no place quite to their liking. But they had kept in mind the fertile valley and spacious sheltered basin of Port Royal ; and thither they betook themselves, with whatever could be carried away from their sorrowful winter home. The fort and the walls of their dwellings they left standing, and they sowed the island with grain before forsaking it. The deserted walls soon fell, or were taken away by the Indians : and the stone and cedar foundations are buried under drift and river silt. The island has moved up stream a little, gnawed off to windward by the tides. But its shape is still unchanged, so that the ancient Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 151 chronicle describes a familiar spot. The wind beats steadily across it still, the grass bending before it with desolate mono- tony ; and save for the solitary light-keeper, who is there but from sunset to sunrise, the island is as empty of life to this day as when Champlain first dropped anchor in the St. Croix mouth. FRENCH GARDENS, SABLE ISI.AXH. " A land of sand, and ruin, and gold." The question is almost literally correct. Scarce anything but ruin and sand, is the bane of ocean-farers, the " Isle of Sable." And though there may be indeed but little gold herein, yet there is no lack of costly merchandise washed upon its avaricious shores, and none can tell the riches that lie hid in •' the sands " secretive bosom of Sable Island ! It is a name to conjure with, raising, as it created, more phantoms than any other spot on the Atlantic. It is a name, when the fog is thick and the winds are veering fitfully off the south-east of Nova Scotia, to whiten the lips and cheeks of the hardiest mariner. The island has been given another name : " The charnel house of North America." Nevertheless, this place of horrors has a strange fascination for those who visit it, volun- tarily ! The sepulchere is well whitened. Though full of dead men's bones, the island is kind to its dead. The clean, unresting currents roll them and wash them, the clean sands swathe and cover them away. But one holds one's grave in this island on frail tenure, for the fickle winds and capricious waters love to uncover again even what they have most carefully laid from sight, and will shift one's last couch many times in the course 1 52 New Papers on Canadian History, of a quarter-century. After every violent gale, when calm has returned with clear nights, may be seen unknown bleached skeletons " revisiting the glimpses of the moon ;" while others, by the self-same wanton gale, have been lapped away again in sandy burial. The Isle of Sable is in great part a deposit of the drift of meeting currents. Vast eddies, from the contact of the gulf- stream's edge with two branches of separated polar current, circle about the island, eating away and rebuilding it continually. It is the nucleus of the densest fogs, the vortex of the wildest storms of the North Atlantic. Its shape is roughly that of a crescent, 22 miles long by one in width, and a shallow lake divides it longitudinally. It is moving eastward before the prevailing winds, and rapidly decreasing in size. When first set down on chart by Pedro Reinel, in 1505, its size was more than as great again as we have it now. On Reinel's chart its name is Santa Cruz. To a sheltered spot in the island, in honor of the earliest dwellers upon it, is given the name of the " French Gardens." The first settlers on the Isle of Sable became such by no free will of theirs ; and this was the manner of their coming: In the Spring of 1598, the Marquis De la Roche, being made Vice-Roy of Canada and Acadia, set sail for his new dominions with a shipload of convicts for colonists. Approaching the Acadian coasts he conceived, in his prudence, the design of landing his dangerous charge upon the Isle of Sable, till he might go and prepare for them, on the main-land, a place of safety. As the French barque neared the island, and the eyes of those on board, though sharpened by weeks of sea-voyaging, could scarce distinguish, Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 153 save by the settling fringes of white surf, the low grey hores from the gray tumult of surrounding sea, De la Roche felt that he might leave here his sorry settlers with a most reasonable confidence that they would await his return. The forty convicts, selected from the chief prisons of France, were landed thro' the uproar of the surf, and the ship made haste away from the perilous shore. But, she came not back again ! De la Roche reached Acadia, chose a site for his settlement, and set out for the island to fetch his expectant colonists. But a great gale swept him back to France and drove him upon the Breton coast, where the Duke de Mercouer, at that time warring against the King, seized him, cast him into prison, and held him close for five years. Meanwhile, those left on the island were delighted enough. They were free, and began to forget the scourge and chain. Beside the unstable hummocks and hills of sand they found a shallow lake of sweet waters, the shores of which were clothed luxuriantly with long grass and lentils, and veins of vetch. Here and there were great patches of naked sand, and tracts where the sands had drifted over the grass and smothered it, but for the most part the valley of the lake was like a rolling meadow. No tree or shrub had root in all the island, but