A people whose unchecked primal freedom was
afterward strengthened by the light hand of laws that conserved what
they most desired; whose personal relations with their rulers were of
such primitive character as to make the Government in every sense
paternal; the petty tax on imports attending its administration one
practically unfelt!
A people whose land was dotted with schools and churches, to whose
maintenance their contributions were so slight as to be unworthy of
mention. The three separate religious denominations, holding widely
different tenets--elsewhere the cause of bitter sectarian feeling,--was
with them so unthought of as to give where all topics were eagerly
sought--no room for even fireside discussion. Side by side, "upon the
voyage,"--as they termed their lake or inland trips--the Catholic and
the Protestant knelt and offered up their devotions--following the ways
of their fathers,--no more to be made a subject of dispute than a
difference in color or height.
The cursings and obscenities that taint the air and brutalize life
elsewhere, were in this quaint old settlement unknown. Sweet thought,
pure speech, went hand in hand, clad in nervous, pithy old English, or a
"patois" of the French, mellowed and enlarged by their constant use of
the liquid Indian tongues, flowing like soft-sounding waters about them,
their daily talk came ever welcome to the ear.
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