tsuLTB] HISTORICAL LITERATURE OF QUEBEC 277 



also published in English at Montreal every .Monday by Nahum Mower, 

 an American from the States, who set up the paper about six years ago. 

 The other papers are wholly French, and have been established since the 

 year 1806. The one called Le Canadien is conducted by some disaffected 

 or rather dissatisfied French lawyers and members of the House of As- 

 sembly." These men only invoked the application of a constitutional 

 ^oveï'nment in the colony, therefore they were reformoi's, not a set of 

 malcontents for the sake of agitating the public mind, but true patriots, 

 such as were seen afterwards in this country. " It is the only opposition 

 paper in the province ; but the ' habitants ' either cannot read it, or pay 

 very little attention to the complaints which it contains against the gov- 

 ernment." How can this be compared with the repeated elections of that 

 remarkable period, by which Sir James Craig's policy was four times dis- 

 avowed by the people in less than three years ? It is visible that Lambert 

 never suspected the existence of an intellectual movement in Canada dur- 

 ing his visit, and that not only he derived his information from a clique 

 composed of anti-colonists, but was unable to x'ead French and to appre- 

 ciate by himself the contents of the newspaper he so candidly stored into 

 the back room. "The writers in Le Canadien, however, abused the lib- 

 erty of the press to such a degree, in the course of the year 1808, that 

 Sir James Craig thought proper to divest some of those gentlemen of the 

 commissions which they held in the French militia, one of whom was 

 a colonel." The reading of the revolutionary articles alluded to by 

 Lambert would make any one of us laugh in 1897, but Sir James was not 

 advancing with the times — far from that! "The other French paper, 

 called Le Courrier de Québec, is of very small size, and published every 

 Saturday at two dollars per annum. This little paper is conducted by two 

 or there young French Canadians, for the purpose of inserting their fugi- 

 tive pieces. ' These gentlemen have recenti}' established a literary society, 

 which, though it may not contain the talent of a national institute or of a 

 royal society, is, notwithstanding, deserving of all the encouragement that 

 can be given to it by the Canadian government. The first dawn of genius 

 in such a country should be hailed with pleasure." Let us remark that the 

 first dawn of genius is anterior to 1808 in Canada, as already shown in 

 this paper. " The Mercury and Canadian Courant are devoted to news, 

 and all the various ephemera which usually appear in periodical works of 

 that description. The original essays which appear are merely of a local 

 nature, and are generally the offspring of party disputation, acrimony 

 and slander ; and are, of course, generally written in ' wit and sense and 

 nature's spite.' " 



"The only public library in Canada is kept at Quebec, in one of the 

 apartments of the bishop's palace." Was that the library of 1785 ? It 

 looks veiy much like it. 



Sir James Craig having suppressed Le Canadien (1810), another 

 periodical was started in Montreal. This time the political feelings were 



