rity and added that he
was sure the British method of government would soon spoil them. Under
the French regime they had had no gleam of political liberty. For twenty
years before the conquest France had exacted from them the fullest
possible measure of military service. The British ended this and brought
liberty. Its growth is sometimes so rapid as to be noxious, and, no
doubt, some of those who came to Nairne's domain gave him much trouble.
"No people," Nairne said of them, "stand more in awe of punishment when
convinced that there is power to inflict it, as none are so easily
spoiled as to be mutinous by indulgences." Some of them showed striking
intelligence: in 1784 we find Nairne recommending for appointment as
Notary one Malteste (no doubt the well-known name Maltais is a later
form) as a "remarkable honest, well-behaved countryman with more
education than is commonly to be found with one in his station." The
dwellers at Malbaie were for the most part a quiet people entirely
untouched by the movements of the outside world. "Nothing here," wrote
Nairne in 1798, "is considered of importance but producing food to
satisfy craving Stomachs, which the people of this cold and healthy
country remarkably possess, and to feed numbers of children.... They
have no other ambition or consideration whatever but simply to procure
food and raiment for themselves and their numerous families."

They had a very clear idea of their rights. Nairne's grant conferred
upon him those of fishing and hunting. But the inhabitants declared that
when land was once granted, the seigneur lost all control over the
adjoining waters. Nairne wished, for instance, to prohibit the spearing
of salmon at night by the Canadians, with the aid of torches or
lanterns. But they had never been hampered by such restrictions and,
when Nairne tried to check them, they said that they would not be
hindered. It was in vain that he said "I had rather have no power at all
and no seigneurie at all [than] not to be able to keep up the rights of
it." When, in 1797, he ordered one Joseph Villeneuve to cease the
"flambeau" fishing at night, the fellow "roared and bellowed" and set
him at defiance; no less than twenty companions joined him in the
fishing. They would acknowledge no law nor restraint and seem to have
had _force majeure_ on their side. It was not until long after that the
legislature at Quebec passed strict laws regulating the modes of
fishing.

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