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intellect among the French element, which found an 

 outlet in literature and history, etc. Our municipal, 

 judicial and registry systems were moulded. " Through 

 the means of a well divised scheme of canals, the navi- 

 gation of the St. Lawrence was facilitated up ' to the 

 great lakes, and thus has been opened out to the pro- 

 ducts of the West, that natural highway over which 

 they floated to European markets. " A network of 

 railways and telegraph lines, uniting with one another 

 the great commercial and agricultural centres of the 

 two provinces, was being perfected ; the gaps in our 

 forests, through which rushed the iron horse, would soon 

 be filled by hardy settlers. In J 854, a grand reform 

 dawned on commerce, industry and agriculture : the 

 abolition of the feudal land tenure. The province had 

 outgrown the old order of things. Feudalism, instead 

 of being, as in the infancy of the colony, a protection 

 to the censitaire, had become a restraint upon 

 his daily transactions ; capitalists refused to invest. 

 For half a century, it had caused heart burnings : a 

 statesman at last sprang up, the late L. T. Drurnmond, 

 strong enough, though himself a seignior, to carry 

 through Parliament, with the aid of Sir Francis Hincks, 

 a measure of compensation, which in the end was 

 accepted by all. In 1852, the Hincks-Morin Ministry 

 had helped the establishment of a line of ocean steamers 

 between Liverpool and Quebec. The year 1854 was 

 memorable in maritime affairs, as marking the birth of 

 the Allan Line of ocean steamers in Canadian waters ; 

 Government granted them first to carry the English 

 and Canadian mail, an annual subsidy of £24,000 

 sterling, increased to £52,000 and then to £104,000 

 for a weekly mail; reduced however, in 1873, to 

 £26,000 sterling. The first steamship of the Allan 

 Line, under contract with Government for mails, left 

 Liverpool for Quebec, in 1856. This same year Her 

 Majesty, on address of Parliament, selected Ottawa as 

 the seat of Government. A great, and, as many believe, 