the turf where it was richest grew resplendent with wild lilies, and asters and dwarf roses. In some places the grass was thrust aside by the wiry branches of the blackberry, and whole acres were covered by a close mat of cranberry vines. Lurking in any or even' portion of the grass-plain were little cup-like hollows, generally filled with clear water. These were formed by eddies of the wind, which kept scooping and sucking away the sand from every 1 54 New Papers on Canadian History, raw spot, where the skin-like covering of turf had been removed. The cups would then fill gradually from rains and from infil- tration. Every such pool, like the lake, was alive with ducks and other water-fowl, amongst which the joyous ex-convicts created consternation. There were wild-cattle also, trooping and lowing among the sand-hills, or feeding belly-deep in the rank water-grasses ; while herds of wild-hogs, introduced years before by the Portuguese, disputed the shallow pools with the mallard and teal. The weather for a while kept fine, and the winds comparatively temperate, and the sojourners held a carnival of liberty and indolence. But this was not for long, and as the skies grew harsher their plight grew harder. As the weeks slipped into months they grew first impatient, then solicitous, then despairing. Their provisions fell low and at last the truth was staring them in the face, they were deserted. From the wrecks upon the shore they built themselves at first a rude shelter, which the increasing cold and storms soon drove them to perfect with their most cunning skill. As their stores diminished they looked on greedily and glared at each other with jealous eyes. Soon quarrels broke out with but little provocation, and were settled by the knife with such fatal frequency that the members of the colony shrank apace. There was no discipline, no order, no authority. Every man made his own desire his law, and did his best to enforce it upon his neighbor. As they had been provided with no means of lighting fires, they soon had to live on the raw-flesh of the wild- cattle, and little by little they learned the lesson and began to relish such fare. Little by little, too, as their garments fell to pieces, they replaced them with skins of the seals that swarmed Arc, Science, Literature^ and Commerce. 155 about the beach ; and their hut they lined with hides from the cattle they had slaughtered. The hut was built in the deepest heart of the island, in the firmest group of sand-hills they could find, for they had speedily learned to dread the winds that scourged that naked land with relentless fury. They built the walls about with turf and secured them with the heaviest timbers to be had. In the raving December nights, when the bitter cold edged through their thickest walls, they laid aside their feud and animosity and huddled together for the sake of warmth. Terror, too, drew them closer together, when the hurricane yelled about the sand-hills; when every one caught outside the hut had to throw himself on his face lest he should be whirled out to sea; when the darkness fell suddenly while they thought it scarce mid-day ; when the only light was that from the driven spume ; when the whole island quivered under the thunderous waters vol- leyed against it ; and when the miles of beach were rent away to form new shoals in the offing. As the months became years their deadly contests ceased, but exposure, and frost, and hunger, and disease kept thinning their ranks. They occupied them- selves in persuing the seal for its skin, the walrus for its ivory. The cattle they killed only to supply their needs; but the wild swine, grown bloodthirsty from having devoured dead bodies, they hunted down remorselesly as a hateful foe. And so t he- time dragged on, till they began to say they were nearly five years in this prison. They had gathered a great store of sealskins, ivory and hides, but now only twelve men remained to possess these riches. Their beards had grown to their waist, their skins were like the furs that covered them, their nails 156 New Papers on Canadian History, were like birds' claws, their eyes gleamed with a sort of shy- ferocity through the long matted tangle of their hair. At last, from out of his prison, De la Roche got word to the King, telling him of their miserable fortune. A ship was at once sent out to rescue them, under the guidance of the pilot Chetodel who had sailed on the former voyage with De la Roche. They saw the ship at anchor outside the shoals and came down upon the beach, waving their arms. As they saw the ship urging to land thro' the breakers, they shouted and ran about like madmen, or cast themselves down grovelling in the sand, till their rescuers imagined them half-savage, half wild beast. Taken back to France with their furs and ivory, they were brought before Hemy as they had been found, in their shaggy hair, and beards, and their coats of .kins. The story of their grievous hardships moved the King, and he gave them money, with a full pardon ; whereupon two or three of them went back to their island of horrors to collect more furs, and for the rest of their lives devoted themselves to that trade. The site of their hut, and of the sand-plot which the)' made an effort to till, has years ago been engulfed by the tides, and probably forms an outlying part of what is now called the Northwest bar. But the name, " French Gardens," keeps the story of their sufferings in remembrance; and the spot that bears the name is, by courtesy, the spot that gave them refuge. THE ORDER OF THE GOOD TIMES. As an offset to such a story of desolation, let me turn for a moment to the famous "Order of a Good Time.'' This Art % Science, Literature^ and Commerce. 