A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW FRANCE
For most of us, the history of Canada, especially that of New
France (French Canada), is a chapter of world history that was covered so
superficially, if at all, during our school years that it has been all but
erased from our memories. Therefore, a brief review of the major individuals
and events that influenced the early years of the new world may help to put
into perspective the coming to Canada of our family's ancestors. Most of the
material for this review is taken from an interesting history of Canada
published by Macmillan in 1938, The Canadians, The Story of a People, by
George M. Wrong, and adapted from the fine personal website at http://gapellet.brinkster.net/history.htm.
When the news of Christopher Columbus' early trip and discoveries
in the new world in 1492 spread through the courts of Europe, England and
France see the opportunity to claim for themselves some of the potential vast
wealth that these new lands have to offer.
England is the first to respond to the challenge when, on May 2,
1497, with some help from Henry VII, John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), an Italian
at Bristol, sails out on his tiny ship, the Mathew, and a crew of eighteen. He
returns to Bristol on August 6th of the same year, having planted a huge cross
and raised the flag of England on what is now Cape Breton. He sails away again
the following May, this time with two ships. On his return he brings back
stories of rugged shores, with plenty of fish in the sea, and of furs from wild
animals on land.
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Jacques Cartier
France's earliest thrust to claim some of the new world for itself
is in the Spring of 1534, when Francis I sends a French sailor, Jacques
Cartier, from St-Malo in Brittany on April 20, with sixty-one men. Arriving in
less than three weeks to the Baie des Chaleurs off the Gaspé peninsula, Cartier
disembarks and plants a 30 foot wooden cross to which he has attached a shield
bearing the fleur-de-lis and on which he has carved the words Vive le Roy de
France (Long Live the King of France). He does not linger long in the new land,
leaving quickly for France, bringing back with him two young Indian braves,
sons of the local chief.
The
following year, on May 19,1535, Cartier leaves France with three ships, the
Grande Hermine, the Petite Hermine, and the tiny Émérillon. He leaves with 110
men and the two Indian braves he had brought to France the previous year.
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Sketch
of the Grande Hermine as it was reconstructed for the 1967 World Expo in
Montréal
Cartier's mission is to spend the winter in the new land. He
arrives at the mouth of the St-Lawrence River in July, and begins the journey
up the great river in search of new routes to China and India. When he arrives
at the Indian village of Stadacona, built on the high promontory of what is now
Québec City, Cartier is warned by the local Indian chief of the perils that
await him farther up the river. Cartier decides to proceed on the Petite
Hermine, leaving the other two ships at Stadacona. Toward the end of September,
Cartier nears the important Indian trading center at Hochelaga, now Montréal,
and the Lachine Rapids that prevent any farther advance along the St-Lawrence.
Cartier and his party go ashore at Hochelaga, visit with the local Indian
tribe, exchanging trinkets for safe passage in the area and gaining information
about the land beyond the Rapids. By mid-October Cartier is back at Stadacona
to prepare for the winter stay. The winter proves disastrous for the French;
many die of scurvy and are buried in the drifted snow. In the Spring of 1536,
Cartier leaves for France with the Grande Hermine and the Émérillon, abandoning
the Petite Hermine at Stadacona because so many of his sailors have been lost
during the bitter winter.
Québec City - Lévis - Beauport Area of Québec, Canada, Today
Cartier makes a third trip to the new world in 1541, with the hope
of establishing a permanent French colony. He returns to the area of Stadacona
and establishes a settlement, Charlesbourg Royal. The attempt at colonization
at Charlesbourg is a failure due to the discord among the settlers, many of
whom are misfits, and to the disagreements between Cartier and the Lord of
Roberval, who had been named to head the settlement by the King. Cartier
returns to France the same year, and the settlement is finally abandoned the
following year.
No other serious attempt at colonization is made by France in the
16th century, although fishing and fur trading expeditions continue.
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain is born Samuel Champlain near La Rochelle and
spends his early years in the army. After the death of Philip II of Spain and
peace between Spain and France, Champlain finds employment on a French ship in
the service of Spain. In 1599, he sails to the Spanish colonies, visits Mexico
City, makes his way to the Pacific Ocean, all the time keeping copious notes
and plotting numerous charts.
