The Maritime Provinces - their origin and inhabitants

 

By John Murdoch Harper

 

[Published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in Transactions, New Series, No. 16 (1882)]

 

Read before the Literary and Historical Society,

2ND FEBRUARY, 1882,

 

BY JOHN HARPER, B. A., F. E. I. S.,

RECTOR OF THE QUEBEC HIGH SCHOOL.

 

There are not a few of our modern-time philosophers, who have been tempted to think with Mr. Buckle, that the present in the history of a country is only a developed past; that, as a growth, it bears towards the past the same relation which exists between the oak and the acorn from which the oak has sprung. Those who maintain this doctrine, which is simple enough in its enunciation, and almost axiomatic at first sight, argue that the principle of cause and effect is to be observed as plainly in the recorded actions and settled condition of a community, as in the natural phenomena discussed and explained by the science of chemistry or astronomy. The history of mankind, in their opinion, is but a co-relation of events, woven together by natural laws as effects, to produce in turn, as causes, other effects. In this way, the vast panorama of events from the beginning of things is to be recognized as an immense chain, whose links have been forged and joined together by the moral forces of nature, those mighty Cyclops by which, they say, the whole fabric of history has been constructed on true scientific principles. Thus it is declared that by events and from events, the characteristics, which mark any particular period in a country's history, are produced according to that method which we glorify every day as nature's own; that method by which certain chemical elements, when arranged according to definite conditions, always produce definite chemical compounds, by which certain conjunctions of the heavenly bodies occur at certain definite periods producing certain sublunary effects, by which the acorn, when it grows, becomes an oak, the rose-bud a rose-bush, the apple-germ an apple-tree. According to this theory, the individual lives of men and women are the atoms, the humble elements, of which the great events are the complex visibly developed exponents. In a word, those boldly marked peculiarities which distinguish one tribe from another, that public spirit which we as often call sedition as patriotism, those habits, whose absence in others is with us who possess them little better than the ignorance of barbarism, those desires and appetites promoted by the sympathies of one section of the world and prohibited by the antipathies of another, and, above all, that almost indefinable identity which runs as a common factor through the individual characters of the majority of a nation, are said to be promoted by the action of one mind upon another, affected, as it may be, to a greater or less extent by the geographical position of the country, its physical configuration and its climatic changes. The theory is certainly an attractive one to students of a philosophic turn of mind. Nor has its influence been unfelt by nearly all our historians in their investigations. Indeed, no one can study history as it ought to be studied, without perceiving that underlying the visible amalgamation of events into an historic period, there is an approach towards the scientific method, and assuredly, there is a science of history, in as far as a science may be recognized as the mere knowledge of classified fact. But the world and its ways of thinking must assuredly move on apace, ere the general student of history can be induced to give an unwavering adherence to Mr. Buckle's theory of the crystallizing or chemical process among events. The past, we are continually saying, has had a decided influence on the present. We all willingly admit that the proverb "history repeats itself" has not unfrequently been verified. Many staid orthodox people would even go so far as to say that some of the more striking historic scenes, such as the Reformation, the English Commonwealth and the French Revolution, appear to have been very largely the co-ordination of previous events and circumstances. But further than this it is hardly necessary to go, unless we wish to be driven towards the ultimate assumption that all our actions proceed from self-interest, an assumption on which the "science of history" theory must surely suffer shipwreck. Let us rather be content to look upon the past as the modifying antecedent of the present, not its cause. As its records appeal to our emotions, rather than to our understanding, let us, from the contemplation of those examples and warnings, which they lay before us, learn to sympathize with, and imitate the noble and the good, to detest and shun the base and the evil. Let us examine its archives, not for the purpose of determining some pre-conceived theory, but much in the same way that we contemplate the back-ground of a beautiful picture, by bringing it and all the other parts of the design to bear upon one another, so that we may divine the purpose of the artist, while admiring his workmanship. In this way, we may corroborate the truth that life is real, and that God is its author.

 

Impressed therefore with this our simpler theory of the advantages to be derived from the study of historic records, we may safely remark that the present of a country, without some corresponding past as its background, forms a study almost as uninviting as the examination of a mere profile, on the naked canvas. As an intellectual exercise, such a study is of little or no value. Like the reading of newspaper items, there is in it no improvement to the mind, no lasting impression for the memory, no corrective to our taste, no guide to our will-power or judgment in the process of imitation. And perhaps one of the reasons that may be advanced to explain the lack of interest taken in the history of such a country as the Maritime Provinces of Canada, is the prevalence of the somewhat immature idea among readers, outside of the Canadian provinces, that Canada, being one of the youngest countries in the world, has really no past of any great importance. It may be true, that in the annals of a colony like Canada, so long remote from the centre of the world's civilization, and which, on this account has been brought only periodically within the current of the world's history, there must necessarily be but few events which have attained to the true dignity of historical narrative. But we all know that the story of a simple man's life is often as interesting and instructive as the biography of the hero who has heard the echoes of his own greatness resounding from the four quarters of the globe. There are events and events. And truly the achievements of the past, or the examples of patriotism it exhibits, are not to be considered important or unimportant, merely on account of the greatness or littleness of the effects produced. Nor should we in Canada here, think of despising what the students of other countries are inclined to overlook. Canada has a past of which we certainly need not be ashamed. From the time when Jacques Cartier dropped his anchor into the clear waters of the St. Lawrence, and De Monts, with the assistance of Champlain, built a residence for himself on the little island at the mouth of the St. Croix, in Acadia, there can be traced a long line of brave men, who persevered in the struggle for a living with fearful odds against them. These were the modest heroes, who, in advancing their own fortunes, struggled for the advancement of the country, — men who in times of distress, darkness and despair, often spent their whole energy in buoying up the hopes of their fellow-countrymen, in supporting the young and tender institutions of the country, or in striking down the tyranny or selfishness which stood in the way of enterprise, industry and progress. It is this story of inglorious victories won, this record of the internal life of the people, studded here and there, it is true, with public events of the utmost importance, which truly represents the past of Canada, and stands as an interesting background to the picture of its present civilization and advancement.

 

Though it is not my purpose, in this paper, to describe the great events in the history of the Maritime Provinces, I cannot refrain from drawing your attention to one of them, which does not usually receive much attention from our historians. The opening chapter in the history of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia is perhaps one of the most romantic in the annals of history. It refers to the discovery of Helluland, Markland and Vinland, by the sons of Eric the Red, an old Viking, who had escaped from Norway to Iceland, and thence to Greenland. The mist of tradition that hangs over the scene, recalls to mind the idealistic tales of old Homer, in his Odyssey, as he gives that wonderful account of the wanderings of the King of Ithaca amid the intricacies and allurements of the Ægean Sea. On reading, for the first time, the story of the Northmen's visit to the western world, the memory goes back to schoolboy days, when we were drilled in the dignified, and somewhat dreaded, hexameters of Virgil, and drew from the narrative of the Æneid the tale of the providential escape of Æneas from burning Troy, and his after voyage in search of a new home in the Mediterranean. And what heroes these were to us in our younger days! How the difficulties they encountered were magnified by the difficulties which we encountered in the text! How pleasant it was to collect the minutiae of their lives, and how, even later in life, we delight to mention them by way of reference while moulding our sentences! And yet, if the glory of heroism is to be measured by the danger encountered, those brave Northmen, who, for the sake of their benighted countrymen in Greenland, set out in search of a more congenial clime, surely merit our praise, and the enthusiasm of our poets, as much as do the above nati deorum, whose exploits have been immortalized by the two greatest poets of antiquity. The dangers of the Ægean Sea were chiefly those of the land, which the steersman seldom lost sight of. It is true it had its storms, such as that which threw Ulysses on the beach near the bathing ground of Nausicaa and her fair attendants, or that which later on scattered the galleys of Xerxes along the base of Mount Athos. But what were these compared with the steadfast wrath of old ocean, as witnessed on the Atlantic, and of which we have lately had such graphic accounts, that wrath which may be compared to

 

Air's breathing time —

When Boreas purifies his masters realm

From noxious fumes, death's warping net for mortals.

Earth's cleansing time —

When offal down the rivers swept

Disseminates through the churning deep

And fructifies its hidden fields.

Atlantic's sowing time —

When Neptune from his crested helm

Scatters his sedgy seed o'er Ocean's bed.

 

