s it was impossible that
they could subsist, which proceeded sometimes from emulation or envy, and
at other times from the laziness of the disposition of some, who,
loathing labor, would be commanded by none."[1] In 1660, after more than
half a century after the first settlement, a census of Canada showed a
total of 3418 souls, while the inhabitants of New England numbered at the
same time not far from eighty thousand. The establishment of seigneuries
was not calculated to invite or promote desirable immigration. A
seigneurial title was given to any enterprising person who would
undertake to plant settlers on the land, and accept in return a certain
proportion of the grist, furs and fish which the occupant could procure
by labor. Immigrants of the class which builds up a country want to own
the land which they cultivate. The sense of independence inspires them
with energy and with a patriotic interest in the commonwealth. Another
peculiar feature of French colonization was the tendency to mingle with
the natives. As early as 1635, Champlain told the Hurons, at his last
Council in Quebec, that they only needed to embrace the white man's faith
if they would have the white man take their daughters in marriage. The
English principle was to drive out the savage when he could be driven
out, or to tolerate him as a ward and an inferior when it would be unjust
to expel or destroy him; the Frenchman embraced the Indian as a brother.
"The French missionary," says Doyle in his Puritan colonies, "well nigh
broke with civilization; he toned down all that was spiritual in his
religion, and emphasized all that was sensual, till he had assimilated it
to the wants of the savage. The better and worse features of Puritanism
forbade a triumph won on such terms." One of the worst products of French
colonial life was the class known as the "coureurs de bois," a lawless
gang, half trader, half explorer, bent on divertisement, and not
discouraged by misery or peril. They lived in a certain fashion to which
the missionaries themselves were not averse, as Lemercier shows where he
commends the priests of his order as being savages among savages.
Charlevoix tells us that while the Indian did not become French, the
Frenchman became a savage. Talon speaks of these vagabonds as living as
banditti, gathering furs as they could and bringing them to Albany or
Montreal to sell, just as it proved the easiest. If the intendant could
have controlled them he w