Part 9

Besides the bishop, there are three kinds of clergymen in Canada; viz. Jesuits, priests, and recollets. The Jesuits are, without doubt, the most considerable; therefore they commonly say here, by way of proverb, that a hatchet is sufficient to sketch out a recollet; a priest cannot be made without a chissel; but a Jesuit absolutely requires the pencil [44]; to shew how much one surpasses the others. The Jesuits are commonly very learned, studious, and are very civil and agreeable in company. In their whole deportment there is something pleasing; it is no wonder therefore that they captivate the minds of people. They seldom speak of religious matters; and if it happens, they generally avoid disputes. They are very ready to do any one a service; and when they see that their assistance is wanted, they hardly give one time to speak of it, falling to work immediately, to bring about what is required of them. Their conversation is very entertaining and learned, so that one cannot be tired of their company. Among all the Jesuits I have conversed with in Canada, I have not found one who was not possessed of these qualities in a very eminent degree. They have large possessions in this country, which the French king gave them. At Montreal they have likewise a fine church, and a little neat house, with a small but pretty garden within. They do not care to become preachers to a congregation in the town and country; but leave these places, together with the emoluments arising from them, to the priests. All their business here is to convert the heathens; and with that view their missionaries are scattered over every part of this country. Near every town and village, peopled by converted Indians, are one or two Jesuits, who take great care that they may not return to paganism, but live as Christians ought to do. Thus there are Jesuits with the converted Indians in Tadoussac, Lorette, Becancourt, St. François, Sault St. Louis, and all over Canada. There are likewise Jesuit missionaries with those who are not converted; so that there is commonly a Jesuit in every village belonging to the Indians, whom he endeavours on all occasions to convert. In winter he goes on their great hunts, where he is frequently obliged to suffer all imaginable inconveniencies; such as walking in the snow all day; lying in the open air all winter; being out both in good and bad weather, the Indians not regarding any kind of weather; lying in the Indian huts, which often swarm with fleas and other vermin, &c. The Jesuits undergo all these hardships for the sake of converting the Indians, and likewise for political reasons. The Jesuits are of great use to their king; for they are frequently able to persuade the Indians to break their treaty with the English, to make war upon them, to bring their furs to the French, and not to permit the English to come amongst them. But there is some danger attending these attempts; for when the Indians are in liquor, they sometimes kill the missionaries who live with them; calling them spies, or excusing themselves by saying that the brandy had killed them. These are accordingly the chief occupations of the Jesuits here. They do not go to visit the sick in the town, they do not hear the confessions, and attend at no funerals. I have never seen them go in processions in remembrance of the Virgin Mary, and other saints. They seldom go into a house in order to get meat; and though they be invited, they do not like to stay, except they be on a journey. Every body sees, that they are, as it were, selected from the other people, on account of their superior genius and qualities. They are here reckoned a most cunning set of people, who generally succeed in their undertakings, and surpass all others in acuteness of understanding. I have therefore several times observed that they have enemies in Canada. They never receive any others into their society, but persons of very promising parts; so that there are no blockheads among them. On the other hand, the priests receive the best kind of people among their order they can meet with; and in the choice of monks, they are yet less careful. The Jesuits who live here, are all come from France; and many of them return thither again, after a stay of a few years here. Some (five or six of which are yet alive) who were born in Canada, went over to France, and were received among the Jesuits there; but none of them ever came back to Canada. I know not what political reason hindered them. During my stay in Quebec, one of the priests, with the bishop’s leave, gave up his priesthood, and became a Jesuit. The other priests were very ill pleased with this, because it seemed as if he looked upon their condition as too mean for himself. Those congregations in the country that pay rents to the Jesuits, have, however, divine service performed by priests, who are appointed by the bishop; and the land-rent only belongs to the Jesuits. Neither the priests nor the Jesuits carry on any trade with furs and skins, leaving that entirely to the merchants.

This afternoon I visited the building called the Seminary, where all the priests live in common. They have a great house, built of stone, with walks in it, and rooms on each side. It is several stories high, and close to it is a fine garden, full of all sorts of fruit-trees and pot-herbs, and divided by walks. The prospect from hence is the finest in Quebec. The priests of the seminary are not much inferior to the Jesuits in civility; and therefore I spent my time very agreeably in their company.