In 1601, Champlain returns to France where he seeks an/d receives
an audience with the king, Henry IV. Champlain describes to the king the
greatness and the wealth that he has seen in the Spanish colonies. Henry IV is
so impressed that he keeps Champlain at court as the royal geographer, gives
him a pension, and ennobles him. It is then that Champlain adds the de to his
name, a sign of nobility, and becomes Samuel de Champlain.
In 1603, Champlain is sent by Henry IV to chart the territories
that France claims in the northern part of the new world. Champlain executes
his mandate faithfully, bringing back to the court and to the commercial
sponsors detailed charts of the territories from the mouth of the St-Lawrence
River to Hochelaga (Montréal).
The following year, in March of 1604, Champlain leaves Le Havre
with two ships and 120 workmen to establish a permanent colony for France. The
expedition is sponsored financially by Henry IV and the Sieur de Monts, the
governor of Pons in the Saintonge region of France. The ships make their way to
the coast of Nova Scotia where Champlain begins to look for the best site on
which to establish the settlement. The convoy finally enters the Bay of Fundy
where Champlain finds a spacious and landlocked harbor he calls Port Royal. In
June, at the end of the bay, at the mouth of the St-Croix River, Champlain
founds the colony on a small island that provides security from any sudden
attack. The colony endures until it is destroyed in May 1613, by Samuel Argall
who sails up the eastern coast from the English Protestant colony at Jamestown,
Virginia seeking out French Catholic settlements. Argall captures some settlers
and sails away with them after destroying Port Royal. Other settlers scatter
into the woods. They will be the ancestors of later Acadians.
The Founding of Québec City
Earlier,
in the Spring of 1608, the Sieur de Monts sends out three ships from France to
the new world. One is destined to revitalize the then thriving colony at
St-Croix in Port Royal, while the other two, under the command of Champlain,
head up the St-Lawrence River. On July 2, 1608, a historic date in the
evolution of French Canada, Champlain lands under the towering cliffs of what
is now Québec City. It is here, in the shadow of the cliff, Cap-aux-Diamants,
that he builds the habitation, a permanent settlement. Champlain and his men
build three buildings, each of two stories in height, with a deck around the
second story. Ditches are dug around these buildings, fifteen feet wide and six
feet deep (see illustration).
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Drawing, apparently done
by Chanplain himself, of the "Abitation de Quebecq", built in 1608 at
the foot of the Cap-aux-Diamants
The ships that brought the founding colonists sails away to France
on September 18, leaving Champlain and a company of twenty-eight men, fifteen
of whom die of scurvy during the winter. The little settlement struggles
through its first winter with the help of the friendly local Indian tribes. The
following Spring, help arrives from France with added supplies and the colony's
future becomes more secure. The first settler to build his own independent
house at Québec is Louis
Hébert, pharmacist, who, in 1617, builds a house on the cliffs overlooking
the original habitation and begins to cultivate the land.
A Deadly Blow
Champlain loses one of his major financial supporters when Henry
IV is assassinated by a religious fanatic in 1610. This event, coupled with the
fall of the Sieur de Monts from favor in the royal court, places a strain on
Champlain's ability to keep the budding colony at Québec growing. From 1610,
until the ascent to power of Cardinal Richelieu and the formation of the
Company of New France in 1627, Champlain makes numerous trips across the
Atlantic to seek financial support for Québec. It is also during this period,
in 1611, that Champlain establishes a trading post on the frontier site of the
Indian village of Hochelaga, now Montréal.
Many missionaries come to the new world in those early days. Both
Jesuit and Recollet missionaries come to the territories claimed by France with
the "mission" of converting the "savages" to Christianity.
Missions are scattered from the shores of the St-Lawrence River to those of the
Great Lakes.
The Company of New France - La
Compagnie des Cent-Associés
Cardinal Richelieu begins his rise to power in 1616. Politics at home in France
keep him from looking across the Atlantic to France's colonies until much
later. Finally, in 1627, Richelieu organizes La Compagnie des Cent-Associés,
the Company of New France, with one hundred associates or partners, made up
mainly of trade leaders. As organized, the Company is to own and exploit the
vast regions of New France. It is to have perpetual monopoly of the fur trade
and monopoly of all other trades for fifteen years. Two or three hundred
settlers are to be sent yearly from France to the new colony. The Company is to
support each new colonist for three years in return for his labor, and each
settlement is to have three priests.
