[Pamphlets. American history]

The voyageur and peasant indulged in no dreams of the equal.
ity of man, and ambition never embittered his heart, while the
gentleman, jealous of no encroachment, was the indulgent and
kind-hearted employer and patron. On the banks of these western rivers they built their simple, cheerful homes, and surirounded them with fruits and flowers. They were a light-hearted, gay
people, full of vivacity and graceful hilarity; honest among themselves, generous and hospitable. Surrounded by danger, they
were of undoubted courage, but when the pressure of a present
peril was passed, their habitual gayety returned. No memory of
the past or fear of the future was permitted to mar the happiness
of the present hour. Sorrow and suffering were soon forgotten,
and privations laughed at, or cheerfully endured. Simple and
frugal in their habits, contented with their lot, they renewed in
the forest recesses of the New World the life of the Old. They
were free from ambition and its cares, and without high aims.
While they enjoyed much personal license, they had no conception of nunicpcalfeecdonm and of self government-of liberty regulated by Icaz, originating from the will of the governed themselves. They received with equal and unquestioning submissiveness their law from the King and his subordinates, and their religion from their priests.
Of such, great nations are not made; and one can but reflect,
what this mighty North-West would have been to-cday had it con
tinued Prelnch and Catholic, and what a change was wrought in
its destiny by the victory of WOLFE, upon the plains of Abraham.
By a proclamation of GEORGE THE THIRD, of October 7th,
1763, the Government of Quebec was established for the Canadas, but this distant region was not included within its boundaries, and until the passage of the famous Quebec Act, in
Parliament in 1774, it was without a civil government, and exclusively under military control. Magistrates derived both
their appointment and their powers solely from the military
commandants, and soldiers were the only executive officers of
the law. Mutual distrust and dislike existed between the people and the British officers placed over them, and this was
greatly increased by the Pontiac War, in which many of the inhabitants sympathized with the savages in their attack upon