The priests are the second and most numerous class of the clergy in this country; for most of the churches, both in towns and villages (the Indian converts excepted) are served by priests. A few of them are likewise missionaries. In Canada are two seminaries; one in Quebec, the other in Montreal. The priests of the seminary in Montreal are of the order of St. Sulpitius, and supply only the congregation on the isle of Montreal, and the town of the same name. At all the other churches in Canada, the priests belonging to the Quebec seminary officiate. The former, or those of the order of St. Sulpitius, all come from France; and I was assured that they never suffer a native of Canada to come among them. In the seminary at Quebec, the natives of Canada make the greater part. In order to fit the children of this country for orders, there are schools at Quebec and St. Joachim; where the youths are taught Latin, and instructed in the knowledge of those things and sciences, which have a more immediate connexion with the business they are intended for. However, they are not very nice in their choice; and people of a middling capacity are often received among them. They do not seem to have made great progress in Latin; for notwithstanding the service is read in that language, and they read their Latin Breviary, and other books, every day, yet most of them found it very difficult to speak it. All the priests in the Quebec seminary are consecrated by the bishop. Both the seminaries have got great revenues from the king; that in Quebec has above thirty thousand livres. All the country on the west side of the river St. Lawrence, from the town of Quebec to bay St. Paul, belongs to this seminary, besides their other possessions in the country. They lease the land to the settlers for a certain rent, which, if it be annually paid according to their agreement, the children or heirs of the settlers may remain in an undisturbed possession of the lands. A piece of land, three arpens [45] broad, and thirty, forty, or fifty arpens long, pays annually an ecu [46], and a couple of chickens, or some other additional trifle. In such places as have convenient water-falls, they have built water-mills, or saw-mills, from which they annually get considerable sums. The seminary of Montreal possesses the whole ground on which that town stands, together with the whole isle of Montreal. I have been assured, that the ground-rent of the town and isle is computed at seventy thousand livres; besides what they get for saying masses, baptizing, holding confessions, attending at marriages and funerals, &c. All the revenues of ground-rent belong to the seminaries alone, and the priests in the country have no share in them. But as the seminary in Montreal, consisting only of sixteen priests, has greater revenues than it can expend, a large sum of money is annually sent over to France, to the chief seminary there. The land-rents belonging to the Quebec seminary are employed for the use of the priests in it, and for the maintenance of a number of young people, who are brought up to take orders. The priests who live in the country parishes, get the tythe from their congregation, together with the perquisites on visiting the sick, &c. In small congregations, the king gives the priests an additional sum. When a priest in the country grows old, and has done good services, he is sometimes allowed to come into the seminary in town. The seminaries are allowed to place the priests on their own estates; but the other places are in the gift of the bishop.

The recollets are the third class of clergymen in Canada. They have a fine large dwelling house here, and a fine church, where they officiate. Near it is a large and fine garden, which they cultivate with great application. In Montreal, and Trois Rivieres, they are lodged almost in the same manner as here. They do not endeavour to choose cunning fellows amongst them, but take all they can get. They do not torment their brains with much learning; and I have been assured, that after they have put on their monastic habit, they do not study to increase their knowledge, but forget even what little they knew before. At night they generally ly on mats, or some other hard matrasses; however, I have sometimes seen good beds in the cells of some of them. They have no possessions here, having made vows of poverty, and live chiefly on the alms which people give them. To this purpose, the young monks, or brothers, go into the houses with a bag, and beg what they want. They have no congregations in the country, but sometimes they go among the Indians as missionaries. In each fort, which contains forty men, the king keeps one of these monks, instead of a priest, who officiates there. The king gives him lodging, provisions, servants, and all he wants; besides two hundred livres a year. Half of it he sends to the community he belongs to; the other half he reserves for his own use. On board the king’s ships are generally no other priests than these friars, who are therefore looked upon as people belonging to the king. When one of the chief priests [47] in the country dies, and his place cannot immediately be filled up, they send one of these friars there, to officiate whilst the place is vacant. Part of these monks come over from France, and part are natives of Canada. There are no other monks in Canada besides these, except now and then one of the order of St. Austin or some other, who comes with one of the king’s ships, but goes off with it again.