Nor was Æneas so ignorant of his destination as may at first appear. The ancient poets had a geography of their own, and certainly it was a muddled affair. But we can at least learn from them that the Lybian shores and the outlying islands of the Mediterranean were not unknown to the Trojans. And as Virgil carries his hero from Sicily to Carthage and from Carthage to Italy, he convinces us that the selection and not the discovery of a suitable country was the main difficulty in. the mind of Æneas. But it was different with our heroes the Northmen. When they launched their cockle shells of boats and turned their prows towards the west, their expectation of finding a haven was almost as shadowy as the flitting cloud land which lined the western sky. With no guide save the bright stars overhead, and skilled only in a seamanship which was required to navigate the fiords and seas of Norway, these brave men perseveringly kept towards the westward. On they pushed, sometimes tossed like a bubble on the mighty swell of the ocean, sometimes hidden in the fogs of Greenland, or moving through the mazes of the mountain icebergs, still on they went, determined to see the land, if there was any, on which the sun set. And shall we not praise them! In our own days, we hear our press uttering indirectly the praises of men, who are ever anxious to show the foolhardy side of their heroism by attempting to cross the Atlantic in small open boats. This is to praise the hardihood of the boy who ventures out farther and farther upon the thin curving ice, which bends under his weight. At the best it is a shuddering kind of praise. But the Northmen set out with a purpose as clearly defined as was the purpose of Columbus; at least so say the Sagas of which I will remark further on. They were perhaps impelled by a more selfish, though to them a hardly less noble, expectation than that of the enthusiast who spent half a lifetime in trying to induce the sovereigns of Europe to listen to his project of discovery. They had been driven out of Norway with their father, on account of that father's misdeeds. Even from the somewhat inhospitable shores of Iceland, v/here they found a place of refuge for a few years, they were obliged to depart to the still more inhospitable shores of Southern Greenland. Their motive therefore for seeking a place of settlement further to the southward is not hard to discover. To settle quietly near Cape Farewell was a hopeless thought for those who had known the comforts of life. Eric's attempt at colonization in the land of icebergs, though afterwards fruitful of interesting results, was not in its earlier stages without its forebodings. The sons of the old Viking became dissatisfied. The bold restlessness of their father appeared in them in an oft-repeated desire to set out on some daring expedition. The eldest returned to Norway, and learned during his voyage thither that an Icelander, driven westward by adverse winds, had beheld away in the distance the dim outline of other lands, which seemed to differ in natural features from Iceland or Greenland. The story of course was not credited. But it was a good excuse for men who wished to better their condition to urge upon their father, now growing miserly in b is old age, the necessity of fitting out an expedition for the south. Eric's consent was obtained. The self-interest of men who wished to improve their own fortunes, and the comfort of their families, succeeded. Yet surely we must admire their spirit of adventure, even if it were animated by a motive which some denounce as selfish. Was it not this same spirit which scattered over southern climes, the northern tribes of the old world, to share the wealth of their southern neighbors? Was it not this same self-interest which drove the Gauls down through their mountain gorges into the fertile plains of Italy, and sent them battering at the very gates of the empress city? What was the influence which brought our Saxon forefathers from the forests of Germany to drive the ancient Celts into the extreme corners of Britain; and our French forefathers from the plains of Normandy to keep in subjection for a century or two the Saxon race? What was the influence which sent Oortez to Mexico, Pizarro to Peru, and Raleigh to Guiana? The spirit of plunder some call it nowadays. But in earlier times men called it a spirit of adventure, and raised their huzzahs in honor of its daring deeds. And even we of the present time sometimes grow ecstatic over it; for remember it was this same spirit of adventure and self-interest which animated to a very great extent our Alexanders, our Cæsars, our Fredericks, and our Bonapartes. Even dreams of gold were not absent from the minds of the enthusiasts Columbus, Cabot and Carrier, as their charters very well testify. But, be this as it may, to improve one's circumstances at all hazards was undoubtedly "the chief end of man" in the creed of the Vikings, those pirates of the romance of the middle ages, from one of whom our Queen does not disdain to claim descent ; and we can almost imagine that the sons of Eric, as they steered their course through the currents of the  North Atlantic, and lay back of an hour to enjoy the swell of the ocean, would sometimes enliven their voyage by singing the song which their father had taught them — the song which tells us that the romance of the Vikings was what some now call the romance of plunder and self-interest. Here are a few stanzas of the rhyme: —

 

"I am a Viking bold

The frolic of the sea

From bay to bay I roved

In search of southern prey.

I cared for king nor law,

E'en God at times forgot —

A freeman on the deep,

My fortune there I sought.

 

In early days my home

Lay towards the polar sea,

Where wintry blasts blow keen

O'er harvests dank and dree.

There nature's grandeur frowned,

Mid beauty wild and nude,

On honest toil and its rewards

But smiled on hardihood.

 

From boyhood I was trained

To ride the fiord's wave,

In search of fish and fowl,

The Maelstrom's swell to brave.

Rough was my garb and scant,

And rough and scant my cheer,

A toilsome cheerless life was mine

To a spirit uncurbed by fear.

 

But I heard of southern lands,

And hope braced all my powers,

My dreams were all of gold,

My thoughts were golden showers,

As I heard of all the wealth

That makes life gay and free,

And fitted up my fisher's craft

To sail the southern sea.

 

Europa's bays I swept —

A Viking bold become —

The Southern's wealth I stored

T'enrich my kin at home.

To civilize my native vale,

To live a life of ease,

To rule a king by dint of gold,

Thus roamed. I o'er the seas."

 

In this connection, a word of explanation may be given about the Norwegian Sagas, from two of which the traditional story of the Northmen's visit to America is taken. The term Saga is an old Norse word signifying a tale, a report, a document, and has been used latterly altogether in connection with certain narratives which constitute the ancient literature of the Scandinavians. These narratives profess to be founded upon traditions, and evidently have been elaborated, in the process of memorizing1 and transcribing, by the old story-tellers and scribes of that northern race. Modern investigation has succeeded in separating the semi-historical from the purely legendary Sagas, and in the former are included the two narratives which tell us of Eric Randa and his sons. These documents are by no means corroborative in their collateral statements, but the source from which has been drawn the substance of their story seems to have been a common one. Interesting as the whole subject is, it is of course not my purpose to discuss minutely the historical aspect of a pre-Columbian discovery of America. As there are many arguments for and against the truth of such a discovery, a separate paper would have to be written on the question. For instance Bancroft, in the opening chapter of his history, throws the story aside as worthless and as one which nobody should have the patience to discuss. Several have suffered at the hands of critics, for narrating the event in the precise language of history. It has been said that the doubtful story detracts from the renown of other discoveries; that Columbus is thereby thrown in the shade; that great natural changes have worked wonders in the northern seas, which when considered, must render the story ridiculous; that Greenland as a Norwegian colony is a myth; that there is no mention of such a discovery in authentic Norwegian history; that even Iceland was little known in the tenth century. To all these the less impatient answer may be made, that the internal evidence to be collected from the two Sagas, which narrate the event, is sufficient to overturn them as mere assertions. The story was certainly known before the time of Columbus. It is highly probable that he heard of the adventure during his visit to Rekiavik. The descriptions of the lands discovered, especially in the case of Vinland, indicate the Atlantic shores of North America, the shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Massachusetts. The fogs, the bare barren rocks, the cold biting blasts, the icebergs drifting down from the Arctic seas, make up a picture of Newfoundland to be seen even in our own times. The Markland of the Sagas was evidently the Nova Scotia of to-day as seen from the Atlantic. The equal days and nights, the genial climate, the fertile soil, the honey dew on the grass, the wild maize and the rich clusters of grapes, the numerous islands and their products, all indicate that the Vinland discovered was the original of the land near Cape Cod. Then again when we study the narrative in the light of the manners and customs prevailing at the present day in the Ultima Thule of the ancients, the circumstantial evidence becomes stronger and stronger; and when last of all we consider the fact that the Sagas referring to Eric are found classed among the histories and not among the legends of ancient Norwegian times, we surely must come to the decision that the tale of the discovery of America in the tenth century, with the odds all in favour of its historical verification, may worthily rank as an opening chapter in the history of America.

 

As a contrast existing between the Saga historical and the Saga legendary, I may quote Sir Walter Scott as he writes of the latter. In that weird tale of his the Pirate, in which he describes events as having taken place in 1720 or thereabout, he utters the following: — "At this time, the old Norwegian Sagas were much remembered and often rehearsed by the fishermen of Shetland, who still preserved among themselves the ancient Norse tongue, which was the speech of their forefathers. In the dark romance of these Scandinavian tales lay much that was captivating to the youthful ear; and the classic fables of antiquity were rivalled at least, if not excelled by the strange legends which were to be heard from the native Shetlanders. Often the scenes around the visitor were assigned as the locality of wild poems, which, half recited, half chanted by voices as hoarse if not as loud as the waves o'er which they floated, pointed out the very bay on which they sailed as the scene of a bloody sea fight; the scarce seen heaps of stones that bristled over the projecting cape, as the dun or castle of some potent earl or noted pirate ; the distant and solitary gray stone on the lonely moor as marking the grave of a hero: the wild cavern up which the sea rolled in heavy, brown, and unbroken billows, as the dwelling of some noted sorceress." Thus does the "Wizard of the North," in describing the Saga legendary, indirectly enhance the value of the Saga historical, and assists us in the verification of the story of the Northmen, the first of Europeans to see the shores of the Maritime Provinces.

 

The history of all nations, at their origin, is perplexingly shrouded in a cloud of tradition, and the story of the Northmen, as I have shown, makes no exception of the Maritime Provinces in this respect. But this uncertainty, caused by the vagaries of tradition, does not end with the Northmen: it is in fact all that is left to us after a protracted study of the past of the aborigines of these provinces. The Micmacs, as an historical study, hold about the same relation to the historic period that opens with the arrival of the French settler, which the ancient Britons, the Gauls, the Pelasgians, or the Hellenes hold in reference to succeeding times occurring respectively in England, France, Italy and Greece. Of their deeds among themselves in past times there is no authentic record. They have never been able to go back further than a generation or two from their own times, unless in the recital of a few fables and romances which have evidently been handed down through many generations. So that when the historian desires to devote a chapter to the savage tribes which held the seaboard of the Dominion in past ages, he has to confine himself to the discussion of their manners and customs, their means of obtaining a livelihood, and the influence which the European settler has had upon their destiny as a distinct race. And so often have these points been discussed that it is not easy to say anything concerning them which has not already been said. For instance, how often has it been repeated in our ears that the red man must eventually disappear before the onward march of the white man and his progressive ideas? How often has the insufficient inference gone the rounds, that as the animal nature sinks before mental activity, so the savage must deteriorate in presence of civilization and its effects? It is true that the European, in his attempts to bring the Indian within the pale of his more modern manners and customs, has not been very successful, and whatever proofs can be found in other parts of the Dominion against this assertion, it is certainly true with respect to his efforts in the Lower Provinces. But has the man of civilization gone about his work in the right way or at the right time? I think the answer to that is found in the fact that he has really not altogether failed in improving the condition of his dusky neighbours. The exertions which have been put forth in settling them on their own lands, in reducing their speech to a written language, and in placing the Bible in their hands, have not been without their gratifying results. But is it not only in very modern times that the Indian has been able to learn anything good of the white man? What example was placed before him by Europeans — by the French and English — when they quarreled among themselves for the mastery in the country, which was his by right of inheritance? The French training him in the arts of cruelty and theft, and the English torturing him afterwards for showing his aptitude in learning the barbarous lesson ! And what a code of morals was at first placed before him by those who were ever seducing his daughters and sisters, and making murderers of his sons and brothers? It is just possible that in the case of the Micmacs the doctrines of Christianity and civilization have been taught too late. It is said that they are already gradually decreasing in numbers, notwithstanding the fostering care of the respective Provincial Governments. The few settlements which exist are, however, held together by the spirit of chiefdom which still prevails ; and this in itself is, in the opinion of some, sufficient to prevent them from becoming an extinct race. Notwithstanding the intermixture of white blood, they may continue to exist as a distinct class, living in the provinces as the gypsies do in England, partly dependent on charity for their livelihood, partly on desultory employments.

