Climate counts for much in the formation of a people, and in determining its history. The climate of Eastern {333} Canada inclines to extremes. It favours quickness but not continuity of action. The summer is short, but very hot and bright; the winter is long and severe, but again not unfavourable to movement over the frozen surface of water and ground. Eastern Canada is not by nature a land open all the year round to steady work, but one in which settlers have a limited time wherein to till the ground, followed by a long, close season; while wanderers can in summer and winter alike indulge their vagrant instincts. The tendency therefore of the Canadian climate, as regards its influence on an incoming race, with a restless and impatient element in its character, was to stimulate the restlessness, and to discourage colonization in the sense of attachment to the soil. [Sidenote: _and against the policy of the French Government._] In winter, the St. Lawrence is closed to shipping. Consequently New France was for several months in each year cut off from all communication with the mother country. Here again the effect of climate was to break continuity of colonization; and, moreover, the forces of nature were employed against the policy of the French Government, for the effect of long breaks in communication must have been to develop a separate life in New France, evidence of which is to be found in the jealousy existing, in Vaudreuil's and Montcalm's time, between natives of France and natives of Canada; whereas the unaltering aim of French Kings and ministers was simply to reproduce France in America, and to keep the colony under constant and rigid control from home. The effects of the summer, therefore, on Canada were counteracted by winter isolation; and one more element of contradiction was introduced into French history in North America. [Sidenote: _Canada had no minerals._] [Sidenote: _This was one cause of the small population._]