Deeply engrafted as it still was on the social system of the parent state, the feudal tenure was naturally transferred to the colony of New France, but only with such modifications as were suited to the conditions of a new country.  Indeed all the abuses that might hinder settlement or prevent agricultural development were carefully lopped off.  Canada was given its seigneurs, or lords of the manor, who would pay fealty and homage to the sovereign himself, or to the feudal superior from whom they directly received their territorial estate, and they in their turn leased lands to peasants, or tillers of the soil, who held them on the modified conditions of the tenure of old France.  It was not expedient, and indeed not possible, to transfer a whole body of nobles to the wilderness of the new world—­they were as a class too wedded to the gay life of France—­and all that could be done was to establish a feudal tenure to promote colonization, and at the same time possibly create a landed gentry who might be a shadowy reflection of the French noblesse, and could, in particular cases, receive titles directly from the king himself.

This seigniorial tenure of New France was the most remarkable instance which the history of North America affords of the successful effort of European nations to reproduce on this continent the ancient aristocratic institutions of the old world.  In the days when the Dutch owned the Netherlands, vast estates were partitioned out to certain “patroons,” who held their property on quasi feudal conditions, and bore a resemblance to the seigneurs of French Canada.  This manorial system was perpetuated under English forms when the territory was conquered by the English and transformed into the colony of New York, where it had a chequered existence, and was eventually abolished as inconsistent with the free conditions of American settlement.  In the proprietary colony of Maryland the Calverts also attempted to establish a landed aristocracy, and give to the manorial lords certain rights of jurisdiction over their tenants drawn from the feudal system of Europe.  For Carolina, Shaftesbury and Locke devised a constitution which provided a territorial nobility, called landgraves and caciques, but it soon became a mere historical curiosity.  Even in the early days of Prince Edward Island, when it was necessary to mature a plan of colonization, it was gravely proposed to the British government that the whole island should be divided into “hundreds,” as in England, or into “baronies,” as in Ireland, with courts-baron, lords of manors, courts-leet, all under the direction of a lord paramount; but while this ambitious aristocratic scheme was not favourably entertained, the imperial authorities chose one which was most injurious in its effects on the settlement of this fertile island.