 

But while the white man has had an influence upon the Indian in early times to his moral hurt, in more modern times to his bodily comfort and probable decay, the Indian, on the other hand, taught the white man many a lesson, without which he could hardly have contended against the hardships of a forest life. At the outset, the Indian was the superior being of the two, — he knew all about the forest trails, the rivers, the lakes, and the hills, and as a guide was indispensable to the early settler. He was even richer than most of the adventurers who arrived from France and England; for was he not the lord and owner of the soil? and could he not tell the colonists of his treasures in furs and the products of the chase? In numbers also the Indians had the advantage over those little companies that in early times were to be found as squatters at the head of some bay or on the banks of some navigable river. Then again, when the French and English were contending for the imperium, the Indian may be said to have held in his hand the balance of power. Sometimes he was in favour of the English, but very much oftener in favour of the French. For years he was a terror to the city of Halifax. On one occasion the savages destroyed the thriving settlement of Dartmouth; and at other times forced the Germans of Lunenburg to protect them selves behind a strong barricade round their town. Altogether the Indians played an important part during the development of the provinces into a regularly organized English colony; and consequently in his dealings with them, either in obtaining land from them by treaties and bargains or by violence and conquest, in purchasing for a trifle their furs and other small wares, or in resisting their stealthy attacks on his home, the Frenchman, the Englishman or the Scotchman must have acquired many of those habits and characteristics which are peculiar to his de scendants, the Nova Scotians and New Brunswickers.

 

The problem of the probable extinction of the Micmac, surrounded as it is with his past activities, and his present indifference to the progress of the times, is an interesting one to those of our scientists who strive to verify the "survival" theory. As a study in archaeology, the Indian will continue to engage the attention of our budding historians. Our poets will not forget to fan his forest experiences into a blaze of poetic fervour, dreaming, like their forerunners, of the glories of the forest primeval, the chivalric oratory around the council fires, and the sensuous blessings which awaited the red man in the happy hunting grounds of a future life. In our holiday excursions, in search of the game which glistens in our river pools, or scuds through our forest glades, we will still place our confidence in "Lo" as a reliable guide and helpmate. Perhaps the ultra aesthetic tastes of the present time, when they begin to influence Canadian society, may cause some to regret the past age which he represents, and the opening era by which it is eclipsed. The busy burr of our mills and factories may appear less interesting or pleasant to some than the cooing of the wild pigeon that feared no fowler; the shooting of our rapids in a canoe, more picturesque than navigation by steamboat; the conical wigwams and palisades of an Indian village, a sweeter picture than the palaces of our merchant princes and our smoke-girt towns; the sweep of our steel bound railways and the scream of the steam-horse, less romantic than the Indian's trail and his ecstatic war-whoop. But what of all this to the future of the Indian. He can never return. As a factor in the progress of the Maritime Provinces, he is now a mere cipher, perhaps a minus quantity, a burden. The decree of the survival of the fittest, I am afraid, has,gone out against him. And the bright prospect of peace and prosperity which lies before our country, as well as its present progress and advancement among the nations of the earth, is too pregnant with the happiness of those who now are its possessors, and with the glory of God who made all things for their best use, for us to regret the degeneration of a race that resisted our first attempts at its civilization and improvement.

 

As the traditional period in the history of a country is usually succeeded by an epoch more strictly historical, and one referring to those migrations of outside tribes, which gave affairs an impetus towards a new condition of life, so the true history of the Maritime Provinces opens with that tide of immigration which, in the seventeenth century, began to flow from the countries of Europe, towards the western shores of the Atlantic. The Dorian and Æolian Migrations spread over the Peloponnesus a race of hardy warriors, whose descendants made the leaf-shaped peninsula the cradle of events which rendered Europe victorious over Asia and her despots, and which thus moulded the future destiny of the world. The Phoenicians, in their descent upon Africa, established a city commonwealth, which, in its rivalry with Rome, has filled the pages of history with the great events of the Punic Wars, With like results did the Franks push their way into the heart of Gaul, and by their operations lay the foundations of an empire, which, for centuries, has ranked as one of the first nations in the world. In like manner did the Saxons enter a country which was little better than a wilderness, and by their prowess and courage, disseminate those elements of character, which have made the name Anglo-Saxon the synonym of progress and enterprise. Thus have migrations begun new eras. There is no history of Greece before the Dorian migrations. Nothing eventful is known of Africa previous to the building of Carthage. Cæsar and his legions, it may be said, created a history of invasion and subjection in Gaul, but it was Clovis and his followers who stamped, by their achievements, the opening chapter of the history of France. And what is all we know about Britain, before the migration of the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles? Just what we know of primeval Greece, of Palasgic Italy, of pre-historic Africa or of Canada when the Indians were its only inhabitants. Thus there may be a relationship established between the migrations of old, and the immigration movements, which brought to the provinces of America, the French, the English, the Irish, the German, and the Scotch colonists, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed as a study the latter are by far the most interesting of these. The task of deducing national characteristics from the intermingling of various tribes, and from early historical events is nowhere so easy as in the new countries of the world. Of the old world migrations we can only have the merest outlines. We can only surmise by what they subsequently effected, the character of the people who joined in them. The people themselves we cannot accompany. We know nothing of their thoughts and feelings. We know nothing of the life they left behind, of the influences which had moulded their character in one land, or of the surroundings which were to mould them differently in a new land. For instance it would be temerity itself to say whence comes the bravado of the modern Greek, the charlatanism of the Italian, the stolidity of the German, or the lively and brilliant spirit of the French. The origin of such characteristics is buried in antiquity itself. Like the round towers of Ireland, they stand before us as real effects, sterling realities, of which no one can say who was the builder, who the originator, what their origin.

 

But it is altogether different with the first migrations of Europeans across the Atlantic. We know all about them. No expedition set out without its historian or recorder. In every band there was generally some one who could place in manuscript the events of the voyage, and the early conditions of the country, when it was reached. Besides, the emigrants came from old-time kingdoms and empires, where the national character had long been formed. Indeed as a people and nation, their whole career is now known in all its details. We know not only the date of the discovery and foundation of the various provinces of Canada, but we know the individual lives and characters of those who were the leaders of the expeditions; and thus it is that the task of seeking the foundation of certain Canadian traits of character, and of some of the manners and customs of our country, is an easy one, when compared with a similar search in the annals of other countries. Let us look then at the various immigration movements which have thus affected the growth and development of the Maritime Provinces, and the character of their inhabitants.

 

Again giving way to a very common weakness, if weakness it may be called, of comparing later movements with earlier movements, lesser events with greater, I turn your attention to the opening of the seventeenth century. The date 1603 is one which is marked indelibly on the mind of everyone as being the year in-which good Queen Bess passed away to her rest; and by means of it school-boys still assist the memory in retaining the date 1605, the year in which the first permanent settlement was made in Acadia by the French; for thus by three years does old Port Royal in the Maritime Provinces take precedence of old Quebec. In Elizabeth's time, the early era of discovery and colonization had attained to its zenith of glory, and no doubt it was in emulation of the seamen who had sailed from the Thames and the Bristol Channel, and had made their renown in the western seas, that Jacques Cartier left his native port of St. Malo, and DeMonts the imperial harbour of Havre, to establish their colonies in New France.

 

Next in interest to the story of the Northmen, and quite as romantic in its details, is the history of the discovery and early colonization of Acadia by the French. The name of Acadia, so sweet to the ear of the poet, simply means in the original Micmac, a place abounding in, or having in abundance everything it possessed — a place abounding in forests, fish, and fur-bearing animals. The name in its purity of course is Acadie, being thus preserved in the names of such places as Shubenacadie and Tracadie. And just as the gold fields formed the first attraction towards the fertile sierras of California or the large paddocks of Australia, or as that vast sweep of prairie land of ours has made so young a name as Manitoba known all over the world, so the shiploads of furs and fish which could be obtained for a mere song in Acadia, attracted hundreds of traders to the Port of Canso and its vicinity. Indeed, as in the case of the Oalifornian miner whose perpetual thought was of gold, and as in the case of the Winnipeg speculators whose daily cry, I am afraid, is land, when the European fishermen and traders found their way to the shores of the Maritime Provinces, they cared for nothing in the country save its fish and its furs. They beheld the thick forest around them as a vast hunting ground, in which could be entrapped the bear, wolf, beaver, fox and other animals, whose skins had a welcome market in England and France. And as a matter of fact this trade in fish and peltry was the origin of the Maritime Provinces as a fixed community. Just as in other parts of Canada, as everybody knows, the owners of the vessels which arrived once a year, bought the furs from the natives at a nominal price. Afterwards as trade increased, and competition by chartered companies sprang up, collecting stations were established at various points, where the native fur-trappers could leave their forest spoils in exchange for provisions. At these stations Europeans were appointed as the collectors, who, as the first merchants of the country, became the first farmers; for around their rude dwellings, when they found it to be their interest to remain permanently in the country, they soon began to clear and to cultivate a patch of land, which could produce for them a supply of corn and vegetables.

 

The attempts to colonize Acadia began with the ill-fated expedition of the Marquis de la Koche. The story of the sufferings encountered on the sands of Cape Sable Island may yet be woven into a novel as interesting as "Robiftson Crusoe," or its modern imitation by Charles Bead. And there is another subject for our poets and painters in the events which enshrine the names of De Monts and Champlain, as they steered from Annapolis Basin to the little island at the mouth of the St. Croix, and back again to build their capital at Port Eoyal. There is in our library here the whole story told by one, who if not an eye witness of all the events, could say of many of them, as Æneas said to Dido, quorum magna pars fui. From Marc Lascarbot, that romantic advocate from France, we can learn of the labours, pleasures and hardships of Acadia's first permanent settlement; and certainly his harmless gossip and quaint humour make up a pleasant tale. His records of receptions, amusements, hunting parties, festivities, and explorations throw a halo of interest around the times ; and show how he and his associates resisted the rigours of the climate and bore up against the hardships of their new life. From the first there was peace with the Indians and no thought of invasion. The abundant provisions sent out from France to the brave colonists were increased by the game and fruit of the famous Annapolis valley. The natives brought in large quantities of furs, and showed their white friends where and how more could be found. The society of Le bon temps, our historian's own idea, with its feasts and frolics, its hunting and exploring parties, its poems and songs, helped to wear away the fierce winter days with their long nights, as each of the leaders took his turn in providing for the common table. At that table was frequently to be seen the bent form of an old Indian chief. This was that old Membertou who had befriended the French braves from the first. His presence there formed the living link between the age of barbarism going out in the Maritime Provinces, and that of civilization coming in.