The Company owns all the land and has the right to grant estates
to "Seigneurs" under the feudal laws of France. Many such grants are
made, some to religious orders of priests and nuns, mostly to lay Seigneurs
who, it is hoped, will settle on their estates and gather about them a
community under feudal rule. One such grant is made to Robert Giffard, a
pharmacist from the Perche region. Giffard originally comes to Québec in 1621
on his own, returning to France in 1628. Later that year, after getting
married, he signs on with the Company as Navy Surgeon and begins a voyage back
to Québec. The English, however, seize the ships, capture the passengers and
bring them to England. After the 1632 Treaty of St-Germain-en-Laye, France
formalizes its peace with England which guarantees France's rights in New
France, and all prisoners are exchanged. Giffard returns to France. In 1634,
Giffard is named Seigneur of Beauport, just northeast of Québec City on the
St-Lawrence River, across from the Ile d'Orléans. Giffard recruits settlers
from his own French Province of Perche. Among his associates and principal
recruiters are the Juchereau brothers, Noël, Jean, and Pierre, from the town of
Tourouvre in Perche. They are very active in their work for the Seigneur
Giffard. Up to eighty families are recruited for New France from the Tourouvre
area, among them the families of Gagnon, Giguère, Tremblay, Cloutier, and
Pelletier.
In the Spring of 1628, La Compagnie des Cent-Associés sends out
its first group of two hundred settlers from Dieppe. Over a dozen ships make
the voyage, with Giffard as Navy Surgeon, as noted previously. Two English
sailors, David and Lewis Kirke, with three armed ships and two hundred men, are
poised at the mouth of the St-Lawrence River searching for French vessels, meet
the French convoy between Gaspé and Tadoussac. After a fierce battle, won by
the Kirkes, the French ships and their contents become spoils of war. Prisoners
are returned to England. The Kirkes continue to raid French fishing and trading
ships during the summer, depriving Champlain at Québec City of much needed
supplies for the ensuing winter.
For more details see also La
Compagnie des Cents Associés, part of the Virtual Museum of New France,
a wonderful site developped by Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation
(CMCC), a Crown Corporation established by the Museums Act.
The First Fall of Québec City
No supplies reach Québec the following winter due to the
persistent raids by the Kirke brothers. Finally, in July 1629, the Kirkes land
at Québec with a hundred and fifty men. The English capture the capital of New
France on July 20th. They drive out the settlers and the missionaries, burn the
habitation, and build a fort on the cliffs of the Cap-aux-Diamants overlooking
the St-Lawrence River. Champlain is carried off as a prisoner of war and lands
in Plymouth, England on October 24, 1629. It is then that learns that England
and France had signed a peace accord on April 24, 1629, before the capture of
Québec, a fact the Kirkes were well aware of at the time of their attack.
Champlain crosses over to France and convinces both Richelieu and the King that
France has lost a vast and rich empire. France demands from England the return
of New France and Acadia, a demand that is finally acknowledged by the Treaty
of St-Germain-en-Laye in 1632. Champlain returns to Québec City on May 23,
1633, as Governor of New France. With him come two hundred new colonists
recruited by the reactivated Company of New France, Jesuit missionaries, and
soldiers to defend the renewed French colony. Champlain himself never returns
to France, dying at Québec on Christmas Day, 1635. He is replaced as Governor
of New France by the Sieur de Montmagny who arrives at Québec on June 6, 1636.
The Western Frontiers - The Spread of
Catholicism and the Fur Trade
France
has two main interests in the new world, exploiting the land for monetary gain,
principally through the trade in furs, and converting "the pagan savage
souls" to Catholicism. As mentioned earlier, missionaries had come with
Champlain to New France as early as 1615. The Recollet Fathers make contact
with the Hurons, the nobility of the savages, shortly thereafter. Later it was
the Jesuits, following their return to New France in 1632, who direct their
attention to the converting of the Hurons to Catholicism. The most famous
example of these endeavours is the establishment of the mission to the Hurons
by Father Jerome Lalemant in 1639 in the area of present day Midland, Ontario,
on Georgian Bay. The mission, referred to as Sainte-Marie au Pays des Hurons,
reaches its zenith in the late 1640's when it includes stables, workshops, medical
facilities and lodgings. At one time it houses as many as 66 Europeans as well
as visiting Hurons. In 1648 and 1649 the Iroquois from Upper New York State,
the dreaded enemy of the Hurons and the French Americans, begin a systematic
destruction of Huron villages in what is now southern Ontario, killing the
inhabitants and torturing and killing the French missionaries. On June 14, 1649
the Jesuits set fire to Sainte-Marie to avoid its desecration by the Iroquois.
