Source.—Appendix "C" to Lord Durham's Report. Lucas. Vol. III.

The habitants, or agricultural population of French origin, hold their lands by feudal tenure, which prevails in the "seignorial" districts. Though under the sway of England for 75 years, they are but little changed in usages, and not at all in language. A very small proportion of them are acquainted with the first rudiments of education; they use comparatively few imported articles, and their system of agriculture is generally rude and antiquated. Owing to the neglect of manure and a proper rotation of crops, the land in many places has become exhausted, and its cultivators, year after year, sink deeper in poverty. Scanty harvests during the last six or eight years, caused mainly by imperfect modes of culture or injudicious cropping, have reduced considerable numbers of the habitants in the district of Quebec to a state of extreme destitution. In the district of Montreal, the farming is better, and the people more prosperous. The habitant is active, hardy and intelligent, but excitable, credulous; and, being a stranger to everything beyond his own contracted sphere, he is peculiarly liable to be made the dupe of political speculators. His ignorance of the English language prevents him from acquiring any knowledge of the sentiments and views of the British Government and people, except what he may derive from educated persons of his own race, interested, it may be, in deceiving him. Never having directly experienced the benefits of British rule in local affairs, and almost as much insulated from British social influences as if the colony had never changed masters, it is idle to expect that he should entertain any active feeling of attachment to the Crown.

For opening new settlements the habitant has many useful qualifications, being usually competent to provide, by his personal skill, all the essentials requisite for his situation, such as house, clothing, and the ordinary farming implements. But having cleared his land, erected a dwelling for himself and a church for the curÉ, he remains stationary, contented with his lot, and living and dying as his ancestors lived and died before him. At the present day, for instance, a traveller may pass through districts where there is an abundance of excellent milk, and be unable to procure either butter or cheese with the sour and black-looking country bread which is served up at his meals; and it is by no means an uncommon circumstance for a habitant to sell his manure to a neighbouring farmer, or throw it into the adjoining river, while every season his crops are deteriorating, in consequence of the degeneracy of the seed and the exhaustion of the soil.

By the habitant a small gain, or saving of actual coin, is deemed much more important than a large expenditure of time; and he will not easily be induced to venture on an immediate pecuniary outlay to secure a remote advantage, unless indeed the money is to be devoted to litigation, in which he loves to indulge.

There is no class resembling English "country gentlemen" among the Canadians; nor do the doctors, notaries and lawyers, who overabound in the colony, form an efficient substitute for such a class. Needy and discontented, they are more disposed to attempt an improvement in their own condition of political agitation, than to labour for the advancement of their uninstructed neighbours. The only body of men to whom the habitants can look for aid and direction are the parochial clergy, who, in the districts where their authority is unimpaired, act as a vigilant moral police, the efficiency of which is manifested in established habits of sobriety and order. Persons acquainted with the province are well aware that, in the disaffected districts, the influence of the Canadian clergy is much diminished.

It appears, then, that the mode of village settlement adopted by the Franco-Canadians is favourable to the establishment of municipal institutions, and that the obstacles to be encountered are the absence of education, popular inexperience, blind repugnance to taxation, and the absence of a wealthy and instructed class, interested in the prosperity of the many, and desirous of engaging gratuitously in the administration of local affairs.