 

Over a period of a century and a-half, up to the time of the first siege of Louisburg, the affairs of the French continued to develope. Events cluster for the most part around the little capital, Port Koyal. The jealousy, which sprang up in the hearts of the New Englanders against the French colony, can hardly be understood by us of the present time, but certainly around Port Royal and along the shores of the Bay of Fundy were to be seen, in 1700, evidences of a ruthlessness which ought to have made any civilized nation blush. One of the most memorable instances of cruelty was Colonel Church's second expedition. With a force of fifteen vessels and five hundred men he was commissioned by the N ew Englanders to destroy everything French along the Bay of Fundy ; and he performed his work in a manner satisfactory to the blindest spirit of revenge. From Penobscot to Chignecto nearly every village was burned to the ground, and the inhabitants forced to seek shelter in the woods; while around Beaubassin and the district of Minas, every means of defence was removed, the refractory were put to death, and all property was torn down in order that it might be swept away by the tide, which the dykes that had been cut down by the avengers no longer kept back.

 

Yet, notwithstanding heartlessness of this kind, the Acadian settlements flourished. The appearance of old Annapolis with its dyked farms rendered fertile with the rich alluvial deposits of its river, — with its fine meadows, its fields of wheat, rye and oats, and its tidy kitchen gardens, — with its garrison life, rendered enjoyable by the merry social gatherings of its three hundred families, makes up a picture which, with a little romance to heighten its colour, might rival the pleasant imagery of Longfellow that still so often stirs up sympathy for the unfortunates of Grand Pré. I need not tell you that the whole valley, dug up and cultivated by the industry of the past fifty years, is now a garden in itself; and, if we are to believe Paul Mascarene's report to the Board of Trade, it gave promise as early as the seventeenth century of its present fertility. In the days of stage coaching, no brighter ride was to be had in the Maritime Provinces than that which begins with the birth-place of Sam Slick, and carries the traveller down the broad pathway which stretches between the North and South Mountains of Nova Scotia. What variety of scenery there is on every hand, as the driver, who is possibly a bit of a poet, points out to us the spots of historic interest, those pleasant farms of which, as Longfellow says, "naught now, but tradition remains." On the right stretches the marshland towards the Basin of Minas, and away in the distance rises Blomidon, the terminus of a well defined range of hills. As we pass amid the milder scenery, Acadia, for the moment, becomes Arcadia, with orchards, orchards everywhere. The sluggish river winding in and out with its hundred links, lazily flowing between its yellow banks, and laden with that golden mud which, when spread over field and meadow by the farmer, makes the valley smile with fertility; the striking contrast between the yellow of the river's bed and the bright green of the closely shaven meadows; the high hills of the Bay of Fundy just crested with the floating fog on the far away side; the little villages that every two or three miles peep out on us from behind a curtain of green and orange and yellow ; and last of all, as we reach our halting place for the day in the little hostelry of Annapolis, the golden sunset just kissing the high land, and warping its effulgence over the sleepy waters of the great triangular basin, — all these produce for us a magnificent panorama, with a still more magnificent transformation scene at its finale. No one can readily forget such a scene after once looking upon it. Standing amid the ruins of the fort of the old capital, with a reverence for things past as our monitor, and the poet's fancy to set the strings of the heart in gentle vibration, who can fail to dream of the emotions which stirred the souls of DeMonts, Champlain, Poutrincourt and Lescarbot, as their eyes fell for the first time upon the beautiful harbour of Port Royal and its surroundings? Does not the same dream sanctify some of us at times, when from the commanding site of the King's Bastion we drink in a soul-purifying draught at nature's shrine? As her beauty lies spread out before us, does our fancy not flutter for a moment around the memories of those who first lay at anchor in our great roadstead? No need to wonder why Champlain, after once seeing our Cape, selected it as the site of his capital! Our thoughts, as the eyes sweeps round from Beauport to St. Joseph, are probably what his thoughts were, our emotions his emotions, the same lifting up of the soul to God — from nature to nature's God — the same thankfulness that he has made this world of ours so beautiful to dwell in. As Tom Moore said when standing on the brink of Niagara: — "At such a moment we perceive enough of nature's grandeur to set imagination on the wing — imagination which at such times can outrun reality. We feel as if approaching the dwelling place of the Most High, and remain for a while in that delicious absorption which the enthusiasm of piety alone can produce. Our whole heart and soul ascend towards the Deity in a swell of devout admiration." So it must have been with the little band who made a home for themselves at Port Royal. The development process of the scientists, even when assisted by the industry of the husbandman, does not change the face of nature very much in two centuries; and surely we are safe in saying that the beauty which attracted the first French settlers was that which now attracts thousands of holiday-seekers to Annapolis Basin.

 

But all activity was not confined to Port Eoyal. Further up the bay, at Ohignecto, there were to be seen both wealth and enterprise. There was enterprise in the building of expensive aboideaux on the rivers, and in the trade which had sprung up with Louisburg in hay, oats, and cattle; while there was wealth in the coal seams which were to be seen cropping out on the surface, and in the fine stretches of meadow land. At the head of Oobequid Bay, near the spot where the flourishing town of Truro now stands, a little community of fifty families farmed and fished, and there hid for a season from the Government orders in regard to the taking of the English oath of allegiance. At Canso, which is the oldest of the French settlements in Nova Scotia, fortune was very fickle. There, wealth was as easily lost as gained; a good fishing season then, as now, made the fisherman forget his woes; a bad one threw him into' the hands of creditors who knew how to make his debts hang over him like the sword of Damocles. On the Saint John river, French enterprise grouped itself round the three principal forts — Latour, Jemseg, and Nashwaak. The defense of the first by the brave wife of a brave man, and the attack upon Nashwaak, are about the only two interesting events in early New Brunswick history, and they have been told in as many literary styles as there are hues to the rainbow. When General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, was sent to the Island of St. John, that is Prince Edward Island, he found at Port La Joie a settlement with its fort and French commandant, and was told of other settlements along the eastern coast. He also found some French families living on the banks of the Miramichi, where French Fort Cove and Beaubair's Island have each their romance. There is no certainty in the statements made about the discovery of Prince Edward Island, and there is as little in the reports about its early occupation by the French. We are told that Sieur Doublet, a French naval officer, received a grant of the whole island from the Company of New France, and that he, in company with two others, managed to make a living out of the fisheries. In 1752 there were more than a thousand inhabitants, as is testified by a French report which extols the country for its fertility, the abundance of game, and the value of its fisheries. In the year of the fall of Louisburg there were four thoirsand people, an increase which can be explained by the troubles existing between the English and French on the mainland, and the expulsion of the Acadians in 1775. Many of these unfortunates escaped to the Island to join those of their own nationality who had taken farms there.

 

In mentioning the expulsion of the Acadians, about which so much has been written by everybody who has undertaken to write about Nova Scotia, I have only a word to say, and I have said the same many years ago. There are two sides to the story of Acadian prosperity and innocence, as it was witnessed around the Basin of Minas. The frugality and comfort of these simple hearted farmers, their large flocks of sheep and oxen roaming over the wrell cultivated farms, their plenteous crops raised by the hard hand of industry, their quaintly built dwellings, but above all, their piety and simple manners, their benevolenee and uprightness give life and interest to the chapter over which we love to ponder. In a book lying before me, I am told that their expulsion was owing to their disloyalty, or rather to their intrigue and want of fidelity. There is some truth in this, as they were apt to be too easily led into error by the flattering tongue of that tempter of men, Joseph De Loutre. But those who write of them as idlers, quarrelsome, living in the squalid misery of wretched huts, yet hoarding up gold for its own sake, have the prejudice of thousands of readers against them. One can hardly give credence to the truth of the eclogue produced by Raynal in his prose and Longfellow in his verse. The Acadians were not all saints because an apparently unjust decree of exile was- issued against them; nor were they all bad because they refused to take an oath they abhorred. Their punishment was the effect of stubbornness and duplicity, not of crime. As a matter of fact only about half of them were exiled, numbers of them contriving to linger around the homesteads, and others of them seeking refuge in settlements far remote from the influence of the English soldier. When peace was concluded between France and England, a large number of these unhappy people were allowed to return, and settle on lands provided for them by the Government. The principal Acadian settlements afe to be found in Clare, Yarmouth or Cumberland, and along the shores of New Brunswick; Gloucester and Madawaska are purely French counties; in Westmoreland, Kent and Northumberland are to be found large numbers of the descendants of those who had been expelled.

 

I have also a word to say about Louisbourg, whose trade and wealth in its palmy days is still the cause of regret for its destruction. It was built for the protection of its fisheries, and though the expense of its fortifications was great, the revenue from the fish trade made it a profitable outlay. With the West Indies and Newr England there was for many years a considerable traffic; in return for fish there came from the former sugar, tobacco and coffee; from the latter fruit, vegetables, oats, shingles and bricks. It wras also the centre of commerce between Europe and Canada, the furs of the St. Lawrence country being there exchanged for the manufactured goods of England and France. Its Government was purely military, with the Governor at the head of the Supreme Court, which tried the soldier and civilian under the same legal authority. There was also an Admiralty Court for the prevention of smuggling, as well as an Inferior Court for the punishment of minor offences reported by the police. The religion of the colony was regulated by missionaries from our city of Quebec here. There were hospitals under the care of six friars, and schools under the superintendence of the nuns. There were strong, handsome buildings, busy streets, markets and wharfs on which the merchant jostled the idling soldier and drove a hard bargain with the poor fisherman. Long lines of warehouses, holding the wealth of the fishing season, or its profits in European goods, stood within and without the walls; and of all this only a few mounds of rubbish remain within the line of its glacis and ditch. The dismantling of its walls and fortifications, the destruction of its houses and streets, the expulsion of its inhabitants, surely prevented what can be seen in Quebec every day, — an English minority living in peace and harmony with a French majority under the impartial protection of the mother land. As one passes across the little Louisbourg graveyard near Point Eochford, with here and there a human bone, the splinter of a wooden cross, or a rough stone looking through the dark soil, the heart cannot fail to beat tenderly for those who lie there, so hurriedly buried in the hour of misfortune and triumph, so strangely foreshadowing by the mingling of their dust, the peace which now prevails between French and English, in Acadia united to Canada.