157 institution, organized by Champlain at Port Royal, during the winter 1606-1607, has been well celebrated by the merry Max Lescarbot, a moving spirit in the Order. And it has been overlooked, I think, by no historian since. The temple of the Order was Poutrincourt's dark-ceilinged dining-hall, his amp] dining-table the shrine of its most sacred mysteries. The initiated members were fifteen, and for guests, when they craved the spice of life, they had the great Micmac chieftain, with such of his warriors and wives as showed them- selves most amenable to civilization. The office of honor and responsibility in the Order was the ancient office of steward, which fell to each member in turn, and was tenable fortunately, only a day at a time. Upon the shoulders of the steward there fell, with the decorated collar of his dignity, the burden of assuaging the appetites of this hungry and hilarious brother- hood. He had at his disposal no lack of stored provisions, bread, dried fruits, etc., brought from France by the previous summer's ship ; but he would cover his office with dis- grace if he failed to add some new delicacy to each new bill of fare. At first the task was not difficult, but as the various kinds of fish became familiar to the palates of the order, as another and yet another species of game was accepted and registered as satisfactory, the honorable steward was soon driven to tax his best wits. But there was never a failure, if we may trust Lescarbot's chronicle. Only, alas, toward spring, the wine ran low, and instead of three quarts to each member, the daily allowance was diminished to one poor pint. Canada's national beverage was not yet brewed, or they might have turned their rye to delightful account ! When dinner was announced, the 158 New Papers on Canadian History^ steward in his decorations led the way, bearing the staff and napkin of his office, and all followed in set order and solemn dignity, till the laden table was revealed in the glow of the heaped-up hearth, and the low-ceiling, with its shifting shadows, seemed to draw closer down about the cosy revel. The feast done, ami grace said in grateful Latin, the steward rose and pledged his successor in a final magnanimous cup, and then resigned to him his badges and his burden. The effect of such an institution was to keep hearts and hands cheerful, and to speed the winter finely ; and though some of the colonists died before spring, Lescarbot sets this down to the fact that these were of a sluggish and fretful disposition and not susceptible to the curative powers of mirth. There is another and not implausible explanation however, which Lescarbot strangely overlooks. Sometime during January the whole Order went on a six miles trip, to see if the corn they had sown in November was growing under the snow ; and there, in the snow and mocking sunshine, they held a picnic-banquet very gayly. This was a new and charming experience ; but the four deaths occurred not many weeks later ! Poor sluggish, fretful souls ! THE WIFE OF CHARLES I. A TOUR. It is about this woman that chiefly clings the romance of Acadian history. Her is the name that stands in Acadian an- nals for heroism, fidelity, wifely devotion, ill-fate. Her's is a figure among illustrious women than which there is none bathed in a clearer and more stainless fame. Her's is the memory served with most chivalrous worship from the lips of us later Acadians. Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. 150 On level land, well out of reach of high titles, on the inmost corner of that sate haven which lies at the mouth of the St. John, was built the fortressed home of Charles la Tour. It stood upon the harbor's western shore, over against a small island which ceases to be an island at low water, when the west channel, now called " Buttermilk Channel," for occult reasons has a trick of going dry. It was a strong fort of four bastions, heavily palisaded, and was the outlet for all the rich trade of the St. Johns River valley and eastern Maine. Within the fort were happiness and plenty, whether the master of the fort remained at home to rule as a kindly despot among his follow- ers, or whether, during his long journeys into the wilderness, he left his wife to divide her time between her children and the government of the colony. The wife upon whose hands, with such confidence, he laid responsibilities so heavy, was a nobly- born and daintily-nurtured woman, who had left for him the luxury of a home in rich Rochelle. Love for their mistre-^. however, made the colonists easy to rule ; and their time went by not idly, but with peace. There was trading with the Indians continually ; there was the hunting and trapping ; there were the long rows of stake-nets to be emptied of their salmon, and shad, and gaspereaux when the stony-flats east of the fort were daily uncovered by ebb-tide. So the days were filled up pleasantly at the mouth of the St. Johns. Hut across the fog and turbulence of the bay, in fair Port Royal, was creeping up a storm to marthis brightness. There sat the Sieur Charnisay. dividing with La Tour the Acadian territority and trade, and watching with vindictive envy the prosperity of his rival. 