Judge Baby of Montreal, in an article in the Canadian Antiquarian
and Numismatic Journal, 3d Edit., Vol. II, p. 304, has combatted
very successfully the traditional view started by Bibaud and
followed by Garneau that after the capitulation of Montreal, and
the Treaty of Paris, 1763, the seigneurs, the men of learning,
and the chief traders and others of the directing classes, left
the country. This emigration was from the town but the country
places were untouched. He proves that a great many remained
outside the civil and military party who had governed the
country, and the soldiery who were taken officially to France;
that many of the young colonial officers who had thought to have
a chance to follow a career in the army or navy of France shortly
returned at the call of their fathers whose interest in their
lands and whose poverty, heightened by the depreciation of the
paper money, would not have induced them to begin life again in
France; that even of those who did go to France there were very
many who returned, as they had intended; hence the recurrence
of names, in the history after the cession, made familiar
before it. The long list given by Judge Baby of Seigneurs and
gentlemen proved by him to have remained, strengthens his case.
An interesting list of French-Canadians remaining in Montreal
engaged in business at this time is also given by him as follows:
Guy, Blondeau, Le Pellé De LaHaye, Lequindre Douville, Perthuis,
Nivard St. Dizier, Les freres Hervieux, Gaucher-Gamelin, Glasson,
Moquin, St. Sauveur, Pothier, Lemoine de Monnière, De Martigny,
De Couagne, Desauniers, Mailhot, St. Ange-Charly, Dumas, Magnan,
Mitiver, L’Amy, Bruyère, Pierre Chaboillez, Fortier, Lefèbre du
Chouquet, Courtheau, Vallée, Cazeau, Charly, Carignan, Auger,
Porlier frère, Pommereau, Larocque, Dumeriou, Roy-Portelance,
De Vienne, De Montforton, Sanguinet, Campeau, Laframboise,
Vauquier, Guillemain, Curot, Dufau, Campion, Lafontaine,
Truillier-Lacombe, Périneault, Arillac, Léveillé, Bourassa,
Pillet, Hurtubise, Leduc, Monbrun, Landrieu, Mezière, Hilbert,
Tabeau, Sombrun, Marchesseau, Avrard, Lasselle, Dumas St.
Martin, Beaubien-Desrivières, Réaume, Nolin, Cotté, St. Germain,
Ducalvet, L’Eschelle, Beaumont.
The Judge gives the names of many jurisconsults who remained
in the country, three of whom eventually became members of
the Superior Council; also of doctors; the great majority of
the notaries remained in the country. In summing up, he finds
“130 seigneurs, 100 gentry, 125 traders of mark, twenty-five
jurisconsults, and men of law, twenty-five to thirty doctors and
surgeons, notaries of almost the same number”--“were these not,”
he asks, “sufficient to face the political, intellectual and
other needs of the population then in Quebec, Montreal and Three
Rivers?”
NOTE II
POPULATION OF CANADA AT THE FALL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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