Book Description

Excerpt from Topographical Dictionary of the Province of Lower Canada Such devotedness was highly appreciated; and England, at the termination of the revolutionary war, directed her attention towards giving increased consequence to her remaining possessions, with the design of drawing from them some of the supplies she had been accustomed to receive from the countries recently dismembered from the empire. It was some time, however, before the efforts of the mother country were attended with any degree of success, and a new order of things established, by which the languor that marked the growth of the colonies as French plantations, gradually gave place to a system of more vigour in the agricultural improvement of the country, and a more active development of its commercial resources. If the British dominious in North America be viewed merely in relation to their vast superficies, which exceeds 4,000,000 of geographical square miles, their importance will become apparent; more especially when the manifold advantages of their geographical position are properly estimated. Glancing at the map, we see British sovereignty on the shores of the Atlantic, commanding the mouth of the most splendid river on the globe; and, sweeping across the whole continent of America, we find it again on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, thus embracing an immense section of the New World in the northern hemisphere, reaching at some points as far south as 1-1 of north latitude, and stretching northward, thence, to the polar regions. But the importance of these possessions should be estimated less by their territorial extent than by the resources they offer, their capabilities of improvement, the great increase of which their commerce is susceptible, and the extensive field they present for emigration. The British North American provinces occupy but a comparatively small portion of the aggregate superficies of the whole of the British dominions in the western hemisphere; yet they cover about 500,000 geographical square miles, and contain a population which in round numbers amounts to nearly a million and a half of souls. Of the above superficies, the province of Lower Canada embraces almost one half, whilst its population absorbs nearly an equal proportion of the whole population of the North American Colonies. The inhabitants of Lower Canada are chiefly Catholics, the number of that persuasion being about 7-8ths of the totality. Of the remaining eighth, rather more than 2-3rds belong to the Episcopal and Presbyterian (Churches, and somewhat less than 1-3rd comprises all other denominations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."