8 JOHN LESPBRANCB ON 



monopolies of commercial companies, encouraged shipbuilding, the working of mines, 

 and was among the first to appreciate the richness of the now famous St. Maurice iron 

 beds. Indeed, the whole system of municipal government in the colony was due to his 

 sagacity, and the same may be said of the management of civil and commercial aflairs 

 which obtained till the time of the Conquest. The name of Talon is still borne by one 

 family in Canada, and a spirited painting of the great intendant is kept in a religious 

 house of Quebec. 



V. 



Canada has had her share of wars, all of which are more or less interesting, while 

 several have been the theme of romance and verse. It has been fashionable to find fault 

 with Champlain for his hostilities against the Iroquois, making bitter foes of tribes that 

 might have been friends to his people. This is a moot point, but there can be no question 

 of the glamour that clings to his first expedition along the Richelieu. That beautiful 

 river, flowing through the garden of Lower Canada, has become legendary, for two 

 hundred and fifty years, through the wars that haA'e swept along its banks. It was the 

 highway of the Iroquois from the Hudson, in their yearly raids by land and water, against 

 the white settlements at Three Rivers, Quebec and Montreal. The French built a chain 

 of forts — since historical — to check these savage marches. They were raised at Sorel, 

 Chambly, St. Johns and Isle-aiix-Noix. In 1667 De Tracy passed these on his way to 

 scatter the Mohawks, while, three years later, 1670, De Courcelles chastised their brothers, 

 the Senecas, by way of Lake Ontario. Just a hundred years after, in 1760, Haviland, with 

 300 British regulars, provincials and a small body of Indians, drove the French from Isle- 

 aux-Noix and St. Johns, then wheeled up to Longueuil and reached Montreal in time for the 

 final capitulation. Along that same line of the Richelieu, Montgomery moved victorious 

 in 1775, on his march to Quebec, and along it, in 1776, the continental army retreated, after 

 being shattered at Pres-de-ville and Sault-au-Matelot, and by the siifFerings of a long 

 winter. At St. Johns again, Burgojme gathered a splendid army of land and lake forces to 

 crush the American rebellion on the Hudson, and within two months had to lay down his 

 arms at Saratoga, thus virtually ensuring the triumph of the colonial partisans. During 

 the uprising of the French Canadians in 1837-38, the Richelieu valley was again the chief 

 scene of operations, and such names as St. Denis, St. Charles, Point à la Mule have been 

 enshrined in several books of light literature. 



In searching for the causes of the great contests of modern times, we should not 

 forget that the Seven Years' War began on this side of the water. Bancroft rightly says that 

 when Washington gave the word to fire at Fort Duquesue, in 1754, he kindled the world 

 into a flame. The war raged in America, Europe and Asia, until it ended in the downfall 

 of New France, the establishment of British power in its stead, and the promotion of Eng- 

 land to the undisputed supremacy of the seas, which has proved the foundation of her 

 colossal colonial empire. In the Canadian campaign, there was the defeat of Dieskau, the 

 victory of Ogdeusburg, Fort George, and the massacre — on which Fenimore Cooper laid 

 the ground work of his masterpiece, " The Last of the Mohicans," — Ticonderoga, Louis- 

 bourg, Montmorenci, the Plains of Abraham, St. Foye,'and the final surrender at Montreal. 

 There was also the pathetic episode of the eviction of the Acadians in 1755, which, how- 