 

The fall of Louisbourg was the last throe in the struggle which gave birth to New Scotland. And contemporaneous history shows what a terrible time it was all over the world, when the first efforts were being put forth by the French to make something permanent out of Acadia. Perhaps there is no period in the history of modern times so full of historical phenomena as the first half of the seventeenth century — the epoch in which the pioneers of New France were beginning their severe task of laying the foundations of a new principality in the west. For instance, in England there was to be witnessed the great contest between liberty and prerogative, ending with a scene the like of which Englishmen had never before been called to look upon, nor ever will again — the execution of their king on the public scaffold. In France, the assassination of Henry IV by the fanatic Ravaillac — a crime which makes the blood curdle when we see it repeated at our neighbour's door by the wretched Guiteau — opened the way for Richelieu's ambition and the terrible wars it excited. In Germany, the "thirty years' war," in ruining the trade of the country, and in crushing the people under a burden of taxation, crippled the already debilitated power of the emperor and cut up the empire into a multitude of petty states. And so it was also in other countries. Spain was in an unsettled state from the cruel eccentricities of Philip II; Sweden was all excitement, under the brave Adolphxis, who had need of all his bravery in checking the simultaneous aggressions of three powerful States; Russia was convulsed by the murder of the Czar, the appearance of several pretenders to the throne, and the horrible outrages of the invading Tartars ; Poland was overwhelmed by the united attack of six of her most dangerous enemies, and saw her King forced to flee to a neighboring State for protection ; and even little Denmark, who did not dare to call her mind her own in the midst of such turmoil all over Europe, was violently disturbed by the unseemly strife between her nobles and the common people. But this is not all. The commotion did not confine itself to the quarrels of kings and nations, and the ambitious cruelties of men. The whole earth seemed to be convulsed in some strange manner, as if nature had joined in the turmoil, or as if Providence was violently regulating at this period, more than at any other, the affairs of the world. Hardly a country escaped the various plagues, which continued, for a time, to decimate the people. Fierce tempests swept over England, swelling the sea up upon the land, with such destruction to life and property, that men began to think of the times as an approach towards a final dissolution of all things. Some of the phenomena can only be explained by reference to the superstition and ignorance of the period. There were immense conflagrations in the towns and in the forests; marvellous appearances filled the heavens; one day, the sun hid its face, when neither earth nor moon was the cause of the eclipse; and again, it appeared, accompanied by two twTinlike suns, haloed by no less than three rainbow's; the prodigious apparition of an armed host, was seen in the sky, earthquakes shook to their foundations some of the towns in England and Scotland, and strange noises were heard rumbling through the air, as of armies on the march. Altogether it was the strangest of times. There seemed to be nothing but wars and rumors of wars, commotion in heaven and earth. With the cold shiver of superstition running through us, as we study the appearances and counter-appearances which are reported to have been observed, can we wonder why it was that Acadia had  such troublous times in her infancy. The cruelties of the New Englanders, in their exterminating attacks upon the Acadian settlements, and the still more cruel reprisals by the Indians on the New Englanders, only make up a chapter of violence, which was to be read at the time in every other part of the world. What we may wonder at is how the country ever developed to the point to which the French farmers brought it. Farming and fighting, the plough and the musket, the hoe and the sword, were all the time playing the old antagonistic game, with the odds in favour of the latter, and when we read the whole story of the contest, and look at the impress which the French really left upon the Maritime Provinces, we cannot but praise that industry, patience and long suffering patriotism which characterized the Acadians, and which, I need not say, characterise all  their descendants in these Provinces. Still speaking and thinking in their native patois, they hold aloof from the blending of the races going on in their vicinity. But they are not the less loyal to provincial interests, though they still love to talk of the patriotic exploits of their forefathers in the very districts of the country, which Providence seems irom the first to have selected for them as peaceful retreats. Sometimes they hold a public festival or national gathering, as that seen last summer at Memramcook, when their French blood is again warmed, under the influence of French oratory, and the enthusiasm of their leaders.

 

In June of the year 1749, and in May of the year 1783, there occurred two events which have had a remarkable influence in developing the Maritime Provinces as flourishing English colonies. These involved the founding of what are now their two largest cities, Halifax and St. John. After the date of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, a change took place in Britain's colonial policy. The expense of defending a country, in which there was only a handful of English-speaking subjects, led British statesmen to consider what ought to be done to improve the country, so as to make it an attractive place for those Englishmen who wished to make a new home for themselves in America. The building and capturing of Nova Scotian forts, it is true, had brought some glory to British arms, but everybody felt that conquest without colonization was fruit of the Dead Sea kind. Up to this time, the English communities in Nova Scotia had made little or no progress. And why should we be surprised at the fact? It was more than a hundred years since James I, gave over to his favourite, William Alexander', the whole territory of the Maritime Provinces. But their whole history during that time is a mere recital of subjugation and subsequent restoration. The country was no sooner reduced by British arms, than it was restored to the French, whenever the two mother lands settled their disputes and European quarrels. One year, the English settler became the privileged party, and next year all his privileges and advantages were set aside by the French, once more dominant. In England, there never had been any well defined policy, with respect to the future of this part of Canada. Englishmen were accustomed to talk of N ova Scotia in the most heedless manner. They were inclined to think that the eternal fitness of things, pointed to Acadia as a French colony, just as it pointed to New England as a perpetual English colony; and who will say that but for the jealousy of the New Englander against the French, and his subsequent hatred of taxation and tea, the justice of the thought might not have been supported by the course of events!

 

But, in 1749, the Province of Nova Scotia, which included, at this time, the territory now comprised within the Maritime Provinces — all Acadia, except Cape Breton — was finally secured to Britain. There was to be no more ceding of the country to France. A scheme to encourage immigration was set on foot, and readily received  the sanction of the British ministry; although, I am afraid their readiness in accepting the scheme, must be traced to another cause than the interests of Nova Scotia. David Hume speaks of the movement in this way: — "As the public generally suffers at the end of a war, by the sudden dismission of a great number of soldiers and seamen, who have contracted a habit of idleness, and finding themselves without employment and the means of subsistence, engage in desperate courses and prey upon the community, it was judged expedient to provide an opening, through which these unquiet spirits might exhale, without damage to the commonwealth. The most natural was that of encouraging them to become members of a new colony in North America, which, by being properly regulated, supported and improved, might be the source of great advantages to its mother country." Be this as it may, a better prospect was before the young colony. The evils under which the Nova Scotian fishermen and farmer had long groaned, were to be attended to. The affairs of the country, so ill-governed for a hundred years, were thrown into the hands of the Board of Trade and Plantations, which at this time wras presided over by the Earl of Halifax. In 1748, an advertisement appeared, under the sanction of George II, in which it was declared that "proper encouragement wotild be given to such of the officers and privates, lately dismissed from the land and sea services, as were willing to settle in the Province of Nova Scotia; that the fee-simple of fifty acres of land should be granted to privates, free from the payment of taxes for ten years; that, over and above these fifty acres, each person should receive a grant of ten acres for every individual of which his family should consist; that further grants should be made in proportion as they should manifest their abilities in agriculture; that every officer, under the rank of ensign in the land service, or lieutenant in the navy, should be gratified with fourscore acres on the same conditions; that two hundred acres should be bestowed on ensigns, three hundred on lieutenants, four hundred upon captains, and six hundred on every officer above that degree; that the lands should be parcelled out as soon as possible after the arrival of the colonists, and a civil government established, by virtue of which they should enjoy all the liberties and privileges of British subjects, with proper security and protection; that the settlers with their families should be conveyed to Nova Scotia, and maintained for twelve months at the expense of the Government, which should also supply them with arms and ammunition as far as should be judged necessary for their defence, with proper materials and utensils for clearing and cultivating their lands, erecting habitations, exercising the fishery, and such other purposes as should be judged necessary for their support."

 

This legislation had the desired effect. The tide of emigration began .to flow in favor of Nova Scotia. Corn wallis arrived in Chebucto Harbour in 1749, and was accompanied or followed by nearly three thousand families during the first season. Halifax became the successful rival of Annapolis Royal. New companies of immigrants arrived every year. English and Irish settlers came and spread over the adjacent districts. Dartmouth, which is situated on the opposite side of the harbour from Halifax, sprang up as a thriving village. A distinct judiciary was established for the province, including a Supreme Court, County Court, and the Court of General Sessions, and in 1758 the first meeting of the Legislature took place in the capital. Nor did the young province look only to Britain for her colonists. Reports of the resources of the new country and its prospects were published in Germany, and at one time a large fraction of the population of Halifax were Germans. In 1759 a proclamation was issued inviting the people of New England to take possession of the farms of the expatriated Acadians. The invitation was responded to by a large number of farmers who laid the foundation of the towns or villages on the Basin of Minas and the Bay of Fundy. Thus too were established the towns of Liverpool, Horton, Amherst, Truro, Newport, and Falmouth. In the meantime, an English settlement was made at Maugerville, on the St. John River. People from the neighbourhood of Boston raised houses for themselves near the marsh lands around Cumberland and Sackville. Over the whole province there sprang up little communities, which in later times have developed into places of some importance. A new and cheering chapter in the history of progress began in the Maritime Provinces. Nova Scotia had at last become an English colony. The age of ever recurring change and appeal to arms had passed. And what improved matters all the more rapidly lay in the fact that very many of the settlers were farmers of experience. The most of them had the sterling characteristics of useful members of society. They knew already what it was to struggle with a will against difficulties and dangers. The New England immigrants knew what it was to reduce the wild forest land to a state of order and cultivation; and around their new homes, on the hill's side of some Nova Scotian valley, by the shores of some New Brunswick river, or in sight of the golden sand of a Prince Edward Island bay, their industry soon made "the wilderness to blossom as the rose." Even before the War of Independence, the Maritime Provinces began to lose their reproach of being a barren, inhospitable land, swarming with savages, and fit only for the adventurer, the hunter, or desperado to live in. The year 1749 is certainly the date best to be remembered by Nova Scotians, and here is how one of their poets celebrates it: —

 

Hail to the day when the Britons came o'er

And planted their standard, with sea-foam still wet;

Above and around us their spirits shall hover,

Rejoicing to mark how we honour it yet.

 

Beneath it the emblems they cherished are waving,

The rose of old England the wayside perfumes,

The Shamrock and Thistle the north winds are braving,

Serenely the Mayflower bluahes and blooms.

