Читать книгу The rise of Canada, from barbarism to wealth and civilisation онлайн

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One of the most remarkable earthquakes of which we have read occurred in Canada, soon after the arrival of the Bishop of Petrea. It happened, too, in winter. On the 5th of February, 1663, at half-past five o'clock in the evening, the earth began to heave so violently, that people rushed in terror into the streets, only to be terrified the more. The roofs of the buildings bent down, first on one side, then on the other. The walls reeled backward and forward, the stones moving as if they were detached from each other. The church bells rang. Wild and domestic animals were flying in every direction. Fountains were thrown up. Mountains were split in twain. Rivers changed their beds or were totally lost. Huge capes or promontories tumbled into the St. Lawrence and became islands. The convulsion lasted for six months, or from February to August, in paroxysms of half an hour each, and although it extended over a range of country, 600 miles in length by 300 in breadth, not a single human being was destroyed. Beyond question this earthquake altered entirely the features of the country from Montreal to the sea; but, that it did not produce that rent, as some will have it, through which the Saguenay flows, is evident from the fact that the Saguenay existed on Cartier's first visit. It did not even produce those numerous islands with which the Lower St. Lawrence is studded, for some of them are also mentioned by the same daring and skilful navigator. But for the sake of science it is to be regretted that the particular rivers, whose beds were changed or which were entirely obliterated, have not been mentioned. The greater depth of the Saguenay than the St. Lawrence is easily accounted for by the greater height of the banks of the one river than of the other. In the St. Lawrence a large body of water finds an outlet through a chain of mountains forming the banks of a river which is the outlet of a series of lakes or inland seas, in which the rains or snows of a great part of North America are collected, as the Caspian, the Sea of Azof, and the Euxine are the rain basins of Europe and of Asia, and which spreads its waters over breadths of land, great or small, as its shores are steep or otherwise. If Canada is high above the ocean, and on that, as well as on other accounts, intensely cold in winter, it is some consolation to know that that latitude, which is in some sense to be regretted, has produced a river and lake navigation for sea-going ships of upwards of a thousand miles, more valuable than ten thousands of miles of prairie-land. A prairie country might have produced a Mississippi filled with snags, but only a mountainous country could produce such rivers for navigation as the Saguenay and St. Lawrence, and such rivers for manufacturing purposes as the St. Maurice and the Ottawa. But Canada is not all mountainous. There are vast steppes, extensive plains, through which numerous streams roll sluggishly into the great lakes. There are tracts of country of extraordinary extent capable of producing the heaviest crops. There are garden lands around most of the western cities, on which these cities of yesterday subsist and have arisen. And even in Lower Canada there are straths of wonderful fertility. Canada, with any government which will permit trade, cannot fail to become pecuniarily rich, even with the drawback of the towns of Lower Canada being rendered inland for half the year by means of ice. Lower Canada has been crippled by the policy of Cardinal Richelieu, who, by that policy, paradoxical as it may appear, was her first benefactor. A theocratic government, no doubt excellent for the taming of Indians, is not by any means well adapted for an intelligent people. So long as the trade of Canada was confined to furs the Jesuitical policy of Richelieu was advantageous, but now that the Indians are nearly exterminated—two millions of acres under cultivation—millions of feet of pine, birch, oak and other timber used or exported annually—and manufactures abounding—a somewhat more self reliant spirit is requisite than the establishment of Churches under the extraordinary control of a single mitred head will permit. Such a spirit is being gradually aroused, and the more gradual the more permanent will it be. Violence begets violence. Example is more persuasive than force.