The spirit of organization and inquisition which infested the Government pervaded all things temporal and spiritual. Trade in peltries could only be carried on by those having permits from the Government or from the firm or company which for the time being had the monopoly. All trade at outlying posts was farmed out by the governors. Young men could not stray off into the woods without violating a royal edict. Such solicitude could only produce two results,—those who endured it became automatons; those who followed their inclinations and broke away from it were proscribed as bushrangers. From the day when Champlain founded the city of Quebec down to the time when the heroic Montcalm received his death-wound on the Plains of Abraham, the motives which had influenced the French in their schemes of colonization had been uniform and their methods identical. Time enough had elapsed to measure the success of their efforts. French colonization in America had reached three degrees of prosperity. In Acadia, under English rule, freed from military service in the ranks of the country to which they naturally owed allegiance, and with their rights as neutrals recognized by the English, the French colonists had prospered and multiplied. Originally a band of hunters and fishers, they had gradually become an agricultural population, and had conquered prosperity out of a soil which did not respond except to the hand of patience and industry. Exempt from the careful coddling of His Most Christian Majesty, they had evoked for themselves a government patriarchal in its simplicity and complete for their needs. In Louisiana, under the hothouse system of commercial companies and forced immigration, the failure had been so complete that even those who participated in it could see the cause. In Canada there was neither the peaceful prosperity of Acadia nor the melancholy failure of Louisiana. Measured by its own records, the colony shows steady growth. Compared with its rivals, its laggard steps excite surprise and demand explanation. The Acadians were French and Catholics. Neither their nationality nor their religion interfered with their prosperity. They had, however, been lucky enough to escape from the friendly care of the French Government. It is but a fair inference that the Canadians also would have thriven if they could have had a trial by themselves. * * * * *