one to spare to look after
the few scattered sheep at Murray Bay. On the other hand the rival
Church did not forget her own. Long before the British conquest
occasional services had been held at Malbaie and these were continued,
with some regularity, until a resident priest came in 1797. The visiting
priests worked hard. They were, Nairne says, "industrious in private to
confess the people, especially the women, which branch of their duty is
deemed most sacred and necessary." Against this tremendous power of the
confessional, Protestantism had nothing that could be called an opposing
influence. When a Protestant died he might not, of course, be buried in
the Roman Catholic burial ground. For these outcast dead Nairne set
aside a plot near his own house, where, still, under a little clump of
trees, their bones lie, neglected and forgotten. Not more than half a
dozen Protestants were ever buried there and this shows that even the
Protestant pioneers were few in number; hardly one of their children
remained outside the Roman Church.

Nairne thought the Canadians not too prone to industry and he deplored
the multitude of religious holidays that gave an excuse for idleness.
In a year there were not less than forty, in addition to Sundays, and on
some of the holidays, such as that of the patron saint of the parish,
there were scenes of great disorder. Nairne wrote on the subject to the
Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec asking him to take steps to ensure that
the people might come to think it not sinful but virtuous to work for
six days in the week. The Bishop promised consideration of the matter.
Already it had been under debate and in the end the Bishop gave orders
that labour might continue on most of the Church's festivals; that of
the patron saint of the parish was in time abolished. Nairne thus helped
to bring about a considerable industrial reform. But beyond this he
achieved little.

The French Canadians, who occupied his vacant acres, have shown both a
marvellous tenacity for their own customs and also a fecundity that has
enabled people, numbering 60,000 at the time of the British conquest, to
multiply now to some 2,500,000, scattered over the United States and
Canada. To govern them has never been an easy problem. Nairne says that
the French officer, Bougainville, who had known the Canadians in many
campaigns, called them at Murray's table a brave and submissive people;
he thought they needed the strong hand of autho