The Canadian nobility, or rather gentry, were descended from the civil and military officers who from time to time settled in the country; through their own influence or that of their ancestors, this privileged class was altogether supported by royal patronage. Some enjoyed grants of extensive seigneuries;[153] others were speedily enriched by an appointment to the command of a distant post, where ample opportunities of dishonest aggrandizement were afforded and improved. Even the largest and least fortunate class were provided for by the less profitable favor of commissions in the colonial corps. These favorites of power were generally vain and indolent men; they disdained trade and agriculture alike as beneath their high-born dignity; but they did not scruple to grasp at every convenient opportunity of easy profit, whether lawful or contraband; and they exacted, frequently with unequal justice, a large portion of the fruits of the earth from their peasant vassals. The feeble complaints of poverty against oppression were seldom loud enough to awake the attention of judges who were themselves often as guilty as the accused. From the especial favor enjoyed by the Canadian gentry under the rule of France, they were stanch to the last to her and to their own interests, and, as far as they went, were the most effective garrison in the colony: to them the prospect of British conquest was hateful and ruinous; with it must end their reign of corruption and monopoly. At the time of the first settlement of Canada, the feudal system existed in the mother country in all its Gothic rigor, and thus it was naturally established in spirit and in letter as the basis of the new society. Every territorial possession in New France was originally held by grants under the strictest form of these iron laws; but, as the country became more populous and of increasing importance, a variety of modifications was gradually introduced, tending to curb the exorbitant power of the seigneurs, and proportionally to elevate the condition of their vassals. By degrees, many of the more obnoxious features of feudalism were effaced; and the nature of the tenure became to a certain extent adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the colony. The independent holdings by "free and common soccage" were not, however, effectually introduced till thirty years after the conquest.