[Illustration: About 1875 NELSON’S MONUMENT The building on
the left is the house originally built in 1720 by Baron de
Becancourt. It became the store of the Campagnie des Indes,
which in the French times answered to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
This was also the residence of the Hon. James McGill, founder of
McGill University. It was demolished in 1903.]
After the Gazette there came the “Canadian Courant” founded
at Montreal in 1807 by Nahum Mower, a native of Worcester,
Massachusetts. There came with him Stephen Mills, who was born
in Rozalton, Vermont. The latter remained at Montreal till 1810,
when he went to Kingston, where he founded the Kingston Gazette.
He became a minister in 1835. These two New Englanders placed a
distinctly American stamp on the new paper. The name “Canadian”
was revolutionary to the old British colonists, but it pleased
the French. The “Courant” lasted until between 1835 and 1840.
That it should have continued its existence so long, looked on
with suspicion by the chief English residents as democratic
and revolutionary, would suggest that it was subsidized either
by American merchants, for the trade relations now between
the two countries were becoming intimate and profitable, or
by the government of the United States, who, baulked in their
revolutionary designs hitherto, were still desirous of seducing
the neighbouring “Fourteenth” colony from its allegiance.
Nahum Mower left in 1829, and in his valedictory he claims to
have made good his pledge in the first number that he “should
make it his duty to become a good subject and endeavour others
to continue so.” He worshiped, till 1813, when he sold his pew,
in St. Gabriel’s Church, the only non-Anglican church then
in existence, and the temporary home of all English-speaking
non-conformists. Still he was accused of undue intimacy with the
enemies of the British Connexion in Canada, especially during the
troublous times of 1812 and the years of apprehension after.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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