298 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. INDE 
I have been enabled to form a pretty accurate opinion as to the present state of feeling 
throughout the parishes I visited. I passed through those of Varennes, Vercheres, St. 
Denis, St. Charles, La Presentation, St. Hyacinthe and St. Pie, generally considered 
as the most disaffected in this disaffected district, and subsequently through the French 
country in the District of Three Rivers from Drummondville to Port St. Francis. I 
found universally the same olden civility and good nature, the same quiet and pastoral 
appearance which characterized this contradictory peasantry previous to the revolt. 
This visitation has left few traces of its progress, and those few are of a nature to 
disappear rapidly. Houses and barns are building and repairing, agriculture proceeds 
in the customary routine, pot herbs flourish with the usual exuberance in every little 
garden, and flowers adorn and humanize every cottage window. i; 
How to manage these amiable /adztants is a problem upon which Mr. 
Coffin has an opinion to offer : 
“Now the only way to control a people so easily misled is to coerce the misleaders. 
Substitute for these dangerous chatterboxes men who, understanding the 
language and the habits of these people, will go and reside among them, will identify 
themselves with them, will talk with them by their own firesides, administer summary 
justice for them at. their doors, who may worthily represent a Government hitherto 
misrepresented or unknown, and explain the objects, the rules and the advantages of 
institutions whose benefits they thus practically diffuse. This is my view of the thing, 
and, I may add, in that of Sir John Colborne, is the intention and duty of the Stipen- 
diary Magistracy just now introduced into this province. In discharging this duty 
they must naturally observe all that is going on in the country parts and will report 
accordingly, but their first labour is a labour of peace and reconciliation.” 
In another part he adds, 
‘‘The majority of these people is, I believe, loyal, but there is also a large and 
dangerous minority who desire a change and who are encouraged in their hopes and 
wishes by their proximity to the Frontier. The latter will cause trouble yet, if not 
well looked to. Not but that Iam convinced that it is in the power of the Govern- 
ment to make itself so beneficially felt in this as well as in the French country and to 
win back the reasoning and reasonable portion of these recusants from their political 
heresies. Feeling convinced, as I conscientiously do, that our system of government is 
practically the best in the world, if properly administered and brought home to the 
governed, I am equally sure that if it fails in its effect it will be the fault of those who 
dispense it.” 
English as he was, Mr. Coffin could not but warmly admire the French 
as contrasted with his own fellow-countrymen. 
** You cannot help remarking in this country the striking contrast which exists in the 
manners of the two races. Among the French all its politeness, hospitality, good will, 
deference. This is a stiff-necked, unbending and apparently most unamiable genera- 
tion. Here, as in their fatherland before them 
That independence Britons prize too high 
Keeps man from man and breaks the social tie. 
And, yet, in the main, when you know how to take them, they are good fellows 
enough.” 
a a 
