Volume I Part 4 (1/2)

It is not generally known in England that the feudal tenure--although very laughable and absurd at this time of day, and from which some seigneurs, but never those of unmixed French blood, are disposed to claim t.i.tles equivalent to the baronage of England, with incomes of about a thousand a year, or at most two, and manorial houses, resembling very much a substantial Buckinghams.h.i.+re grazier's chateau--was originally established by the French monarchs for wise, highly useful, and benevolent purposes.

These seigneuries were parcelled out in very large tracts of forest along the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the rivers and bays of Lower Canada, on the condition that they should be again parcelled out among those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned.

Thus re-granted, the _seigneur_ could not eject the _habitant_, but was allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the va.s.sal, and the usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous ”_lods et ventes_,” or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the _habitant_ makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain, or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads.

The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is, excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.

The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or transferred by the lord of the manor.

By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for rent, or any other claim or inc.u.mbrance, be made.

An inst.i.tution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler, and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families, who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the _nouveau riche_ men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and metaphysical body-curers.

It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general untrammelled by the lieutenant governors.h.i.+p of Western Canada, over which he had had before no control, that it should be considered desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity of abolis.h.i.+ng all feudal taxation. In Montreal this has been done, and, as the seignoral rights of succession lapse, it will soon be done every where, for the recent enactments have emanc.i.p.ated many already.

But no sensible or feeling mind will desire to see the French Canadian driven to break up all at once habits formed by ages of contentment; and, as it does not press upon them beyond their ready endurance, why should we, to please a few rich capitalists or merchants, suddenly force a British population into the heart of French Canada?

Jean Baptiste is too good a fellow to desire this. On our part, we should not forget his truly amiable character; we should not forget the services he rendered to us, when our children fought to drive us from our last hold on the North American continent; we should not forget his worthy and excellent priesthood; nor should we ever lose sight of the fact, that he is contented under the old system. Above all, we should never forget that he fought our battles when his Gallic sires joined our revolted children.

I feel persuaded that, if an unhappy war must take place between the United States and England, the French Canadians will prove, as they did before on a similar occasion, loyal to a man.

All animosity, all heart-burning, will be forgotten, and the old French glory will s.h.i.+ne again, as it did under De Salaberry.

Ma foi, nous ne sommes pas perdus, encore; and some hero of the war has only to rouse himself and cry, as Roland did,

Suivez, mon panage eclatant, Francais ainsi que ma banniere; Qu'il soit point du ralliement, Vous savez tous quel prix attend Le brave, qui dans la carriere, Marche sur le pas de Roland.

Mourons pour notre patrie C'est le sort le plus beau et le plus digne d'envie.

CHAPTER III.

A journey to the Westward.

We must leave Roncesvalles and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than by long prosings about political economy and systematic colonisation.

So, _en avant_! I am going to relate the incidents of a journey last summer to the Westward, and to give all the substance of my observations on men and things made therein.

I left Kingston on the 26th of June, in the Princess Royal mail steamer, at 8 p.m., the usual hour of starting being seven, for Toronto; the weather unusually cold.

This fine boat const.i.tutes, with two others, the City of Toronto and the Sovereign, the royal mail line between Kingston and Toronto. All are built nearly alike, are first cla.s.s seaboats, and low pressure; they combine, with the Highlander, the Canada, and the Gildersleave, also splendid vessels, to form a mail route to Montreal--the latter boats taking the mail as far as Coteau du Lac, forty-five miles from Montreal, on which route a smaller vessel, the Chieftain, plies, wherein you sleep, at anchor, or rather moored, till daylight, if going down, or going upwards, on board the mail boat.

Pa.s.sengers go from Montreal to Kingston by the mail route in twenty-four hours, a distance of 180 miles; a small portion, between the Cascades Rapids and the Coteau being traversed in a coach, on a planked road as smooth as a billiard-table.

From Kingston to Toronto, or nearly the whole length of Lake Ontario, takes sixteen hours, the boat leaving at seven, and arriving about or before noon next day; performing the pa.s.sage at the rate of eleven miles an hour, exclusively of stoppages.

The transit between Montreal and Kingston is at the rate, including stoppage for daylight, the river being dangerous, of eight miles an hour; thus, in forty hours, the pa.s.senger pa.s.ses from the seat of government to the largest city of Western Canada most comfortably, a journey which twenty years ago it always took a fortnight, and often a month, to accomplish, in the most precarious and uncomfortable manner--on board small, roasting steamers, crowded like a cattle-pen--in lumbering leathern conveniences, miscalled coaches, over roads which enter not into the dreams of Britons--by canoes--by bateaux, (a sort of coal barges,)--by schooners, where the cabin could never permit you to display either your length, your breadth, or your thickness, and thus reducing you to a point in creation, according to Euclid and his commentators.

Your _compagnons de voyage_, on board a bateau or Durham boat, which was a _monstre_ bateau, were French Canadian voyageurs, always drunk and always gay, who poled you along up the rapids, or rushed down them with what will be will be.

These happy people had a knack of examining your goods and chattels, which they were conveying in the most admirable manner, and with the utmost _sang-froid_; but still they were above stealing--they only tapped the rum cask or the whiskey barrel, and appropriated any cordage wherewith you bound your chests and packages. I never had a chest, box, or bale sent up by bateau or Durham boat that escaped this rope mail.

By the by, the Durham boat, a long decked barge, square ahead, and square astern, has vanished; Ericson's screw-propellers have crushed it.