1640.] CONVENTS. — HOSPITALS. 157 



or buy food for years before he could obtain it from 

 that rude soil in sufficient quantity for the wants 

 of his family. The Company imported provisions 

 every year for those in its employ ; and of these 

 supplies a portion was needed for the relief of 

 starving settlers. GifFard and his seven men on his 

 seigniory of Beauport were for some time the only 

 settlers — excepting, perhaps, the Hebert family — 

 who could support themselves throughout the 

 year. The rigor of the climate repelled the emi- 

 grant; nor were the attractions which Father Le 

 Jeune held forth — " piety, freedom, and mde- 

 pendence" — of a nature to entice him across the 

 sea, when it is remembered that this freedom con- 

 sisted in subjection to the arbitrary will of a priest 

 and a soldier, and in the liability, should he forget 

 to go to mass, of being made fast to a post with a 

 collar and chain, like a dog. 



Aside from the fur trade of the Company, the 

 whole life of the colony was in missions, convents, 

 religious schools, and hospitals. Here on the rock 

 of Quebec were the appendages, useful and other- 

 mse, of an old-established civilization. While as 

 yet there were no inhabitants, and no immediate 

 hope of any, there were institutions for the care 

 of children, the sick, and the decrepit. All these 

 were supported by a charity in most cases precari 

 ous. The Jesuits relied chiefly on the Company, 

 who, by the terms of then- patent, w^ere obliged to 

 maintain religious worship.-^ Of the origin of the 



1 It is a principle of the Jesuits, that each of its establishments shall 

 find a support of its own, and not be a burden on the general funds of 



14 



