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No. XVIII.

"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 the 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 can not 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 do not care to become preachers to a congregation in the town or country, but leave these places, together with the emoluments arising from them, to the priests. All their business here is to convert the heathen; and with that view their missionaries are scattered over every part of the 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, Beçancourt, 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 endeavors on all occasions to convert. In winter he goes on their great hunts, where he is frequently obliged to suffer all imaginable inconveniences, such as walking in the snow all day, lying in the open air all winter, lying out both in good and bad weather, lying in the Indian huts, which 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 among them. There is much danger attending these exertions; 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 the chief occupations of the Jesuits in Canada. They do not go to visit the sick in the town; they do not hear the confessions, and attend to no funerals. I have never seen them go in procession in honor of the Virgin Mary or other saints. Every body sees that they are, as it were, selected from other people on account of their superior genius and abilities. 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.

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 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."-Kalm, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 648.

"The Recollets are a 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 Rivières they are lodged in almost the same manner as here. They do not endeavor to choose cunning fellows among 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 lie on mats, or some other hard mattresses. 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* in the country dies, and his place can not immediately be filled up, they send one of these friars there, to officiate while 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.

"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 of 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

* Pasteur.

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 connection 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 find 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.

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A piece of land three arpents* broad, and thirty, forty, or fifty arpents long, pays annually an ecu,† 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 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 tithe 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 service, he is sometimes allowed to come into † A French coin, value about a crown English.

* A French acre.

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." -Ibid.

"After the conquest of Quebec, the British government prohibited the religious male orders from augmenting their numbers, excepting the priests. The orders were allowed to enjoy the whole of their revenues as long as a single individual of the body existed; then they reverted to the crown. The revenue of the Jesuit Society was upward of £12,000 per annum when it fell into the possession of the government. It had been for several years enjoyed solely by an old father, who had survived all the rest. He was a native of Switzerland; his name, Jean Joseph Casot. In his youth he was no more than porter to the convent, but, having considerable merit, he was promoted, and in course of time received into the order. He died at a very advanced age, in 1800, with a high character for kindness and generosity: his large income was entirely employed in charitable purposes. The lands belonging to the Jesuits, as well as to the other religious orders, are by far the best in the country, and produce the greatest revenues.' Lambert's Travels in Canada, vol. i., p. 59.

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"The Jesuits, who in the early settlement of the country were merely missionaries, obtained a patent (Petits Droits des Colonies Françaises, vol. ii., p. 441), by which they acquired a license to purchase lands, and hold property as in France. The property the Jesuits possessed in this country in after times was acquired by grants from the kings of France; by grants from the Company of New France; by gifts from individuals, and by purchase."-Smith's History of Canada, vol. i., p. 27; Weld, p. 249. Smith estimates the revenues of the society, when, after P. Casot's death, they reverted to the crown, at only £1600 per annum. Weld comes nearer to the statement of Lambert. visited Quebec in 1796, four years before P. Casot's death, and states that the great possessions of the Jesuits had centered in him, and amounted to £10,000 per annum. It is to be remembered that in 1764 the order of Jesuits was abolished by the King of France, and the members of the society became private individuals.

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"The college of the Jesuits at Quebec was long considered as the first institution on the continent of North America for the instruction of young men. The advantages derived from it were not limited to the better class of Canadians, but were extended to all whose inclination it was to participate in them, and many students came thither from the West Indies. From the period of the expulsion of the Jesuits from the states of Europe, and the consequent abolition of their order on that continent, this establishment, although protected by the British government, began rapidly to decline.

"When, by the death of the last Canadian Jesuit, the landed property devolved to the crown, it was designed by the sovereign as a recompense for the services of the late Lord Amherst, who commanded the troops in North America at the time of the conquest of Canada, and who completed the reduction of that province under the British govern

ment. The claim of these estates has been relinquished by his successor for a pension. The revenue arising from them has been appropriated by the Legislature of Lower Canada for the purpose of establishing in the different parishes schools for the education of children. The Jesuits' college is now converted into a commodious barrack for the troops."-Heriot's Canada, p. 30.

No. XIX.

The Mississippi is the only river in North America which, for grandeur and commodiousness of navigation, comes in competition with the St. Lawrence, or with that river which runs from Lake Ontario to the ocean. If, however, we consider that immense body of water that flows from Lake Winnipeg through the Lake of the Woods, Lake Superior, &c., down to the sea, as one entire stream, and, of course, as a continuation of the St. Lawrence, it must be allowed to be a very superior river to the Mississippi in every point of view; and we may certainly consider it as one stream with as much reason as we look upon that as one river which flows from Lake Ontario to the sea; for, before it meets the ocean, it passes through four large lakes, not, indeed, to be compared with those of Erie or Superior in size, but they are independent lakes, notwithstanding, as much as any of the others. The Mississippi is principally to be admired for the evenness of its current, and the prodigious length of way it is navigable without any interruption for bateaux of a very large burden, but in many respects it is a very inferior river to the St. Lawrence, properly so called. The Mis sissippi, at its mouth, is not twenty miles broad, and the navigation is there so obstructed by banks or bars that a vessel drawing more than twelve feet water can not ascend it without very imminent danger. Fresh bars are formed or the old bars are enlarged every year, and it is said that unless some steps are taken to prevent the lodgments of the trees annually brought down at the time of the inundation, the navigation may in a few years be still more obstructed than it is at present. The River St. Lawrence, however, on the contrary, is no less than ninety miles wide at its mouth, and it is navigable for ships of the line as: far as Quebec, a distance of 400 miles from the sea. The channel, also, instead of having been impaired by time, is found to be considerably better now than when the river was first discovered, and there is reason to imagine that it will improve still more in process of time, as the clear water that flows from Lake Ontario comes down with such impetuosity during the floods in the spring of the year as frequently to removébanks of gravel and loose stones in the river, and thus to deepen its bed.. The channel on the north side of the island of Orleans, immediately be-low Quebec, which, according to the account of Charlevoix, was not sufficiently deep in the year 1720 to admit a shallop of a small size, except at the time of high tides, is at present found to be deep enough for the largest vessels, and is the channel most generally used.—Weld, p. 336.

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