Section II., 1897. [ 3 ] Teans. R. S. C. 



L — Canada during the Victorian Era : A Historical Review. Illustrated. 



By J. G. BouRiNOT, C.M.G., LL.D., D.C.L., Lit.D. (Laval). 



(Read June 23rd, 1897.) 



I. 



The reigns of three English Sovereigns, Queen Elizabeth, Queen 

 Anne and Queen Victoria — especially that of Her Most Gracious Majesty, 

 whose diamond jubilee is arousing so joyous an acclaim throughout the 

 Empire — will be always memorable for some of the most famous events 

 in the history of maritime enterprise and colonial expansion. It was in 

 "the golden days of good Queen Bess" that Englishmen made those 

 ventures on the seas, which, in later times, led to such remarkable I'esults 

 and placed England in a foremost position among nations. Sixty years 

 before her accession to the throne, an English ship was the first to touch 

 the coasts of the North American continent, and give to England a 

 claim to American territory which the colonizing spirit of her sons made 

 good in the seventeenth century. After the discoveries by John Cabot 

 in 1497 and 1498, the pai'simonious, though discreet, King Henry YIT., 

 who then ruled England, took no official measures to occupy and colonize 

 the " new-founde-lands " which were then opened up to English enter- 

 prise. No such glamour was thrown around the shores of Cabot's Prima 

 Vista as was then seen about the rich lands of the South, from which 

 the Spaniards were yearly gathering so rich a product of gold and silver. 

 However, a few brave fishermen from the west country of England 

 ventured from very early times in the sixteenth century upon the watei-s 

 of the new lauds of Cabot, and brought home valuable cargoes of codfish 

 which previously they had sought in the Icelandic fisheries. But, soon 

 after Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, Englishmen competed 

 successfully in large nvimbers with French, Portuguese and Spanish fish- 

 ermen on the banks of Newfoundland, which was now known to be an 

 island on the confines of a continental region beyond which, it was 

 believed, lay somewhere a northwestern passage to the rich countries of 

 Asia. Frobisher, who is considered to be " among the famousest men of 

 his age for counsel and glory gotten at sea," sailed into Arctic waters 

 and brought home some glittering sand which, he believed, contained 

 particles of gold. Forty years before the daring, though ruinous, voy- 

 ages of the brave sailor of Yorkshire, Jacques Cartier, of the Breton sea- 

 port of St. Male, had discovered the valley of the St. Lawrence, and 

 thought he had found in the translucent quartz rocks of Cape Diamond 

 specimens of gold which would reward him aud his companions for all 

 the toil and difficulty they had met in their efforts to win a colonial 



