As Far As I Could Learn There Is No Such Feeling
Now.
These people are quiet, contented; and, as regards a
sufficiency of the simple staples of living, sufficiently well to
do.
They are thrifty, but they do not thrive. They do not
advance, and push ahead, and become a bigger people from year to
year, as settlers in a new country should do. They do not even
hold their own in comparison with those around them. But has not
this always been the case with colonists out of France; and has it
not always been the case with Roman Catholics when they have been
forced to measure themselves against Protestants? As to the
ultimate fate in the world of this people, one can hardly form a
speculation. There are, as nearly as I could learn, about 800,000
of them in Lower Canada; but it seems that the wealth and
commercial enterprise of the country is passing out of their hands.
Montreal, and even Quebec, are, I think, becoming less and less
French every day; but in the villages and on the small farms the
French still remain, keeping up their language, their habits, and
their religion. In the cities they are becoming hewers of wood and
drawers of water. I am inclined to think that the same will
ultimately be their fate in the country. Surely one may declare as
a fact that a Roman Catholic population can never hold its ground
against one that is Protestant. I do not speak of numbers; for the
Roman Catholics will increase and multiply, and stick by their
religion, although their religion entails poverty and dependence,
as they have done and still do in Ireland.
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