EARLY HORSE HISTORY CANADA. 143 



stopped a little short of the date when the first horses arrived. 

 The management of the affairs of the plantations on the St. 

 Lawrence being in a company located in France, there was a 

 lack of vigor, not much growth, and still less profits to the pro- 

 jectors of the colony. The energies of the people seemed to be 

 directed almost wholly to collecting and trading in peltry in- 

 stead of building up a commonwealth from the productions of 

 the soil. For half a century these primitive people lived with- 

 out horses. Their farms, if they could be called farms, all had a 

 frontage on the water, running back in narrow strips to the 

 highlands. They did their plowing with cattle and their canoes 

 supplied the place of the saddle horse, the family carriage and 

 the lumber wagon to carry the scanty surplus of their little farms 

 to market. At last the company in France, holding direction 

 and control, got out of the way, and the king of France assumed 

 direct authority over the affairs of the plantation. On June 30, 

 1665, the Marquis de Tracy arrived at Quebec, as viceroy, with a 

 numerous suite of retainers and a regiment of French soldiers. 

 Two months later a large fleet arrived bringing many colonists, 

 embracing artisans, farmers, peasants, etc., with their families, 

 and a good number of horses, the first that had ever been seen 

 on the St. Lawrence. There is a tradition that a horse had been 

 sent over to the governor in 1642, but it is probable he was lost 

 on the voyage, as the older people of the colony had no recollec- 

 tion or knowledge of any such animal. These colonists came 

 from the ancient province of Picardy, not now to be found on 

 the modern maps of France, but it lay on the English Channel 

 in the extreme northwest of France. As it is expressly stated 

 that these colonists came from Picardy, it is fair to conclude 

 that the horses came from that portion of the kingdom also. 

 At this period in history there had been no wars between France 

 and England for many years, and commercial as well as social 

 intercourse had long been cultivated between the people on both 

 sides of the channel. We know but little of the early horse history 

 of France, but in our own time we know that France has been 

 largely benefited by the diffusion of the English blood among 

 her horse stock, so we may conclude that if a man in Kent had a 

 horse that a man in Picardy wanted, he very soon got him in the 

 way of legitimate trade. I think, therefore, it is safe to con- 

 clude that the horse stock of Northwestern France and the horse 

 stock of England were very much the same in appearance, action 