August the 11th. This morning I took a walk out of town, with the royal physician M. Gaulthier, in order to collect plants, and to see a nunnery at some distance from Quebec. This monastery which is built very magnificently of stone, lies in a pleasant spot, surrounded with corn-fields, meadows, and woods, from whence Quebec and the river St. Lawrence may be seen; a hospital for poor old people, cripples, &c. makes part of the monastery, and is divided into two halls, one for men, the other for women. The nuns attend both sexes, with this difference however, that they only prepare the meal for the men and bring it in to them, give them physick, and take the cloth away when they have eaten, leaving the rest for male servants. But in the hall where the women are, they do all the work that is to be done. The regulation in the hospital was the same as in that at Quebec. To shew me a particular favour, the bishop, at the desire of the Marquis la Galissonniere, governor-general of Canada, granted me leave to see this nunnery likewise, where no man is allowed to enter, without his leave, which is an honour he seldom confers on any body. The abbess led me and M. Gaulthier through all the apartments, accompanied by a great number of nuns. Most of the nuns here are of noble families and one was the daughter of a governor. Many of them are old, but there are likewise some very young ones among them, who looked very well. They seemed all to be more polite than those in the other nunnery. Their rooms are the same as in the last place, except some additional furniture in their cells; the beds are hung with blue curtains; there are a couple of small bureaux, a table between them and some pictures on the walls. There are however no stoves in any cell. But those halls and rooms, in which they are assembled together, and in which the sick ones ly, are supplied with an iron stove. The number of nuns is indeterminate here, and I saw a great number of them. Here are likewise some probationers preparing for their reception among the nuns. A number of little girls are sent hither by their parents, to be instructed by the nuns in the principles of the christian religion, and in all sorts of ladies work. The convent at a distance looks like a palace, and, as I am told, was founded by a bishop, who they say is buried in a part of the church.

We botanized till dinner-time in the neighbouring meadows, and then returned to the convent to dine with a venerable old father recollet, who officiated here as a priest. The dishes were all prepared by nuns, and as numerous and various as on the tables of great men. There were likewise several sorts of wine, and many preserves. The revenues of this monastery are said to be considerable. At the top of the building is a small steeple with a bell. Considering the large tracts of land which the king has given in Canada to convents, Jesuits, priests, and several families of rank, it seems he has very little left for himself.

Our common rasp-berries, are so plentiful here on the hills, near corn-fields, rivers and brooks, that the branches look quite red on account of the number of berries on them. They are ripe about this time, and eaten as a desert after dinner, both fresh and preserved.

The Mountain Ash, or Sorb-tree [48] is pretty common in the woods hereabouts.

They reckon the north-east wind the most piercing of all, here. Many of the best people here, assured me, that this wind when it is very violent in winter, pierces through walls of a moderate thickness, so that the whole wall on the inside of the house is covered with snow, or a thick hoar frost; and that a candle placed near a thinner wall is almost blown out by the wind which continually comes through. This wind damages the houses which are built of stone, and forces the owners to repair them very frequently on the north-east side. The north and north-east winds are likewise reckoned very cold here. In summer the north wind is generally attended with rain.

The difference of climate between Quebec and Montreal is on all hands allowed to be very great. The wind and weather of Montreal are often entirely different from what they are at Quebec. The winter there is not near so cold as in the last place. Several sorts of fine pears will grow near Montreal; but are far from succeeding at Quebec, where the frost frequently kills them. Quebec has generally more rainy weather, spring begins later, and winter sooner than at Montreal, where all sorts of fruits ripen a week or two earlier than at Quebec.

