l-i2 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



abandoned by tbe farmers' sons in the hope that they could make their for- 

 tunes in the woods. The monopoly destroyed the colony. The habitants 

 never were in favor of it; they always complained of its results; but vrhat 

 could they do under the absolute and tyrannical system of Louis XIV. and 

 the scandalous government of Louis XV. ?, 

 . Did you ever put this question to yourself: What are the present French 

 Canadians; where do they come from? Here is the whole question. 



The French Canadians are purely and solely the group of farmers that 

 came from 1617 to 1700, by small bands, under the direction of agents called 

 seigneurs, but who were nothing more nor less than agents of colonization, 

 and men of energy wishing to settle with their families in the new country. 

 That group is distributed as follows: 



4, 000 men taken from farms in France. 



1 ,000 men from regiment of Carignan Sali^re. 



1 ,500 women that came with their husbands. 



2, 500 women selected by good authority and sent here to marry with 

 settlers. 



In all no more than 9, 000 souls. 



These people lived on their land and never meddled with the French group 

 Qf officials, military men, public servants of all sorts, traders, etc. They 

 formed the resident population. They alone remained in Canada. They are 

 the French Canadians, whilst the others were mere Frenchmen. It is a 

 general mistake of historians to confuse these two classes. 



The settler, the habitant, the French Canadian, in brief never begged for 

 help from France, except in the shape of troops (1637-1665) to chase the 

 Iroquois,>nd in the shape of more settlc'-s (1666-1688) to augment the colony. 

 All the complaints in the Govenor General's letters mentioned by Mr. Park- 

 man bear on those Frenchmen not settled in the country. Those were the 

 begging class — the same class that ran away at the conquest (1760) to find a 

 refuge in France. The settlers never regretted them ! This accounts for the 

 facility which the English enjoyed during the first ten years (1760-70) in the 

 administration of the country. 



Allow me to observe, also, that Champlain had only three men with him 

 when he ascended the river Ottawa in 1613. 



You seem to have no conception at all of what was the Canadian feudal 

 system. The paragraph (page 55) in which you make allusion to it is so 

 completely out of the real facts that I cannot but think that you have read 

 Parkman, who is full of such efforts of imagination. It is true that English 

 writers are always copying each other when they speak of Canada of old. 

 The only so jrces of history for the period in question are written in French ; 

 then study them in the original, and not in the books of fanciful writers who 

 have probably never completed the study of the proper documents. Does 

 any English writer know that the French-Canadians possess 500 volumes 

 about their own history, besides the enormous manuscript archives at their 

 disposal? Mr. Parkman is clever enough to make his readers think he dis- 



