chanced to say that I did not think Canadians had at that time awakened
to their future.  The editor answered that he was afraid I had
contracted the American disease of "bounce" through living in the
United States; to which I retorted that if Canadians could catch the
same disease and accomplish as much by it in the twentieth century as
Americans had in the nineteenth, it would be a good thing for the
country.  It is wonderful to have witnessed the complete face-about of
Canadian public opinion in the short space of six years, this editor
shouting as loud as any of his exuberant brethren.  Still, as the
outlook in Canadian affairs may be regarded as flamboyant, it is worth
while quoting the comment of the most critical and conservative
newspaper in the world,--the London _Times_.  The _Times_ says:
"Without doubt the expansion of Canada is the greatest political event
in the British Empire to-day.  The empire is face to face with
development which makes it impossible for indefinite maintenance of the
present constitutional arrangements."


Regarding the Iceland immigrants, to whom reference is made, I recently
met in London a famed traveler, who was in Iceland when the people were
setting out for Canada, Mrs. Alec. Tweedie.  She explains in her book
how these people were absolutely poverty-stricken when they left
Iceland.  In fact, the sufferings endured the first year in Winnipeg
were mild compared to their privations in Iceland before they sailed.


The explanations of Canada's hard times from Confederation to 1898--say
from 1871, when all the provinces had really gone into Confederation,
to 1897, when the Yukon boom poured gold into the country--can be
figured out.  Of a population of 3,000,000, four fifths need not be
counted as taxpayers, as they include women, children, clerks, farmers'
help, domestic help,--classes who pay no taxes but the indirect duty on
clothes they wear and food they eat.  This practically means that the
billion-dollar burden of making the ideal of Confederation into a
reality by building railroads and canals was borne by 600,000 people,
which means again a large quota per man to the public treasury.  People
forget that you can't take more out of the public treasury than you put
into it, that it is n't like an artesian well, self-supplied, and the
truth is, at this period Canadians were paying more into the public
treasury than they could afford,--more than the investment was bringing
them in.




{xvii}

CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                         PAGE

    I. FROM 1000 TO 1600 . . . . . . . . . . . .   1

   II. FROM 1600 TO 1607 . . . . . . . . . . . .  23

  III. FROM 1607 TO 1635 . . . . . . . . . . . .  41

   IV. FROM 1635 TO 1666 . . . . . . . . . . . .  61

    V. FROM 1635 TO 1650 . . . . . . . . . . . .  71

   VI. FROM 1650 TO 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . .  94

  VII. FROM 1672 TO 1688 . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

 VIII. FROM 1679 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

   IX. FROM 1686 TO 1698 . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

    X. FROM 1698 TO 1713 . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

   XI. FROM 1713 TO 1755 . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

  XII. FROM 1756 TO 1763 . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

 XIII. FROM 1763 TO 1812 . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

  XIV. FROM 1812 TO 1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

   XV. FROM 1812 TO 1846 . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

  XVI. FROM 1820 TO 1867 . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

       INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439




{xix}

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

                                                             PAGE

MAP OF WESTERN CANADA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

VIKING SHIP RECENTLY DISCOVERED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
  After a photograph of the Viking Ship at Sandefjord, Norway.