human species? We shall presently see whether mankind was any better off from her hoarding it, as the miser hoards his gold; perhaps learn, too, just how much sentiment has been wasted upon a class of adventurers, with high-sounding names, who kept the country little better than the splendid desert they found it.

His majesty, Louis XIV., talks to his supple governor in this wise about that wonderful man, La Salle, whose discoveries were to add so much glory to this reign: "Like you," he curtly says, "I am persuaded that the discovery of the Sieur de La Salle is very useless; and it is necessary, hereafter, to prevent similar enterprises, which can have no other result than to debauch the people by the hope of gain, and to diminish the revenue from the beaver."

In these few tell-tale words we have the king's whole philosophy of government. "I am the state," he had said. He would not lift up the common people; he would much rather see the beaver increasing than the population; hence all other discoveries were to him very useless things indeed.

The colony, as that part of Canada lying on the St. Lawrence was called, was of no very great extent. It mainly clustered around the island of Montreal, and the crag of Quebec-Montreal the storehouse, Quebec the fortress.

At once fortress, capital, and port of commerce, Quebec held to Canada the same vital relation as Boston to New England. It was the cradle, the heart, the shield of Canada. Endowed by nature with a position almost impregnable, it attracted the sure and experienced eye of Champlain, its founder, as in the previous century it had that of the intrepid Jacques Cartier, its discoverer.

Montreal was more of a trading-post, a good deal of a convent, and less of a stronghold. It was but weakly fortified against Indian attacks from above, as Quebec was expected to defend the colony against all others from below.

Seated at the foot of the great Lachine rapids, all the Indian trade of the Far West was naturally poured into its lap. Between these two chief cities, a few strag

gling, ill-favored villages served as so many connecting links, rather than as feeders of either.

Fears of their inveterate enemies, the Iroquois, made the French long keep close to these places; indeed Montreal had sometimes been in a state of siege; nor did the slow growth in population, the causes for which we have just pointed out, admit of much expansion. In short, Canada was a typical royal colony, in which the king held both sword and purse. Emigration, as we of the nineteenth century understand the word, was not

encouraged. There was a small class of employers, furtraders mostly, and there was a larger class of employed, chiefly boatmen, bush-rangers, or handlers of other men's goods. There were a few farmers, living near the chief

towns or river villages, and there were a few fishermen on the coasts. The people, however, were of the most robust kind. Inured to outdoor life, their native gayety disposed them to be sociable toward the Indians, which the English, with colder temperament, could never be. When among Indians, the Canadian hunter easily put himself on their level. When going to

war he lived and fought like the Indians themselves. Like them, he learned to despise cold, hunger, hardship; to scrape away the snow for his bed; to fast or feast, as game was scarce or plenty; to bind up his own wounds with a few simples, or meet death without a whimper. This bred up a class of rude and lawless, but able-bodied, fighting

men, used to the woods, skilful with their weapons, and hardly less ferocious in combat than the red men themselves. In time of war they could be turned out to a man, because they had no choice but to obey the call or be shot, whereas, in the English colonies, the people could not be forced into the ranks, against their own. laws. Hence the whole fighting population could be mustered, at very short notice, by a simple proclamation; and woe to him who failed to be at the place appointed!

Under Louis XIV. Canada could not well be anything but a military despotism, not greatly softened by an ecclesiastical despotism. Old France had been governed by priests; the same thing was attempted here. This the king's officers warmly resented. So there was constant wrangling between them.

Men would hardly risk crossing the ocean, knowing that they would be no better off by doing so that the same stern despotism followed them everywhere. And even if they had come out to Canada, removals into the remote parts of it, to make new settlements, would have been strictly forbidden. This kept the colony small, if not select. In France Canada was valued first of all for its fur-trade, and afterward as an outlet for French goods; so that in one way or another nearly everybody there lived by the fur-trade; and the beaver-skin was the currency of Canada, just as tobacco was that of Virginia.

This fur-trade being wholly in the king's hands was, at best, nothing but a gigantic monopoly. Those wishing to engage in it had to pay roundly for the privilege, to say nothing of the gratuities demanded by those who had the granting of these permits. Traders bought the right to take so many boats, with so many men, to such or such a nation. Half the year the bone and sinew of

the colony were roaming the distant prairies in quest of furs. True, it encouraged a life of adventure, but not a domestic life. It opened paths, but built no cities. It enriched the few at the expense of the many. It gave men a splendid physical training, but kept them ignorant dependants.

What does the king himself say on this head? "Up to this time," he says again, "I have seen little success in the enterprises of the Sieur de La Salle for the discovery of the western parts of Canada; and as it is alleged that he has given permits to several individuals to trade with the Indians, under pretext of this discovery, you should clearly explain to him my intention that he should grant no such permits."

In this curt style did this king-and he was every inch a king-remind his subjects that he alone was master. Though gilded, the rod he held over them was still a rod of iron.

Canada, then, was a royal colony carried on for revenue only, with the head at Versailles and the hands at Quebec. Its rise or fall depended to a very great extent upon the yield of beaver. Of progress, in any enlightened sense, we discover very few traces indeed.

Here, too, we have the native genius of two great peoples sharply defined. The Latin race conquered, but did not colonize. The Anglo-Saxon race conquered to colonize. In Canada the first object of men and rulers was the beaver-skin. Quarrels with the English, quarrels with the Iroquois, quarrels with each other, all hinge upon that one article of trade; as, conversely, alliances, truces, or treaties all look to the same end.

To push this trade into new channels was, therefore, a prime object with every ambitious adventurer; for in