160 New Papers on Canadian History, Already his enmity and diligent intrigues at Versailles were beginning to show their effects. It was in the early spring of 1643, a dense, raw fog clung over the harbor and the heights. The tide was out ; the flats stretched seaward their long lines of clean grey rock and their beds of olive kelp ; the current of the great river swirled past sullenly with its sheets of whirling foam from the falls ; the men, whose purple hands, numbed with the salt, were empty- ing the ranges of nets, loomed vague and distorted through the mist, and the voices of their comrades, whom the darkness hid, seemed wizard-like uttered from the waters. Suddenly the fog thinned, lifted, faded away into the blue of a sunlit morning ; its last shreds streaming off reluctantly through the firs and cedars on the cliffs. The fish-gatherers, startled by an alarm- gun from the fort, looked up to find three vessels sailing in under what is now called Partridge Island. Following in the shadow of the same steep, dark-wooded shore, came several small crafts, pinnaces and cat-rigged launches. There was but little time left for taking counsel. All the colony was soon within walls, and the gunners stood to their pieces. Not bringing his ships within range of the fort's heavy metal, Charnisay choose a piece of smooth, red beach to the southward, where the waves lapped softly, and some cakes of ice still lingered in the shal- lows. Here he led ashore his five hundred men to the assault. By the half-dry channel to the left, by the dripping flats in front, by the naked uplands to the right, with shouts and vol- leys of musketry, the invaders stormed in. But La Tour was at home and not caught sleeping. For an hour the assault raged furiously on rampart and palisade and bastion, but the .7/7, Science, Literature, and Commerce. r6i short carronades, with lowered muzzles, swept the ditches clear, and the besieged with musket stock and hand-spike beat down every foe that scaled the walls. Charnisay at last broke into an impotent rage, and ordered off his men to the ships; while the derisive garrison expediated their going with the acrid spur of bullets in their rear. Charnisay then drew a strict blockade about the fort and harbor, and waited for hunger to achieve what his arms could not. But La Tour, like the Ithacan chieftain, was no less subtle than brave, and to hold him imprisoned was a feat Charnisay had not yet learned to perform. The Rochelle ship, long expected with supplies and reinforcements, at length appeared off the coast. Instructed by timely signals from the fort, she kept well out in the offing; and toward the close of a murky night a small boat slipped under her stern, and Charles La Tour and his wife were received on board. In shadow of the shores of the harbor and Partridge Island heights, favored by the first of the ebb and a gentle wind off shore, with muffled oars they had crept through the blockade, and were off for help to Boston ere the dawn. The help was got, and all haste made back to the rescue. As Charnisay rested on his decks, dreaming that his foe was pinched with famine, his triumph now surely close at hand, as a most unpleasant revalation came La Tour with five ships and bore down upon him ready for battle. But he had small stomach for the encounter, and standing not upon the order of his going, the whole force took flight for refuge in Port Royal. As he reached Port Royal, La Tour was on his heels chastising him upon his own threshold. The quarrel might well have been ended then and there, to the sparing of 162 New Papers on Canadian History, much misery in the future, but the scruples of his Puritan allies, who were fairly well content with the booty already fallen to their hands — a cargo of rich furs belonging to Charnisay — here stepped in and proclaimed the virtues of moderation. These half-measures, as La Tour well knew, could profit his cause but little. Charnisay was not enfeebled by this repulse ; fortified, rather, in his purpose, strengthened with a more inexorable will of revenge. In silence both antagonists braced to renew the struggle. La Tour set himself to repair his defences, while his wife undertook a voyage to France to gather men and supplies and to strengthen the hearts of her husband's friends in his cause. To France also had gone her enemy before her, to plot and scheme at court, to borrow money, and to heap up false accusations against La Tour. After the manner of a mean nature toward whatever most shames it by contrast, Charnisay appeared to hate the wife even more bitterly than the husband, and no sooner learned of her coming than he brought a charge of treason against her, and obtained the King's order for her arrest. But the lady had been watching his every move, and now, as more than once there- after, over-matched him. She made a seasonable departure for England, and from London organized her husband's relief. By the spring of 1644, she had a vessel chartered and set sail ; but the captain consumed the whole summer in trading by the way. It was September when she reached Acadian waters, where Charnisay was on the watch for her, and straightway boarded the ship. She and all her party were hidden in