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of navigable streams, affording ready access to its very heart, furnishing such facility of intercourse; and its intersection in every direction by chains of settlement, give at once an earnest of what may be done; and convince all those who have the hardihood to tax the productiveness of nature for subsistence, and subdue her ruggedness to the sagacity and industry of man, that nowhere can a more profuse reward, a more certain or more profitable result, be promised to their perseverance.”

To avoid recapitulation, further details of revenue, expenditure, salaries of public officers, customs, and post-office regulations, granting of lands, companies, and recapitulation of the trade, stock, cultivated lands, and total fixed a and movable property, will be included under one general head, for all the colonies, at the conclusion of this work.

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103

BOOK VII.

CANADA.

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERY AND HISTORY. - JACQUES CARTIER. - CHAMPLAIN FOUNDS QUEBEC. - WAR WITH THE INDIANS. - COMPANY OF NEW FRANCE. - RECOLLET FRIARS. - QUEBEC TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH. - RESTORED TO FRANCE. - MISSION OF SILLERY. JESUITS' COLLEGE AT QUEBEC FOUNDED. - HÔTEL-DIEU. CONVENT OF ST. URSULA. - DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN. - ORDER OF ST. SULPICIUS FOUND AN ESTABLISHMENT AT MONTREAL.HOSTILITIES OF THE IROQUOIS. - INTRODUCTION OF BRANDY AMONG THE SAVAGES. - A BISHOP ARRIVES AT QUEBEC, AND A SEMINARY FOUNDED. - SISTERS OF THE CONGREGATION. TREMENDOUS EARTHQUAKE.

CANADA is said to have been first discovered by the Spaniards; who, not finding any of the precious metals which formed the grand object of all their discoveries and conquests, abandoned any claim to a country which only appeared to afford the means of living by the cultivation of its soil.*

* It appears, however, that the Kings of Spain and Portugal complained of the French King " treading in their footsteps by sending Cartier to Canada;" and Francis I. is said to have exclaimed, "What! shall they quietly divide America between them, without suffering me to take a share as their brother? I would fain see the article of Adam's will that bequeaths that vast inheritance to them."

When the French afterwards visited this part of America, the Indians repeated so frequently the words "Aca nada," here is nothing, (which they are said to have heard the Spaniards exclaim,) that Cartier imagined them to mean the name of the country; and to this circumstance is usually attributed the origin of the appellation Canada, by which it has been designated since that period, although it bore also for some time, in common with the adjacent territories, the general name of New France.

Jacques Cartier was a master mariner of St. Maloes. He was intrusted, at the recommendation of Chabot, Admiral of France, with a commission of discovery, for the purpose of establishing a colony in America, and he sailed from St. Maloes on the 20th of April, 1534, with two vessels, neither of which were more than twenty tons burden. He arrived at Newfoundland, near Cape Bonavista, on the 10th of May, and then traversed the coast to the south, landing at a harbour which he named St. Catherine. Proceeding west and northward, he entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and passed in sight of Birds' Islands, which he named " Isles aux Oiseaux." After sailing for some days along the western coast of Newfoundland, he crossed the gulf, and entered a large deep inlet, which he named Bay de Chaleur, on account of the intense summer heat which he experienced while exploring its shores. This bay was previously, it appears, known to the Spaniards, and in very old charts it is termed Bay des Espagnols. After exploring the

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