[Footnote 153: The better part of the regiment de Carignan Salières had remained in Canada, and at the end of the war against the Iroquois, they became habitans, having obtained their dismissal on this condition. Many of their officers had obtained lands with all the rights of seigneurs: they established themselves in the country, married there, and their posterity are still there. The greatest part were gentlemen, and thus Canada has more of the "ancienne noblesse" than any of the other colonies, perhaps than all the others together.--Charlevoix.] [Footnote 154: "Les Canadiens, c'est à dire, les Créoles du Canada, respirent en naissant un air de liberté qui les rend fort agréables dans le commerce de la vie, et nulle part ailleurs on ne parle plus purement notre langue. On ne remarque même ici aucun accent."--Charlevoix. tom. v., p. 117. "I confess I have a strong sympathy for the French Canadians; they are 'si bons enfans.' I remember, canvassing at Boston with an American gentleman, the expression used with regard to French Canada by a late English traveler, 'that it was a province of Old France, without its brilliancy or its vices.' My friend's remark was, 'What remains after so large a subtraction?' But I thought, and still think, the expression graphic and just."--Godley's _Letters from America_, vol. i., p. 89.] [Footnote 155: "The Frenchmen who considered things in their true light complained very much that a great part of the ladies in Canada had got into the pernicious custom of taking too much care of their dress, and squandering all their fortunes, and more, upon it, instead of sparing something for future times."--Professor Kalm, 1747.] [Footnote 156: "Of all the Europeans, my countrymen are most beloved by the Indians. This is owing to the gayety of the French, to their brilliant valor, to their fondness for the chase, and, indeed, for the savage life, as if the highest degree of civilization approximated to the state of nature."--Chateaubriand's _Travels in America_, &c., vol. i., p. 173.] [Footnote 157: "Mr. N. (a missionary among the Mohawk Indians[160] in Canada) has been for a long time among the Indians, and knows them well: he has a better opinion of them, and of their capacity for acquiring domestic and industrious habits, than most white men to whom I have spoken.... Mr. N. is by no means without hopes that, in a generation or two, these Indians may become quite civilized: they are giving up their wandering habits, and settling rapidly upon farms throughout their territory; and in consequence, probably, of this change in their mode of life, the decrease in their numbers, which threatened a total extinction of the tribe, has ceased of late years. If it turns out as he expects, this will form an exception to the general law which affects their people."--Godley's _Letters from America_, vol. i., p. 163. See Appendix, No. LXX.]