 

In the temples they founded, their faith is maintained;

Every foot of the soil they bequeathed is still ours;

The graves where they moulder no foe has profaned,

But we wreathe them with verdure and strew them with flowers

 

The blood of no brother, in civil strife pour'd,

In this hour of rejoicing encumbers our souls,

The frontier's our field for the patriot's sword,

And cursed is the weapon that faction controls

 

Then hail to the day! 'tis with memories crowded

Delightful to trace thro' the mists of the past;

Like the features of beauty, bewitehingly shrouded,

They shine thro' the shadows time o'er them has cast.

 

I have mentioned the German element in this great immigration movement. At first there were nearly two thousand of them, who took up their residence in the north end of Halifax, where the natne Gottingen, which still indicates one of the streets, bears testimony to the fact of their settlement. But there was a difficulty in the matter of language and style of living. They knew not a word of English, nor much of English customs. Besides, the rocky soil in the neighbourhood of Halifax caused much disappointment to those who had read in the proclamation inviting them across the Atlantic, much about the fertility of Nova Scotia. The Government had to consider their case, and that speedily. It was deemed expedient to select a separate district for them at Malagash Bay on the east coast, and there they built the town of Lunenburg. A few of them remained in Halifax, living in the district which is still called Dutch Town, The local history of Lunenburg is not without its interest. The inhabitants, we are told, suffered very much at first from the stealthy attacks of the Indians. For a while there was sedition among themselves, for some of them thought that they had been badly treated by the British Government. But, notwithstanding all this, the colony flourished, spreading its influence over the tract of land now known as Lunenburg County. It is difficult to forget the words with which Joseph Howe confronted the electors of this district, and won them over to those who were in favour of responsible government. "I half expected," he was accustomed to say, "that they would have broken my head, but do you know they carried me home on their shoulders." And no wonder, for this is how he met them. "I have been told" had no need, like thousands who now try their luck in the forest lands of Canada, to go elsewhere than New England to seek some asylum where in return for their labour they might obtain the comforts of life for themselves and their children. It was not wdth them a matter of food and clothing. They had been accustomed from their youth up to the pleasures and enjoyment of civilized life, to the advantages of education and Christian refinement. Their homes in New England and New York, were, in many cases, counterparts of what in the motherland are called the "Merry homes of England." Nor had the republican government peremptorily ordered that they should leave these homes. There were conditions by which they might retain them. But they had not assumed the name of Loyalists to throw it aside when it interfered with their worldly prospects. They were Loyalists in more than name. Their attachment to their sovereign and to native institutions was what had been seen in more remote times in the sturdy Acadians, and which, perhaps, in these unfortunates, ought to have been more respected by the British Government. Allegiance to the British Crown had been instilled into their minds from childhood, loyal submission to law and order was a principle of theirs which thousands of them never thought of questioning, "God save the King," was one of their heartiest anthems. And do we not see a record of all this in the marked loyalty of the people of the provinces by the sea; we might say, over the whole of Canada? When the long political straggle which shook the two Canadas culminated in the rebellion of 1837, there were held, in nearly every town and village in the lower provinces, public meetings by means of which the people proclaimed in fervent language their deep attachment to the sovereign and the government. And again when the State of Maine sought to encroach upon the territory of New Brunswick, and there was every indication of war between the settlers on the opposite sides of the St. John, the same loyal cry of sympathy for the sister province was heard from every nook and corner in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Nor were they content with mere words. The Nova Scotian House of Assembly unanimously voted £100,000, and countenanced a levy of 8,000 men to assist the New Brunswickers in repelling the invader. Thus and in many other ways have the Loyalists left their impress upon these provinces. They came to the three provinces to devote all their energies in restoring to themselves and their children that home-life, which their loyalty to Britain had caused them to abandon. And we all know how successfully they completed their zealous and praiseworthy task. The regions of Canada, they soon found out, were neither bleak nor barren. It was certainly not a land Mowing with milk and honey, and this they knew before they left their waving cornfields and fruitful orchards in the United States. But it was, and is, a land where industry may always reap the reward of its toil, and this they soon discovered. The struggle with the forest lands began. Farms began to be cultivated. Trade with Britain assumed a more regular and commercial character. Schools and churches were built. Towns began to extend their bounds. The various provinces were divided up into counties. The form of government became representative. And at last those who had endured the privations and hardships of the winter of 1783, began to look with confident hops on the prospects of their newly adopted country.

 

I have said that the citizens of St. John claim the 18th of May as the day on which the founders of their city arrived within the shelter of their spacious harbour. The hexameter of Virgil O fortunati quorum jam mœnia surgunt, was selected as a hopeful motto, for the new born town, as the busy immigrants set to work in raising dwellings for themselves and families. They did not all arrive at the same time, but before the year was out not less than five thousand found their way to the shores of New Brunswick's largest river. Among them weredisbanded soldiers, lawyers, clergymen, merchants, farmers and mechanics, — each provided with a guarantee of two years' support from the British Government.

 

This great influx of population brought about the organizing of a new colony under the name New Brunswick, which had up to the year 1784 comprised part of Nova Scotia under the name of Sunbury county. Thomas Carleton, tvho was the first governor of this new province, landed at Parrtown, as St. John was then called, on Sunday, the 21st November, 1784. Next day he issued his first proclamation, setting forth his prerogative as the King's deputy, and calling upon all the inhabitants to be loyal to the interests of the new colony. For two years he ruled the province through a Council of twelve prominent Loyalists. Then he issued warrants for the election of twenty-six members to serve in a House of Assembly which he succeeded in organizing. St. John by this time had become an incorporated town, the first city in Canada governed by a mayor and aldermen. The honor of being the capital of the province was, however, taken from it at a very early period in its history, for when Governor Carleton moved bis residence to St. Ann's, he changed the name of that place to Fredericton and established it as the seat of government, which it has remained ever since.

 

A very large number of the Loyalists took up their abode in Nova Scotia. In fact they soon constituted a fair proportion of the original English settlers in nearly every place of importance in the Maritime Proviuces. In some parts, however, they are to be traced more distinctly than in others, their descendants being found in larger proportions in the counties of Digby, Annapolis, Guysborough, Shelburne and Hants. It is not pleasant to think that in connection with this movement of immigration, two of the governors eventually became bankrupt. The year which saw New Brunswick a separate province, brought to Cape Breton Island, a governor of its own in the person of Major Desbarres. As soon as he had selected a site for his capital on the sheltered slope wrhere the town of Sydney now stands, he issued a manifesto which proclaimed to intending settlers that free provisions would be granted to those who made their home in Cape Breton, and that all such would likewise receive material for building purposes, and even assistance in clearing their land. This was a tempting offer to those who had decided to seek a home on British American soil, and over three thousand men and women — mostly Loyalists—accepted the terms and moved to that arm of the sea, which one of our British admirals has designated "the finest harbour in the world" — to Sydney Harbour. The first winter was a very hard one for these three thousand souls; for the provisions ran out, and Nova Scotia was unable to render assistance. Happily for the new colony, a store-ship from Quebec was found at Arichat and conducted to Louisbourg harbour, from which place its cargo was carried on sleds to Sydney. All this expense had to be assumed personally by the governor, and when the amount was placed before the authorities at home they refused to reimburse the Major. Shortly after he was withdrawn. He lived in Halifax to the ripe old age of 103 years, but his claims against the British Government, strange to say, were never fairly considered.

 

The other case of bankruptcy had for its victim, Walter Patterson, the first governor of Prince Edward Island. When he came out to that province, it was understood, that his salary of five hundred pounds and the salaries of his subordinates were to be drawn from a fund derived from quit-rents. But many of the landlords failed to pay the amount of this tax to the Government, and as a governor can no more starve to death with equanimity than any ordinary mortal when there is a chance of escape, Patterson undertook on his own authority to sell the lands of the defaulters. This raised a storm about his ears both in Charlottetown and in London. Scandalous reports were circulated against him at the Colonial Office, and Lord Sydney, then Colonial Secretary, began to have strong suspicions against a governor who could have the heart to devise such a simple plan of saving himself and family from starvation. The landlords, it was true, would not pay the quit-rents, but neither did they want their lands sold. The governor might go without his salary, but that was his look-out. Consequently an order came out from England to the effect that the lands which had been sold were to be restored. This with the governor was to return the cherry after it had been eaten. The money realized from the sales had gone to pay his debts ; and the House of Assembly would not listen to his plan of passing a Bill regarding as valid the land sales of 1781. Just at this time began to flow the tide of immigration among the Loyalists. If he could only encourage a few thousands of them to come to Charlottetown and be his friends, he might succeed in getting elected a House of Assembly more favourable to his designs. This was what the wily, old governor thought, and on the impulse he acted. For the first time in his career as governor of the colony he had the proprietors with him. They actually raised a handsome sum of money to assist in taking the Loyalists across the Straits of Northumberland. Orders were at once issued to apportion lands to them. Hundreds accepted the deeds of conveyance, and many of them settled on the very lands which had been sold. All this time, moreover, the order to restore the lands sold was kept out of sight. The governor was soon busily engaged in making friends among the Loyalists, in prospect of a dissolution of the House of Assembly. In a word, the elections of 1785 secured the return of members friendly disposed towards His Excellency, and during the second session of the new House, an Act was passed giving effect to the sale of lands made five years before. The working out of the whole scheme however cost Patterson over three thousand pounds, and virtually lost, for him his position. The Act was disallowed by His Majesty, a successor was forthwith appointed, and thus the first governor of Prince Edward Island was obliged to return to England a ruined man.