It is during this Iroquois reign of terror that six of North America's eight
martyrs are killed, among them St-Jean de Brebeuf and St-Gabriel Lalement who
are canonized in 1930. The remnants of the Hurons flee to Lorrette near Quebec
City, to the islands in Georgian Bay, to the northern shores of Lake Huron and
Lake Michigan and even to Wisconsin. The Government of Ontario reconstructed
Sainte-Marie in 1964 and today it stands as a Heritage Project near the Shrine
to the North American martyrs.
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Jesuit missionaries Jean
de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant being tortured and martyred by the Iroquois
during the systematic destruction of Huronia in 1648-1649. From "Historiae
Canadensis", by François du Creux, Paris, 1664.
Forgetting for the moment the desire for empire and land, the
other motivating force for opening up the frontiers of the new world is the
lure of profits from the fur trade and from providing supplies and services to
the French colonial regime and its military. In particular, trading furs offers
the opportunity for enterprising individuals to obtain wealth not otherwise
available from the trades or in farming. The quest for this wealth and perhaps
the quest for the greater individual freedom to be enjoyed on the frontiers
lead to the establishment of a vast empire on the "western frontiers"
of New France. Voyageurs and fur traders from the St Lawrence settlements,
principally Québec City, Trois Rivières and Montréal, first open up much of the
continent by following the northern water routes through much of Québec,
Ontario and into the northern great lakes of Superior, Huron and Michigan. By
the late 1600's they establish a trading network which extended westward to the
prairies of Canada and the United States, some say as far as the Rocky
Mountains, and northward to James Bay and to Hudson's Bay.
Following military campaigns against the Iroquois in 166/67 by de
Tracy and his regular French troops, principally the Carignan Salières
regiment, a period of peace ensues between the French and the Iroquois nation.
As a result, the southern trade route along the St Lawrence River, Lake Ontario
and Lake Erie, hitherto too dangerous, now becomes available to the French
voyageurs and traders. By the mid 1700's primary trade routes are firmly
established linking the French settlements on the St Lawrence River to a string
of forts and trading posts located on the western plains, the northern lakes
and south along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. Troops
from the colonial regulars, les troupes de la marine, militia and at various
times French regulars are needed to protect the forts and these trade routes.
The principal forts and trading posts along the east west route
are at Kingston, Ontario (Fort Frontenac), Fort Niagara, Pontchartrain (present
day Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario). It is envisioned at one time that
Detroit, which is officially founded in 1701, would form the hub for French
commerce and influence in the west. From here, there was ready access for
traders and the military to the principal eastern routes, the northern lakes,
the western plains and the southern territories extending to Louisiana on the
Gulf of Mexico. French areas of influence, circa 1750, encompass all of known
North America east of the Rocky Mountains excluding only the British
settlements on the Atlantic coast and inland in the area of the Hudson River
and Spanish presence in Florida.
The commercial history of New France is inextricably linked to the
western frontiers. Similarly much of its military history is written in
"la petite guerre" of countless skirmishes along its trade routes
during the extended French and Indian Wars and the Seven Years War which result
in the fall of New France. The frontier legacy of the voyagers, fur traders,
missionaries, soldiers and latterly farmers and bourgeoisie exists to this day
in the person of the many descendants of these early French Americans, in the
pockets of the French language, and in the names of places, rivers, lakes, etc.
A Second Assault on Québec City
Throughout most of New France's history, France and England are at
war. This is the case once again in 1689, when Protestant William III ascends
to the throne of England. At that time the Governor of New France is Louis de
Buade, Comte de Frontenac, an able governor and soldier, who has previously
served as governor from 1672 to 1682. He had been recalled to France by the
King because of open and violent quarrels with the then Intendant, Duchesneau
and replaced as governor in 1682 by a blustering weakling, Lefebvre de la
Barre, who in turn is recalled and replaced in 1685 by the Marquis de
Denonville.
