Читать книгу History of the settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario,) with special reference to the Bay Quinté - William Canniff - Страница 9

The Governor, Gen. de Lévis, the officers, and a large number of men, women and children returned to France. At the time of the taking of Montreal, there remained at Detroit some three or four hundred families. This Fort and others around the lakes yet held by the French were surrendered to Major Rogers, a person again to be spoken of. The population according to the Governor, left of French origin, was 70,000.

The Canadians who did not return to France repaired to their homes and renewed their peaceful avocations.

The first British Governor, Sir Jeffry Amherst, entered upon his functions 1763.

We have now very cursorily indeed, noticed the history of the French Canadians up to the time they became British subjects. We have seen they did not willingly become such; yet scarcely fifteen years were to pass away before their loyalty to the British flag was to be tested; not indeed to decide whether they should again become a part of France, rather than remain British, but whether their condition as British subjects was so intolerable that they should seek other protection of a foreign origin.

We shall see that although promises were held out of great political advantage they preferred to remain as they were. There remained in the hearts of the Canadian French, not so much a dislike to England as a detestation to the New Englander. Hence it was that when the rebel banner was unfurled in 1776, with the declaration of American Independence upon it, no Canadian rallied around it. Although commissioners from the rebel congress visited them with honied words and fair promises, they received no friendly welcome. The Canadians regarded their old enemies as enemies still, and they turned their backs upon the revolting provinces and their faces toward old England for protection. The commissioners to the Canadians, composed of Dr. Benj. Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carrol, with his brother, a Jesuit Priest were appointed to this mission, on the 15th February, 1776. The same Franklin who now offered the French “freedom,” had urged upon the British in 1753 the expediency of reducing Canada!!

For a century and a half France endeavored in vain to erect a power in America; but shall we say that it was all in vain?

The monument although broken, so far as France is concerned yet stands a lasting memorial of French energy, of religious fervor, stern determination, and indomitable valor. And, when the wave of revolution passed over the thirteen British Colonies, the column was conspicuous enough to be seen by refugees; the protection Canada offered was sufficient for the homeless families of U. E. Loyalists. Canada was a sacred spot, although French. It constituted a nucleus, around which collected those who preferred order to rebellion. Those who had fought as opponents at Duquesne, at Niagara, at Frontenac, at Tyconderoga, and upon the Plains of Abraham, were joined together. The heel, which had assisted to crush the Canadian French, now sought and found a resting place among those who had been overcome. Thus was to be laid the foundation of the Dominion of Canada, whose future is to be great. Stretching from seaboard to seaboard, it is destined to become, ere it has reached the present age of the United States, the Russia of America, with the purest principles of government the world has ever known.

We now approach the period of time when another element of discord was to appear among the races which inhabited America. Bloody Indian wars had in the past swept back and forth across the woody land. Rival colonizers had resorted to strife, to extend territorial power. European weapons had been transported to wage wars of extermination. Conquest and subjugation of Indians and rivals had been witnessed; but now Rebellion, a term that has received fresh significance in the late civil war in the United States, was to be initiated. The British blood and money which had been lavishly spent for the Anglo-Americans, had only prepared those colonists to seek other advantages. The Indians held in subjection, the French conquered, the mother country itself must now be coerced to give full rein to the spoiled and wayward offspring.