itself alone. There were various plans for opening the
coveted Mississippi. One was to join Spain. Another was
to seize New Orleans, turn out the French, and bring in
the British. Then, to make the plot complete, the French
minister to the United States was asking permission to
make a tour through Canada at the very time when Carleton
was sending home reams of documents bearing on the
impending troubles. The letters exchanged on this subject
are perfect models of politeness. But Carleton's answer
was an emphatic No.

Foreign complications were thickening fast. The French
Revolution had already begun, though its effect was not
yet felt in Canada. The American government was anxiously
watching its refractory states, while an anti-British
political party was making headway in the South. As if
this was not enough to engage whatever attention Carleton
had to spare from the internal affairs of Canada, he
suddenly heard that the Spaniards had been seizing British
vessels trading to a British post on Vancouver Island.
[Footnote: _See Pioneers of the Pacific Coast_ in this
Series.] This Nootka Affair, which nearly brought on a
war with Spain in 1790, was settled in London and Madrid.
But the threat of war added to Carleton's anxieties.

Meanwhile the governor was busily employed with an
immigration problem. It was desirable that the
English-speaking immigrants should settle on the land
with the least possible friction between them and the
French Canadians. The French Canadians differed among
themselves. But no such differences brought them any
closer to their new neighbours on questions of land
settlement. The French had granted lands in seigneuries.
The British would hear of nothing but free and common
socage. French farms were measured by the arpent and were
staked out in long and narrow oblongs. British farms were
measured by the acre and staked out 'on the square.'
Language, laws, religion, manners and customs, ways of
life, were also different. So there was hardly any
intermixture of settlements. The French Canadians remained
where they were. Most of the new Anglo-Canadians settled
in the Maritime Provinces or moved west into what is now
Ontario. A few settled in rural Quebec on lands outside
the line of seigneuries. The Eastern Townships, that part
of the province lying east of the Richelieu and nearest
the American frontier, absorbed many English, Irish, and
Scots, as well as a good many Americans who were attra