August the 12th. This afternoon I and my servant went out of town, to stay in the country for a couple of days that I might have more leisure to examine the plants which grow in the woods here, and the state of the country. In order to proceed the better, the governor-general had sent for an Indian from Lorette to shew us the way, and teach us what use they make of the spontaneous plants hereabouts. This Indian was an Englishman by birth, taken by the Indians thirty years ago, when he was a boy, and adopted by them, according to their custom, instead of a relation of theirs killed by the enemy. Since that time he constantly stayed with them, became a Roman Catholic and married an Indian woman; he dresses like an Indian, speaks English and French, and many of the Indian languages. In the wars between the French and English, in this country, the French Indians have made many prisoners of both sexes in the English plantations, adopted them afterwards, and they married with people of the Indian nations. From hence the Indian blood in Canada is very much mixed with European blood, and a great part of the Indians now living, owe their origin to Europe. It is likewise remarkable, that a great part of the people they had taken during the war and incorporated with their nations, especially the young people, did not choose to return to their native country, though their parents and nearest relations came to them and endeavoured to persuade them to it, and though it was in their power to do it. The licentious life led by the Indians, pleased them better than that of their European relations; they dressed like the Indians, and regulated all their affairs in their way. It is therefore difficult to distinguish them, except by their colour, which is somewhat whiter than that of the Indians. There are likewise examples of some Frenchmen going amongst the Indians and following their way of life. There is on the contrary scarce one instance of an Indian’s adopting the European customs; but those who were taken prisoners in the war, have always endeavoured to come to their own people again, even after several years of captivity, and though they enjoyed all the privileges that were ever possessed by the Europeans in America.

The lands, which we passed over, were every where laid out into corn-fields, meadows, or pastures. Almost all round us the prospect presented to our view farms and farm-houses, and excellent fields and meadows. Near the town the land is pretty flat, and intersected now and then by a clear rivulet. The roads are very good, broad, and lined with ditches on each side, in low grounds. Further from the town, the land rises higher and higher, and consists as it were of terraces, one above another. This rising ground is, however, pretty smooth, chiefly without stones, and covered with rich mould. Under that is the black lime-slate, which is so common hereabouts, and is divided into small shivers, and corroded by the air. Some of the strata were horizontal, others perpendicular; I have likewise found such perpendicular strata of lime-states in other places, in the neighbourhood of Quebec. All the hills are cultivated; and some are adorned with fine churches, houses, and corn-fields. The meadows are commonly in the vallies, though some were likewise on eminencies. Soon after we had a fine prospect from one of these hills. Quebec appeared very plain to the eastward, and the river St. Lawrence could likewise be seen; further distant, on the south-east side of that river, appears a long chain of high mountains, running generally parallel to if, though many miles distant from it. To the west again, at some distance from the rising lands where we were, the hills changed into a long chain of very high mountains, lying very close to each other, and running parallel likewise to the river, that is nearly from south to north. These high mountains consist of a grey rock-stone, composed of several kinds of stone, which I shall mention in the sequel. These mountains seem to prove, that the lime-slates are of as antient a date as the grey rock-stone, and not formed in later times; for the amazing large grey rocks ly on the top of the mountains, which consist of black lime-slates.

The high meadows in Canada are excellent, and by far preferable to the meadows round Philadelphia, and in the other English colonies. The further I advanced northward here, the finer were the meadows, and the turf upon them was better and closer. Almost all the grass here is of two kinds, viz. a species of the narrow leaved meadow grass [49]; for its spikes [50] contain either three or four flowers; which are so exceedingly small, that the plant might easily be taken for a bent grass [51]; and its seeds have several small downy hairs at the bottom. The other plant, which grows grows in the meadows, is the white clover [52]. These two plants form the hay in the meadows; they stand close and thick together, and the meadow grass (poa) is pretty tall, but has very thin stalks. At the root of the meadow grass, the ground was quite covered with clover, so that one cannot wish for finer meadows, than are found here. Almost all the meadows have been formerly corn-fields, as appears from the furrows on the ground, which still remained. They can be mown but once every summer, as spring commences very late.

They were now busied with making hay, and getting it in, and I was told, they had begun about a week ago. They have hay-stacks near most of their meadows, and on the wet ones, they make use of conic hay-stacks. Their meadows are commonly without enclosures, the cattle being in the pastures on the other side of the woods, and having cowherds to take care of them where they are necessary.

The corn-fields are pretty large. I saw no drains any where, though they seemed to be wanting in some places. They are divided into ridges, of the breadth of two or three yards broad, between the furrows. The perpendicular height of the middle of the ridge, from the level to the ground, is near one foot. All their corn is summer-corn; for as the cold in winter destroys the corn which lies in the ground, they never sow in autumn. I found white wheat most commonly in the fields. They have likewise large fields with pease, oats, in some places summer-rye, and now and then barley. Near almost every farm I met with cabbages, pumpions, and melons. The fields are not always sown, but ly fallow every two years. The fallow-fields are not ploughed in summer, so the weeds grow without restraint in them, and the cattle are allowed to go on them all summer [53].