 

In connection with the name of the said Walter Paterson we may associate the large influx of a Scottish population after the completion of Captain Holland's survey of Prince Edward Island, for it was this immigration of Scotchmen to the Island, that induced the British authorities to send Patterson out as its first governor. Our President, Mr. LeMoine, entertained us last winter with his very pleasant sketch of the Scot in Canada ; but as he touched but lightly on the Scottish, or rather Celtic, element found in the population of the lower provinces, I daresay, he will excuse me, if I supplement his popular narrative by a paragraph or two As in the case of the Acadians and the Loyalists, their devotion to a failing cause brought about their expatriation, so had loyalty towards a dethroned line of kings much to do with the arrival of Scotsmen as settlers in the Maritime Provinces. The Celtic chiefs of Scotland true to the Stuart cause, flocked round the standard of "bonnie Prince Charlie" in 1745, and fought their last great battle for him on the field of Oulloden. After that disaster, Charles Edward returned to France; but for many years after his departure from Scotland there continued to exist a very disordered state of society in the Highlands insomuch that troops had to be stationed at various centres to watch the clans and their secret operations. All over the. Highlands there was much the same rebellious feeling against the government as is to be seen to-day in Ireland. At length, a plan was proposed by which several purely Highland regiments could be organized, and sent abroad. The recommendation was speedily acted upon and hundreds of young Celts gladdened with the prospect of gaining glory anywhere in their native kilts, leit their homes amidst the fastnesses of the Grampians, for the battle-fields of the continent of Europe and of Canada. History tells us what stuff they were made of. Everywhere they proved themselves the bravest and wiriest of British soldiers. James "Wolfe had them in his army when he stormed the walls of Louisbourg, and we all know how, under the same commander, they were the first to climb through the thick brush wood of the cove beyond the Plains of Abraham, and how they won their laurels amid the dangers ot the subsequent contest. All through the Seven Years' War they acted the part of loyal men; and, as if in a moment, the bravery of Britain's Highland regiments became a household word. When the proclamation of peace reached Canada, and when arrangements had been completed for the disbanding of some of the regiments, many of the Gaels decided to remain as farmers in the country which they had subdued as soldiers. Among these were the men of Colonel Eraser's regiment, who took farms on Prince Edward Island. There they had troubles enough, and it was some time before they could write home to their friends that they were doing well. It was also about this time that Dr. Weatherspoon had formed an association called the Philadelphian Company, and through its influence had brought into Nova Scotia a number of settlers from Maryland. Through the same influence some thirty families were brought over from the Highlands of Scotland and placed upon farms near Pictou. Eventually these men were joined by some of the soldiers who had tried Prince Edward Island as a place of settlement, but had not been very successful in their experiment ; and this union was the beginning of things for the subsequent Celtic immigration ; for by it there soon was organized a prosperous community around the valleys of the three rivers which flow into Pictou harbour. The whole movement has a history of its own, which is too long to be more than merely mentioned here. At a very early period in their existence as a community, they had applied to the ecclesiastical authorities at home for an ordained minister to take charge of the district. The Rev. Dr. McGregor was the clergyman sent out, and certainly the records show that he was a man eminently fitted for the position. His zeal and ability soon left their mark upon the district, and when it was known that Pictou had its churches and its schools and many of the other tokens of civilization, there continued to pour into the county a steady stream of Celts from all parts of the west coast of Scotland. This first attempt at settlement, I may say, was virtually a Presbyterian movement, but it soon had its counterpart in the enterprise of the Catholics, so that at length there was spread over the face of Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton from the county of Pictou, a Gaelic speaking population numbering over thirty thousand.

 

This is what appears to me to be the most interesting period in the history of the people of the Maritime Provinces and it is really a pleasure to hear the descendants of these Celts talk of the ship Hector, which brought out their forefathers from Scotland, during these good old times, as they call them. They can tell you many curious anecdotes of the strange manners and customs which their great grandfathers brought wTith them from Scotland. They will tell you of their seasons of enjoyment, of the fun and laughter attending a "thickening frolic," "a chimney biggin," a sugar making, a wedding or a christening. They can give from memory the genealogies of the countryside, and love to dwell upon the virtues and eccentricites of their parsons and priests, their members of parliament and other public characters. They will also tell you of the sufferings which had to be endured in early times of colonial life, of the mishaps and mischances which often befell the first settlers in their winter wanderings from settlement to settlement From the many incidents we have selected one which will indicate how there is material enough to adorn a tale to be found in the internal history of the people of the Maritime Provinces.

 

One of the farmers of a district, which need not be named, who had waited long for the coming of a Presbyterian missionary to his settlement was one of those with a large family of unbaptized children who like the old woman in the fable did not know what to do. He had brought with him from Scotland that reverence for religious ceremony which made him uneasy about his children, and many a long chat he and his wife had about the serious responsibility which rested upon them in the matter of their unchristened bairns.

 

"It's a heathenish place" the wife would say, "when one cannot even get their weans baptized."

 

"But what can we do?" the husband would gloomily remark, "I am sure Mr. McGregor might have come round this way, when he was on the Island."

 

"Don't you think we might go into town some day, and get Mr. Desbrisay to do it," pleaded the wife.

 

"Not if I know it," groaned the Presbyterian, "I want none o'my boys to grow up Episcopals." Mr. Desbrisay was the Church of England clergyman.

 

They were not alone in their dilemma. Other families in the settlement were growing up in the same condition. No missionary had ever visited the settlement, and now they were beginning to give up all hopes. At last the heads of the various families discussed the matter among themselves, and all being impressed with the necessity of taking immediate action, it was proposed that, as soon as the harvest was in, they would go up tô town in a body, with all their children, infants included, and ask Mr. Desbrisay to enrol them in the usual way as members of Christ's visible church. For some unexplained cause they waited until November, when providing themselves with food and other necessaries for the journey through the woods to Charlottetown, they set out,. mothers, fathers, boys and girls, and little children in arms — a goodly crowd of twenty or thirty persons. Arriving safely in town, after a two days' tramp in the forest, they'applied to Mr. Desbrisay, who with his usual politeness and kindness admitted them to the church, and performed the ceremony of baptism.

 

Then began the journey homewards. A great load seemed to have been removed from the parents' hearts. It was a kind of holiday with them all, and the miles were as nothing under their willing feet. But towards the afternoon the sky began to lower. The men became anxious. Surely the storm would keep off until next day! But the more they hoped, the cloudier it seemed to grow, until at last the light flakes began to fall, and the wind began to sigh and moan through the trees. The men buttoned up their homespun coats, and took the living bundles from the mothers' arms: the little ones clung to the skirts of her who tried to give them shelter. On they went, the snow falling thicker and thicker, and forming a soft but heavy impediment to the little limbs now growing weary. "What was to be done? They could not return to the town for they were more than eight miles from it. The cold became intense, and penetrated the thickest clothing. The snow fell thick and fast, and blinded them in their slow progress. Even the babies were wide awake and crying with the cold. There was nothing for it, stop they must, and make their camp for the night.

 

At once the men and the big boys went to work with a will. Selecting a sheltered grove, they huddled all the women and children together, and began to collect some brushwood for a fire, and soon all were standing on the warmest side of an immense crackling heap of forest refuse.

 

The children under the new influence became drowsy, and the men, alive to the emergency, tore the green boughs from the silver firs, and tried to make a kind of bed on which the little ones could lie, with boughs below and boughs above. All night the storm continued, and all night it became colder and colder. The frost began to attack their feet, their faces and their ears, notwithstanding a constant replenishing of the fire, and long before morning, the awfulness of the situation was to be seen in the countenances of the men.

 

When the sun rose, the snow was from two to three feet thick all around. Few of them had escaped being frostbitten, and the cries of the children were truly pitiable. Help must be obtained from some quarter or all would perish.

 

At length the men decided that some of them must go forward and bring back assistance from the settlement. This could not be done in a day, for it was more than thirteen miles away, and men could not go very fast through three feet of snow. Still it was the only chance left, and three of them set out.

 

What a terrible day that was for the benighted families! One can hardly credit the endurance which bore them up during the still more terrible night, with the thermometer many degrees below zero. It was not till late in the morning next day that the necessary help came in rough sleds drawn by oxen and men; though for some it seemed as if the assistance had come too late, for many of the children and some of the mothers were lying insensible on the damp boughs, when the shouts of their neighbours were heard in the neighbouring woods.

 

After much toil, however, they all reached the settlement about sunset, though it was many a day before all recovered from the trip to Charlottetown.

 

In summing up the various elements of population, I have again to introduce the soldier. There are three distinct movements which involve the introduction into Nova Scotia of several disbanded regiments, and these must be kept separate and distinct in the memory, if we wish to understand fully the influence which such settlers had upon the provinces. The first movement under Governor Cornwallis had an excellent effect upon the country, on account of its thorough organization. The second I have spoken of as the disbanding of Colonel Fraser's regiment, which also included the military migration of 1763, the date of the Treaty of Paris. But there was a third immigration of soldiers after the American War of Independence, which, on account of its disorganized character, was not so happy in its effects. When Britain had no longer need for the armies engaged in the war with the United States, the usual policy was adopted in connection with the disbanding of the various regiments — the men were provided with the means for starting a farm in some part of Canada. Those who decided to accept the terms offered, were separated into companies, and distributed over the various sections of the country in such numbers as, it was thought, would not be prejudicial to the districts in which they were located, nor to the interests of the soldiers themselves. There is no need to enumerate the various settlements to which they were sent. In many cases they were far from being successful farmers. Nor is this to be much wondered at. The training which a soldier undergoes is not, as a general thing, calculated to produce in men those steady habits which formed a sine qua non in the successful early settler. The excitement of removing from town to town in time of peace, and from camp to camp in time of war, the lack of self-dependence and personal enterprise, their loose convivial habits formed but a poor antecedent experience for the rough, constant, laborious task of clearing farms, or of making a livelihood in the settlements of the Maritime Provinces, such as they were in early times. Though probably quite willing to carry out the peaceful injunction of "beating their swords into ploughshares," they were not so willing to profit by the operation. In many cases they became the wTorst of idlers, leading a life of degradation to themselves, and of everything but social improvement to the community in which they happened to be thrown. Here is what Dr. McGregor says of some of these soldiers, whom he found living in Pictou, when he first went there: "In the fall of 1783 and spring of 1784 there came about twenty families of soldiers, mostly Highlanders, who had been disbanded after the peace with the United States, and some of the officers on half pay. There was a set of profligates, at the head of whom were the gentlemen of the army, whose emnity to the Gospel grew fast, and in a short time became outrageous. Before the end of winter some of them threatened to shoot me and burn the house in which I lodged. Some of then! who had their wives in Scotland lived with other women here, and some of them lived with other men's wives, whose husbands were in Scotland. The half-pay officers intended and expected to exercise nearly the same authority over the men after they were disbanded which they had done before, and for a time succeeded wonderfully. They held a meeting with a view of sending me bound to the governor, expecting their influence with him to be such that their mere accusations would procure my banishment. They continued for seven years pests and plagues to the congregation, circulating the most mischievous lies they could devise. But they ran fast to poverty and destruction, so that scarcely one of them remained at the end of that period. Two of them were drowned, one died in the poor-house in Halifax, another was found dead in a stable, having fallen from the hay-loft in a drunken fit. Another cut his throat." And thus does the old clergyman enumerate them.

 

Of course they were not all like this. There were very many exceptions. In other communities many of these soldiers became the most respectable of citizens, leaving behind them descendants, who have influenced the highest social circles of the Provinces, and whose best boast is of their grandfathers who fought in the Revolutionary War.