the hold and the ship was represented as a trading-vessel bound for Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce, /6j Huston blown tar out oi her course by adverse winds. Beguiled by this possible story Charnisay retired ; the vessel's course was mended for Boston, and the brave wife landed on Boston wharves just too late to see her husband sail away. He, filled with fear at her strange delay, had once more come to Boston for assistance ; but this time on a futile errand, for the Puritans would hazard in his cause naught more costly than their sympathy and good wishes, and he had gone away at last with plenty of smiles upon his lips but with something near despair at his heart. But his wife, her hands now free, lost no more time. Bringing action for the unwarrantable delays she was adjudged two thousand pounds damages, in satisfaction of which she immediately seized the ship's cargo. Meanwhile arrived in the city an ambassador from Port Royal, seeking peace between Charnisay and New England. Hearing of the lady's presence the envoy made great haste with his business, and having persuaded the non-committal Puritans into some- thing like a treaty he departed from the city the same night. His hope was to give warning at Port Royal in time to capture this dangerous adversary before she could get behind the walls. But the servant succeeded no better than his master had done before him. As he came before Charnisay with his tidings, the brave wife was in the arms of her husband from whom she had been parted during thirteen months of fear. This was in October; and Charnisay now for a time sat quiet with his wrath, which required little nursing to keep warm. Not till the following February did he judge his vengeance ripened to the plucking. His needs had driven La Tour again to Boston. On the news of his going came the grim craft of his enemy, 1 6./. New Papers on Canadian History, appearing swiftly in silence like a shark, and took station under the lee of Partridge Island. The winter days wound by on tedious feet, under leaden skies for the most part, and through rainy winds and sleet. But on sharp blue mornings the watchers on the ramparts could see flitting whitely across the furthest tides, the cruisers of Charnisay waiting to intercept the longed-for relief. Within the fort, in spite of the wearying suspense, the garrison maintained good heart, scorning to be any less heroic than the dauntless woman at their head. As venison, fish and flour got low, the monotonous strain on their spirits grew more intense, till even attack would have been hailed as a fortunate change. Then came the excitement of finding traitors in their midst, and two friars, spies in conspiracy with Charnisay, were uncloaked with fierce curses and contempt. The garrison was for hanging them forthwith from the battle- ments, but their leader's too compassionate heart forbade it. She contented herself with driving them from the fort, from whose gates they slunk, white with terror and tremulous with malice, like lashed hounds to their master. Their words were exquisite to the ears of Charnisay. They told him of a feeble and dispirited garrison ; of little powder, and that hurt by the wet ; and of his long-craved triumph now within the very grasp of his fingers. The gray spectre of a ship that had so long lurked in the shadow of the dark island, was now seen to glide from her moorings. She drew silently up the harbor, lay to under the walls, then burst out against the fort with the roar of all her guns. But the sullen walls, so long seemingly dead, from which he had expected scarce a retort, awoke straightway to most retaliatory life. Every bastion blazed, Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce, r6§ and Charnisay's spars flew iti splinters under the storm. The garrison went wild with the delight of battle, as their beautiful leader — for she was beautiful — encouraged them, and moved where peril was the thickest. She went from bastion to bastion, and would take no shelter that covered not her followers as well; her clear eyes seemed everywhere at once, marking with grateful approval the brave loyalty of the least of her men. As her form from time to time appeared to those on shipboard, through the dividing drifts of smoke, the lips of Charnisay set themselves with yet more implacable hatred. The clear stretches of snow at the rear of the fort, the dazzling capes upon shoulders of fir-tree and cedar on the uplands, turned swarthy-brown as the smoke-waves volumed over them : and the tide-eaten ice-fringe was blackened along the shore under the battle. Soon the concentrated fire from the ramparts began to tell heavily upon the vessel's hull, her rigging being already a mass of wreck. When a score of men lay dead upon her decks and everywhere lay the wounded, Charnisay would still acknowledge no repulse. But when it was found that the hold was filling rapidly, with deep curses he turned for flight while flight was possible. But it was barely possible. Igno- miniously beaten by a woman, whom he had attacked when he thought her nearly helpless, he got out his small boats and hawsers and painfully towed his sinking hull out of range. He ran her ashore for repairs upon a strip of sandy beach ; and as soon as she could be kept afloat and steered he put back to Port Royal, balked once more. But he had the whole of France open behind