The Stamps of CanadaPoole, Bertram W. H. (Bertram William Henry)
History
The Stamps of Canada
Poole, Bertram W. H. (Bertram William Henry)
Postage stamps -- Canada
So early as 1628 Quebec was captured by the English, in spite of
Champlain's brave defence; but Canada was restored to France by one
of the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which was
concluded in 1632. Richelieu at once sent Champlain back to Quebec
as Governor-General of Canada.
Twice more, in 1690 and 1711, the English besieged Quebec, but they
were not able to capture the town. But in 1759 General James Wolfe
was ordered by Pitt to clear the French right out of Canada. The
French troops were under the command of Marquis Ludwig Joseph
Montcalm, of Saint-Veran. Although the latter was in command of
only a small force, he was able to claim several victories, but
finally he was besieged in Quebec by General Wolfe, at the head of
30,000 men. He was obliged to give battle under unequal conditions,
and on September 13th was mortally wounded at the battle of the
Heights of Abraham and died two days later. The victorious English
general was also killed in the same battle.
The names of both these leaders, enemies though they were, have
graven themselves inseparably on the memories of the inhabitants of
Quebec. In 1827 the Governor of Canada, Lord Dalhousie, erected a
marble monument to their memory, on which is a Latin inscription,
which may be rendered freely thus:--
"Their courage caused their death.
History praises them both.
Posterity erects this monument to
their honour."
No advance information was published as to the numbers printed of the
several values in the series, as in the case of the Jubilee set, so that
little attempt at cornering any particular values was made by
speculators. True, large quantities of the 1/2c value were bought up by
people who imagined it would be as rare as the corresponding value of
the Jubilee stamps, but as there were two million of these they did not
turn out to be the gold-mine it was fondly imagined they would. By
September, 1908, all values except the 10c, 15c and 20c had been
exhausted and by the end of October these three values were sold out as
well. The numbers issued were later given out by the Postmaster-General
in answer to two questions propounded to him in the House of Commons by
Mr. Perley, a member. The Canadian _Hansard_ gives this data as
follows:--
1.--What was the total amount received by the Post Office
Department from the sale of the special Tercentenary stamps?
2.--What part of this sum would probably have been received as
ordinary revenue if there had been no special issue of stamps?
To these questions the Hon. Rudolphe Lemieux, Postmaster-General,
responded: The following was the issue to Postmasters of the
Tercentenary postage stamps:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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