"When the British first obtained the Canadas, its commerce consisted of a few peltries, conveyed to France by the vessels which brought out the troops and carried back the disbanded regiments. The lumber trade was unknown. The importations were a nonentity. While at present many hundreds of vessels are engaged in the direct timber trade, and more than one hundred and fifty vessels have been frequently counted on the river St Lawrence. These, it must be remembered, are almost exclusively owned by British merchants; while the French Canadians own the land in the same proportion as the English do the trade."
It was the knowledge of these facts, and that the English were every year rising in importance, (for they had not only secured the whole trade, but were gradually occupying the more fert