him, while the adversary under whose chastisement he now writhed was so utterly shut off from all 1 66 New Papers on Canadian History, resources that the very nights and days fought against her. Her victory even seemed to presage defeat. Her enemy, when he again attacked, would more justly have measured her strength. Her husband could neither break nor elude the fast blockade which Charnisay's deadly vigilance maintained. And through the lull that followed their success it seemed to the waiting handful in the fort that the end of their grim play drew swiftly near. With the first of April weather, the climax came. One still night, when the sentry could hear the far-off rush of the falls, could hear the weird honking of the wild-geese, streaming northward unseen through the starless night, his ears grew suddenly alert as he caught also a distant rattle of cables, voices of sailors, and the splash of lowering boats. The fort was astir at once ; lights glimmered here and there and were afterward extinguished and all made ready for the struggle that was expect- ed with the dawn. With the dawn it came. The foe had disem- barked in the night, and now made the attack upon the landward and weaker side. Fiercely the stormers advanced to be doggedly and defiantly hurled back ; but with the defenders it was an energy that hoped for nothing. They, as well as their leader, knew that now finally had fate declared against them. From Thursday until Saturday the unflinching woman fronted every charge, and against her indomnitable courage the enemy broke and fled away shattered. Charnisay paused for a breathing spell and the garrison rested heavily. At length a stranger in the fort, an alien coward, turned traitor and, with the enemy's gold warming his pockets, admitted them when it came his turn on guard. Fven then, though to the garrison all was lost, Char- Art, Science, Literature, and Commerce. l6y nisay was not yet victorious. Within walls he was met so desperately that a mean fear seized him lest again he should suffer the shame of defeat. He felt the pre-eminence of the woman who faced him. and inwardly quailed before her. 11< called out for a truce, and offered honorable terms. Seeing that the day was surely his, however this agonized resistance might be draped on, and longing with her whole heart for the safety of her people, she set her name to the articles of surrender. Then came the supreme hour of the dastard victor's baseness. Even at this day as one tells it a fierce heat pricks in one's veins. When his end was gained, the stronghold in his power, his great rival crushed under his heel, then Charnisay mocked the woman he had so hardly vanquished, and tore up the capitulation before her face. The heroic garrison he took man by man, and hanged them in the open yard of the fort, while their mistress, sinking with honor, was held to watch them with a halter about her neck. The hideous deed finished Charnisay took his captive to Port Royal, where he presented her to his wife with mock reverence, as his deadly foe taken in by him to be cherished. Hut his taunts or his malignance to her were nothing; she had no heart left for any further pang. Within three weeks from the ruin of her husband, the des- truction of her home, the butchery of the loved and loyal followers, the wife of Charles La Tour died, with bitterest foes and strangers watching her. AN ACADIAN '• BUCHE DE N< >EL." At this season it is appropriate that I should close with some faint echoes from an old Acadian Christmas. 1 68 New Papers on Canadian History, It is December 25th, 1610 Anno Domini, and the tiny colony at Port Royal is five years old. The sun has risen just clear of a range of encircling hills, white with new snow. The whiteness is cut sharply here and there by sturdy fir-trees that have shaken the snow from their overladen boughs and now tower erect in the sparkling air, while their feebler fellows bend to earth under the weight of their snowy capes. Were we nearer we should find these unimprisoned trees girt about with a tangle of rabbit tracks and the dainty foot-prints of squirrels? the snow beneath the branches spotted with half-gnawed fragments of fir-cones. The level sunshine streams down the valley to the little palisaded fort at whose gate we are standing ; it dazzles over miles of white plain, then out upon the bosom of the land-locked harbor of Port Royal. In the distance and out of our kin, beats the tide-chafed mother of fogs, the Bay of Fundy. The blue and golden surface of the harbor is flecked with ice cakes from the Port Royal river, which is soughing in its channel close beside us. The tide is out, and the stream's bed is choked with ice-cakes, huddled thick together ; but along high water-mark the ice is laid in order, like mighty armor-plates of crystal, soiled at the edges and weather-eaten. The sobbing in mid-channel, the low noises of grinding and crumbling, and the signs of the incoming tide, lifting the ice. At the head of yonder little island the floes have shouldered one over another above tide-level, and with their clear facets have built up a mighty cluster of prisms. The snow that has wrapped up everything, climbing the palisades of the fort, hiding the ditch, curving over the low eaves of our poor half- dozen cabins, is trodden well down before the door of the for^e . //-/, Science, Literature, and Commerce. /o