The Father of British Canada | Page 6

keep all this in mind; for the government wished to satisfy the public both at home and in the colonies. He had to examine the military strength of the country and the disposition of its population in case of future wars with France. He had to satisfy the natural curiosity of men like the London merchants. And he had to show how and where English-speaking settlers could go in and make Canada not only a British possession but the fourteenth British colony in North America. Burton and Gage were also instructed to report about their own districts of Three Rivers and Montreal. The documents they prepared were tacked on to Murray's. By June 1762 the work was completed and sent on to Amherst, who sent it to England in ample time to be studied there before the opening of the impending negotiations for peace.
Murray was greatly concerned about the military strength of Quebec, then, as always, the key of Canada. Like the unfortunate Montcalm he found the walls of Quebec badly built, badly placed, and falling into ruins, and he thought they could not be defended by three thousand men against 'a well conducted Coup-de-main.' He proposed to crown Cape Diamond with a proper citadel, which would overawe the disaffected in Quebec itself and defend the place against an outside enemy long enough to let a British fleet come up to its relief. The rest of the country was defended by little garrisons at Three Rivers and Montreal as well as by several small detachments distributed among the trading-posts where the white men and the red met in the depths of the western wilderness.
The relations between the British garrison and the French Canadians were so excellent that what Gage reported from Montreal might be taken as equally true of the rest of the country: 'The Soldiers live peaceably with the Inhabitants and they reciprocally acquire an affection for each other.' The French Canadians numbered sixty-five thousand altogether, exclusive of the fur traders and coureurs de bois. Barely fifteen thousand lived in the three little towns of Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers; while over fifty thousand lived in the country. Nearly all the officials had gone back to France. The three classes of greatest importance were the seigneurs, the clergy, and the habitants. The lawyers were not of much account; the petty commercial classes of less account still. The coureurs de bois and other fur traders formed an important link between the savage and the civilized life of the country.
Apart from furs the trade of Canada was contemptibly small in the eyes of men like the London merchants. But the opportunity of fostering all the fur trade that could be carried down the St Lawrence was very well worth while; and if there was no other existing trade worth capturing there seemed to be some kinds worth creating. Murray held out well-grounded hopes of the fisheries and forests. 'A Most immense Cod Fishery can be established in the River and Gulph of St Lawrence. A rich tract of country on the South Side of the Gulph will be settled and improved, and a port or ports furnished with every material requisite to repair ships.' He then went on to enumerate the other kinds of fishery, the abundance of whales, seals, and walruses in the Gulf, and of salmon up all the tributary rivers. Burton recommends immediate attention to the iron mines behind Three Rivers. All the governors expatiate on the vast amount of forest wealth and remind the home government that under the French regime the king, when making out patents for the seigneurs, reserved the right of taking wood for ship-building and fortifications from any of the seigneuries. Agriculture was found to be in a very backward state. The habitants would raise no more than they required for their own use and for a little local trade. But the fault was attributed to the gambling attractions of the fur trade, to the bad governmental system, and to the frequent interruptions of the corvee, a kind of forced labour which was meant to serve the public interest, but which Bigot and other thievish officials always turned to their own private advantage. On the whole, the reports were most encouraging in the prospects they held out to honest labour, trade, and government.
While Murray and his lieutenants had been collecting information for their reports the home government had been undergoing many changes for the worse. The master-statesman Pitt had gone out of power and the back-stairs politician Bute had come in. Pitt's 'bloody and expensive war'--the war that more than any other, laid the foundations of the present British Empire--was to be ended on any terms the country could be persuaded to bear. Thus the end of the Seven Years' War, or, as