Denonville proves ineffective, unable to vanquish or achieve peace
with the Iroquois and unable to take any of the land in the New England area
claimed by France. Now, in 1689, with war one again declared, Louis XIV of
France returns the old warrior Frontenac to New France with orders to seize New
York City, then Boston, thereby driving the English out of America. Arriving
too late in 1689 to mount an offensive against New York City, Frontenac does
however successfully raid Schenectady in upper New York State, and Salmon
Falls, near Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Not to be outdone, the English begin to mount a counteroffensive
designed to drive the French out of the New World. Sir William Phips, an
English colonist from Boston, on orders from the Massachusetts General Court,
sets out in the Spring of 1690 to capture Québec City. He sails up the Bay of
Fundy and forces Port Royal to surrender without firing a shot. He then
plunders the conquered fort and sets fire to the church before sailing back to
Boston with his impressive booty. He then recruits more men for the trip back
up to Québec. As he sails up the St-Lawrence River toward Québec, Phips sends
small raiding parties ashore to terrorize and plunder. One such raiding party
lands at Rivière-Ouelle, where it is successfully repulsed by the local settlers
under the leadership of the local priest.
On October 16, 1690, Phips anchors off Québec City with a fleet of
thirty-four ships and over two thousand men. He tries to send some of his
troops ashore at Beauport but they are driven back. Phips then sends an envoy
to Frontenac demanding his immediate surrender. Frontenac responds that his
rank is above answering to a lowly envoy, and sends him away with the phrase
that is committed to every French Canadian schoolboy's memory: "Je n'ai
point de réponse à faire à votre général que par la bouche de mes
canons...", "My answer to your general will be given by the mouths of
my cannons...".
After a week of battle by sea and by land, Phips makes an exchange
of prisoners and sails away to Boston. On the return voyage, Phips encounters
several storms and he loses four ships. Peace is signed between the two warring
countries in 1697, and all captured territories are returned.
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Medal struck in 1690 commemorating Frontenac's victory over
Phips at Québec.
The inscription (in Latin) on the face, where one sees Louis XIV in profile,
reads:
"Louis, the great Christian king"
On the reverse, where one sees an allegorical figure trampling the British
flag:
"France victorious in the New World" and "Québec, liberated in
1690 "
Immigration from Old France to New
France
Overall, France under the Old Régime
did not supply a great number of emigrants to its colonies across the Atlantic.
In fact, just 15,000 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen sailed for Canada in the
seventeenth century, and two-thirds of them stayed in the colony for a short
period and either returned to France or died in Canada without getting married.
This was a very low number: the British Isles, with a population just over
one-third of France’s, sent almost 380,000 immigrants to the New World over the
same period.
The French Policy toward Native Peoples Differed from England's
In fact, France was at the time showing various symptoms of
social discontent that should have justified a larger number of refugees
fleeing to Canada, whose abundance of resources contrasted with the famine and
unemployment among the poorest classes. Although France wasn’t really
overpopulated, conditions there were favorable to emigration; these conditions,
had they coincided with a real attraction of Canada, would have encouraged the
departure of large contingents of settlers for the New World. But few French
people migrated, as Canada, a distant, wild, and dangerous country, had a poor
reputation. On top of this, the authorities believed that the French population
was not as growing quickly as it should be – and, in fact, that it was
shrinking due to wars, plagues, and general misery. In response to Intendant
Talon, who had asked him to find the means to form a "grand and powerful
state" in Canada, which would involve a massive wave of immigrants,
Colbert said, in a sentence that was to mark the future of the country,
"It would not be prudent [of the king] to depopulate his kingdom as he
would have to do to populate Canada." And yet, even had departures been
multiplied tenfold, the effects of emigration on the most populous country in
Europe would have been imperceptible – and the fate of North America would
probably have been quite different.
In any case, the result of this small founding population
was that the French-Canadian stock grew from a relatively small number of
people, about 10,000 immigrants. If we consider the male immigrants, from whom
family names were transmitted through the generations, the number is reduced to
about 4,500 – the total of immigrants who had at least one son who married.
