s to
be practicable when civilisation approaches the limits of the
territory to be occupied. In Canada, the tribes have been permitted to
dwell among the scenes of their early associations and traditions, on
lands reserved from the advancing tide of White settlement, and set
apart for their use. But this system, though more lenient in its
operation than the other, is not unattended with difficulties of its
own. The laws enacted for their protection, and in the absence of
which they fall an easy prey to the more unscrupulous among their
energetic neighbours, tend to keep them in a condition of perpetual
pupillage, and the relation subsisting between them and the
Government, which treats them, partly as independent peoples, and
partly as infants under its guardianship, involves many anomalies and
contradictions. Unless there be some reasonable ground for the hope
that they will be eventually absorbed in the general population of the
country, the Canadian system is probably destined in the long run to
prove as disastrous to them as that of the United States. In 1846 and
1847 the attempt was first made to establish among them industrial
boarding schools, in part supported by contributions from their own
funds. If schools of this description be properly conducted, it may, I
think, be expected that, among the youth trained at them, a certain
proportion at least will be so far civilised, as to be capable of
making their way in life without exceptional privileges or restraints.
It would be, I am inclined to believe, expedient that any Indian,
showing this capacity, should be permitted, after sufficient trial, to
receive from the common property of the tribe of which he was a member
(on the understanding of course that neither he nor his descendants
had thenceforward any claim upon it), a sum equivalent to his interest
in it, as a means to enable him to start in independent life. The
process of transition from their present semi-barbarous condition
could hardly fail to be promoted by a scheme of this description if it
were judiciously carried out.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Relations with the United States.]

No sketch of a Governor's life in Canada would be complete which did not
contain some account of his relations with the great neighbouring republic.

We have seen that, at