 

Another element of the population of these provinces I could hardly dare to omit, an element which to-day is found stronger in the towms and cities than in the country districts. Irishmen have had an influence in the development of the Maritime Provinces which cannot be overlooked; in fact so great has it been th at in many districts in New Brunswick the accent among the common people is decidedly Irish. There was, however, in the case of the Irish, no special immigration movement which marks their advent to the country, or which can be spoken of in any distinct record. The cause of their coming was the same as that which induced them in thousands to go to the neighboring republic — the social, commercial and political troubles at home, or a praiseworthy effort to improve their fortunes abroad. Their immigration is of comparatively modern date. They came to the provinces, long after the English, the Celts, and the Loyalists had opened up by their industry the more fertile districts. They came to an organized community, arriving in companies either at Halifax or St. John, sometimes remaining permanently in these places, sometimes proceeding inland and settling wherever they found a suitable locality. They now comprise a very large proportion of the city populations. Some of the wealthiest men in town and country were and are Irishmen, and not a few of them have left their impress upon the history of their adopted province as prelates, politicians and orators.

 

I need not tell you that North of Ireland men and Lowland Scotsmen are to be found sprinkled all over the country, for where is the city, the province, or the country in which no Lowland Scotsmen are to be found? Whether they are the salt of the earth or not, they seem to have been spread over the world, much as that healthy condiment is spread by our cooks over everything comprised within their culinary operations. Certainly if they are the salt of the earth, as they themselves in their happy moments claim to be, they have not lost their savour at least in the Maritime Provinces, where they are to be found occupying important positions — commercial, political, and professional; and you can hardly read a chapter of provincial history without finding some Scotsman mentioned for his enterprise in improving the lives and condition of those who happened to be his neighbors — with due attention of course to his own interests.

 

To complete this sketch of the Maritime Provinces and of the national character of those who first opened them up, I should perhaps mention the settlements which have been established in more modern times. There are the Maroons who came from Jamaica, the Negroes who escaped from the States in time of slavery, and the Danes who came direct from Denmark. But these have had no influence in producing those characteristics which tend to indicate that community of thought and feeling, which is gradually becoming a unit in the union of all the Canadas. I have enumerated only the great migrations. The people, as you are aware, are essentially English — the exponent there as elsewhere of the three elements, English, Scotch, and Irish. We cannot speak of them, it is true, as definitely as of the people in the United States, who are declared to be, by a facetious writer, Englishmen without their caution, their reserve, their fixed habits, their cant and their stolidity. But they certainly have all the independence of the original stock, all the pluck and determination, with more of quick and restless enterprise. The Celt who still clings a little to his Gaelic and his Highland customs, and the Acadian who has not yet laid aside his patois, keep aloof as I have said from the blending process otherwise going on among the people. I can point out to you a Highland editor down there who still denounces English, Scotch and Irish as foreigners, and an Acadian orator who still claims for the Acadians distinct provincial privileges. But the unification of the other elements I have mentioned is becoming more and more complete every year. As in the other provinces of Canada, the English speaking people still commemorate periodically the old nationalities and the associations which embalm them in their minds and memories. Brit these celebrations, as elsewhere in America, hare no political significance. The Englishman, and his sons and grandsons who have probably never seen England, still delight to celebrate St. George's Day; the Scotsman still unfurls his scroll inscribed with its nemo me impune lacessit on the last day of every November; the Irishman still takes a pride in the celebration of St. Patrick's Day and its pleasant festivities; but these are mere ceremonies connected with the rose, the thistle and the shamrock, which do not now promote dissension among the different nationalities. In glorifying the motherland, the people are not now, as in the days of Sam Slick, inclined to despise their adopted country. Canada First is becoming a stronger doctrine among the "Blue-noses." The Province, the Dominion, the Empire is to a certain extent the order of their patriotic thoughts, and the old appeal to the various nationalities by politicians is now seldom if ever heard. This was not always the case. Even sixty years ago, there was hardly any approach towards that identification in provincial interests which is to be seen to-day. Even then it was hardly understood by those politicians who claim to have had something to do with the development of a common patriotic provincial feeling. For instance in the struggle for Responsible Grovernment here is one of the mildest of hundreds of appeals to the various nationalities.

 

"Of what in the end need we be afraid? Will any Englishman find fault with us? He would say, — what you are now contending for, I also struggled for sword in hand. Is it a Scotchman who would find fault with us? Let him turn to his own loved land when a few officers were sent down from London to exercise all the power and influence of the land, and when corrupt minions domineered over the energies of a whole people. Will an Irish man find fault? Let him glance over the green fields of his native land, and see how that country has been degraded and restricted from causes similar to those of which we complain. Will Nova Scotians blame us? If I thought so, I would pray to heaven every night that not another child might be born on the soil, but that a race so degraded should pass from the face of the earth."

 

As a contrast, this is how the orator of the present day appeals to his audience in the Maritime Provinces. "Let us not forget our Eastern heritage. Of us living by the sea, enjoying a climate the best in the world, possessing a country which for its valuable fisheries, its mineral resources, its wealth of forest and agricultural capabilities is, for its size and population, second to none under the sun. Where will you find a happier, more intelligent, and because industrious and frugal, more virtuous yeomanry than those who dress the hills and cultivate the charming vales of our province? And where will you find a hardier and more skilful class of men than those who reap the rich harvests of our own waters, and smite the sounding furrows of our own seas? Let us but as faithfully perform our duty as did our fathers, and those who celebrate the centennial of our Dominion will be able to look back upon a record full of noble deeds and brilliant achievements» and look forward to a future of ever widening promise and boast of a heritage which in the grand march of its progress shall realize only what we see in prophetic vision — "The little one become a thousand and the small one a strong nation." With such words ringing in our ears, for they were delivered in St. John a short time ago, we cannot help turning from the background of the picture to its foreground.

 

The foreground of Canadian history is prominently marked by that most interesting event, the passing of the Confederation Act. It is now more than fourteen years since the people of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick entered into a union with their neighbors of the river provinces, the contracting parties having been urged on by the hope of thus forming the nucleus of what has certainly become the most influential colonial confederacy in the world, and what may yet become a great and powerful nation. As we all very well remember, there were prophets in those days who fed themselves on their prejudices, as there are prophets of that nurture in all great movements. There were men then who prophesied ruin to the weaker provinces and tyranny by the stronger; and there were those who lit up the prospect for the New Dominion, as it was called, with gleams from their imagination, which may have deceived and certainly bedazzled thousands of voters. There were those who, in actively opposing the scheme, uttered the most lamentable wails of loss of liberty, loss of trade, increased taxation and other calamities; while there were also those, who in promoting the change, joyously proclaimed it to be the panacea of all political and commercial ills. Of course we who lived in the country at the time had to take sides in the issue, some with indifference, others with the greatest zeal and patriotic pride. While yet in the heat of the contest, we could hardly rely on our own judgment with respect to the effects of such an important measure. On both sides there were prejudices to be overcome which were continually presenting themselves in the most perverse form. Some predicted an unhinging of our loyalty, an unrest for independence, a hastening towards annexation. Even the most impartial and indiffèrent of us, who know from history how easy it is to establish a political union by Act of Parliament, gave it as our opinion that it would be long before the various sections could be blended together into a nationality which would mean more than the name. Perhaps we were all a little astray in our prognostications. A very sudden consolidation of the interests of the various provinces has certainly taken place within the last ten years. The improved means of travel and the closer social intercourse which has thus been promoted, have worked a rapid change towards a unified Canadian nationality. A new literary period may be said to have sprung up providing a Canadian literature for Canadian readers. The commercial interests of the various sections we must all admit have at least been assimilated. Very late events have shown that our statesmen are not content with being known in person only to the people of one section of the country ; they roam about from Cape Breton to British Columbia seeking, let us hope, not whom they may devour, but to become more intimately acquainted with every nook and corner of this great colony. Altogether there has been within the past few years an active movement amongst us towards a common future, involving the development of a truly national spirit — a desire to live, and work, and co-operate as Canadians. As the old national feelings gradually lost their prominence in presence of the stronger provincial sympathies, so the sectional interests of individual provinces are in like manner gradually disappearing before the common desire to ennoble our common country and through it to ennoble our lives. It is then, this narrowing towards the vanishing point of former provincial prejudices, this unifying process going on between the eastern and western sections, this drawing together and consolidation of our interests as a united people, this desire to know, and to be known of each other, as members of one nationality — protected it is true by the outer circle of a great and mighty nation — but all Canadians, one brotherhood, united under the influence of a loyalty towards Britain's Queen and British liberty which has never wavered; — it is this or all of these which I advance as my excuse for reading this paper on the Maritime Provinces before a Quebec audience.

 

And what a country this of ours is to fill us with all the enthusiasm of patriotism, to bind us closer and closer together as one people as one kindred. The mere extent of the country would not, perhaps, impress the mind so strongly, if there was not so much of the vast, the magnificent, the national, in all its leading features. I have spoken of prophets, but here are the words of one of the strangest of prophets, one who fought for many years against the fulfilment of his own prophecy. Long before the Confederation agitation he says: — "You feel at every step that Canada must become a great nation, and at every step you pray most devoutly for the descent upon the country of that wisdom and foresight, and energy which shall make it the great treasury of British institutions upon this continent, and an honour to the British name. All the lakes of Scotland thrown together would not make one of these great inland seas, which form as it were a chain of Mediterraneans; all the rivers of England old father Thames included, would scarcely fill the channel of the St. Lawrence. There is a grandeur in the mountain ranges, and a voice in the noble cataracts which elevate the spirit above the ignorance and the passions of the past and the perplexities of the present, and make us feel that the great Creator of the Universe never meant such a country to be the scene of discord, but wall yet inspire the people with the union, the virtue, and the true patriotism, by which alone its political and social condition shall be made to take, more nearly than it does now, the impress of its natural features. Canada is a country to be proud of; to inspire high thoughts; to cherish a love for the sublime and the beautiful, and to take its stand among the nations of the earth in spite of all circumstances which oppose the growth and progress of a young country." In face of such a prophecy as this then, and in the face of its gradual fulfilment, it surely is becoming in us to learn what we may of our fellow countrymen in all parts of our common country, wherever may have been the spot of our nativity, whatever may be our prejudices in favor of the province which we single out from all others with the endearing name of home.