Canada had the characteristics of the French colonial system planted in a climate least suited to it.

A government paternal, military, and monkish discouraged the development of individual enterprise and of free association for common ends.

The colonists abandoned commerce and agriculture, raising only food enough for immediate consumption, and were given to arms and hunting.

Their chief traffic was in furs.

There was so little mechanical art among them that they bought of the English colonies part of the vessels for their interior navigation.
The chief element of strength was the military, arms-bearing character of the population; each man was a soldier.
Besides the hostility inherited from the mother-countries, there was a necessary antagonism between two social and political systems, so directly opposed, and lying one alongside the other.