The result was that all lands previously held en fief, en arriere fief, en censive, or en roture, under the old French system, were henceforth placed on the footing of lands in the other provinces, that is to say, free and common socage.  The seigniors received liberal remuneration for the abolition of the lods et ventes, droit de banalite, and other rights declared legal by the court.  The cens et ventes had alone to be met as an established rent (rente constituee) by the habitant, but even this change was so modified and arranged as to meet the exigencies of the censitaires, the protection of whose interests was at the basis of the whole law abolishing this ancient tenure.  This radical change cost the country from first to last over ten million dollars, including a large indemnity paid to Upper Canada for its proportion of the fund taken from public revenues of the united provinces to meet the claims of the seigniors and the expenses of the commission.  The money was well spent in bringing about so thorough a revolution in so peaceable and conclusive a manner.  The habitants of the east were now as free as the farmers of the west.  The seigniors themselves largely benefited by the capitalization in money of their old rights, and by the untrammelled possession of land held en franc aleu roturier.  Although the seigniorial tenure disappeared from the social system of French Canada nearly half a century ago, we find enduring memorials of its existence in such famous names as these:—­Nicolet, Vercheres, Lotbiniere, Berthier, Rouville, Joliette, Terrebonne, Sillery, Beaupre, Bellechasse, Portneuf, Chambly, Sorel, Longueuil, Boucherville, Chateauguay, and many others which recall the seigniors of the old regime.

CHAPTER IX

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

In a long letter which he wrote to Earl Grey in August, 1850, Lord Elgin used these significant words:  “To render annexation by violence impossible, or by any other means improbable as may be, is, as I have often ventured to repeat, the polar star of my policy.”  To understand the full significance of this language it is only necessary to refer to the history of the difficulties with which the governor-general had to contend from the first hour he came to the province and began his efforts to allay the feeling of disaffection then too prevalent throughout the country—­especially among the commercial classes—­and to give encouragement to that loyal sentiment which had been severely shaken by the indifference or ignorance shown by British statesmen and people with respect to the conditions and interests of the Canadas.  He was quite conscious that, if the province was to remain a contented portion of the British empire, it could be best done by giving full play to the principles of self-government among both nationalities who had been so long struggling to obtain the application of the parliamentary system of England in the fullest sense to the operation of their own internal affairs, and by giving to the industrial and commercial classes adequate compensation for the great losses which they had sustained by the sudden abolition of the privileges which England had so long extended to Canadian products—­notably, flour, wheat and lumber—­in the British market.