On-again Off-again Wars
War is declared in 1702, and once again French and English
colonists raid each others territories. In 1710, English troops capture Port
Royal for the second time. Acadia is renamed Nova Scotia and Port Royal to
Annapolis, for the then Queen Anne of England. Peace returns briefly in 1713
with the Treaty of Utrecht, wherein France cedes Acadia and Newfoundland to
England. Despite the peace in Europe, the two countries' colonists continue to
harass each other with the help of the Indian tribes: the Iroquois allied with
the English, and most of the other tribes with the French.
France and England are formally at war again in 1744. In 1745, a
force of three thousand men and one hundred ships sets sail from Boston, under
the leadership of William Pepperell, to attack and subsequently capture
Louisbourg, the French fortress on Cape Breton. Peace is restored with the
Treaty of Aix-laChapelle in 1748, and Louisbourg is returned to the French. As
a result, the English are quick to build a fortress of their own in the same
area at Halifax.
Québec: The Second and Final Fall
Despite the 1748 peace accord, England and France each plot and
prepare for the other's defeat in North America. War is finally declared in
1756, although the colonists from both sides have been at each other for over a
year.
It is also in 1755 that the English scatter nearly six thousand Acadians to destinations so widely dispersed as to make their return to Acadia impossible. Some are sent to England, some to the French West Indies, but most to the other English colonies along the eastern coast of North America. Many make their way to the French settlements in Louisiana to become the ancestors of today's Cajuns. The sad plight of the Acadians is depicted poignantly in Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline.
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From the Public Archives of Canada: "Exile of the
Acadians from Grand Pré". In 1755, over 6,000 Acadians were exiled by the
English. Among them was Longfellow's Evangeline.
Once war officially declared, French troops under the Marquis de
Montcalm earn early victories in New York State at Oswego and Lake George in
1757 and 1758. Later in 1758 William Pitt, the English secretary for war, sends
two generals , Amherst and Wolfe, to capture Louisbourg and Québec City.
The siege of Louisbourg begins on June 2, 1758, and the fortress
surrenders on July 27. Amherst and Wolfe disagree on when best to attack Québec
City. Wolfe wants to follow the victory at Louisbourg with a quick attack on
Québec. The older Amherst feels that a prolonged siege at Québec could leave
the English troops stranded in a frozen St-Lawrence River. Wolfe returns to
England while Amherst remains in America as commander-in-chief.
The next year, in May and June 1759, Wolfe returns to the New
World, sailing up the St-Lawrence River toward Québec City with an armada of
two hundred and fifty ships, forty-nine of which are men-of-war. He has with
him nearly thirty thousand men, a third of them from the regular army, the rest
marines and sailors.
The two opponents at Québec in 1759:
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The Marquis de Montcalm, France |
Major-General James Wolfe, England |
On June 26, Wolfe makes camp on the Ile d'Orléans, five miles across from Québec City. He also establishes a battery at Lévis, directly across the River from the city, and a third camp near the Montmorency River. Throughout the summer, Montcalm is able to repulse Wolfe's attacks from his high position on the cliffs of Québec City. The engraving below provides a view of the eastern side of the city as seen across the St. Lawrence River. The British were able to hold this bank of the river (Point Levis) to the east of the city and to dominate the river itself, but through August 1759 the high bluff, with the public buildings and citadel atop it, protected the French from attack.
Finally, in September, Wolfe is made aware of a path that leads
from the River to an area behind the city heights at l'Anse-au-Foulon. Quietly,
during the night of September 12-13, Wolfe and two thousand men climb the path
to the Plains of Abraham behind the
fortress at Québec.
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The disposition of the French and English troops on the Plains of Abraham, September 13, 1759.
Foulon, where Wolfe and his men climbed the secret path is at the lower left of
the illustration.
The ensuing battle on the morning of September 13 lasts less than
thirty minutes. Both generals are mortally wounded, Wolfe dies on the field of
battle, Montcalm a few hours later. Québec City formally surrenders on
September 18, 1759.
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The Marquis de Montcalm, France |
Major-General James Wolfe, England |
Artists' renditions of the deaths of the generals at Québec
City, September 13, 1759
The
final surrender of French Canada is signed in 1760, by the Marquis de Vaudreuil
in Montréal. Definitive English rule begins with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
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The
surrender of New France to the English, Montréal, 1760
