The communities of men were also con demned to die out. Recollets, Jesuits and Sul picians were prohibited from recruiting in the country or from receiving members from abroad. They took possession of the properties of the first, and as to the Sulphicians, they were reduced from 30 which they were in 174 to two septuagenarians, whose deaths they awaited to take possession of their effects, when the French Revolution broke out. The English government then relaxed its rigorous attitude and offered the victims of the furious revolutionists an hospitality which does them honor. The people though were not better treated. For them there were no public posi tions, no place in the councils of the colony. A species of ostracism followed them every where. In the midst of these painful con junctions the Catholics did not despair; they sent to London petition upon petition claiming on the faith of the treaties the preservation of their religion, their priests, their language and their civil rights. At last in 1766, George III consented to the consecration of Monsignor Briand, as bishop of Quebec, without recogniz ing any other title, however, than that of superintendent of the Catholic cult.
Meanwhile a storm was arising in the Anglo American colonies. The metropolis understood that it should conciliate the Canadians. The Act of Quebec (1774) restored the French civil laws, dispensed with the test-oath and rec ognized their civil and political rights. Dur ing the war which followed and which termi nated with the death of Montgomery (1775) under the walls of Quebec, the Canadian people, docile to the voice of their clergy, remained faithful to the sovereign which Providence had given them.
During these years the Catholic population had grown: in 1784, it numbered 130,000 French-Canadians; the Maritime provinces were being peopled by Irish and Scotch Catholics, and the Acadians, dispersed in 1755, were grouping silently and multiplying, supported by such apostles as the Desjardins, Sigogne, de Calonne and Ciquart, Sulpician. "To these con fessors of the faith the Acadian race owed its organization; these were the true founders of its nationality?' Consult de l'abbe de Calonne' (Trois-Rievieres 1892); Casgrain, (Pelerinage au pays d'Evangeline.) After having courageously combated, Mon signor Briand resigned in 1784. His successor, Monsignor d'Esglis, was an old man of 75 years. He speedily took a coadjutor in the person of Monsignor Francois Hubert, who became titular bishop in 1788. In a remarkable memoir to the Holy See (1794), the prelate states that his diocese contained 160,000 Catholics; that the efforts of the Anglicans to win the Canadians to their religion were in vain; that his diocese is too vast for him to administer conveniently. But, he added "every plan of 'division would find insurmountable obstacles on the part of Great Britain which is occupied on the other side in the means to establish in this country a Protestant clergy?' Consult 'Mandements des eveques de Quec,> Vol. XI, p. 474.
Monsignor Denaut (1797-1806) succeeded Monsignor Hubert. Under his episcopacy the fight against Anglicanism is summed up in the Royal Institution. Thus was named a cleverly composed organization designed to monopolize instruction of every degree by concentrating the power in the hands of the governor. The Anglican Bishop Mountain was chosen as presi dent of the institution. Profiting by a legal restriction the Catholics prevented its success. Consult Pagnuelo, S.,
From 1806 to 1825 the Episcopal See of Que bec was occupied by Monsignor Octave Plessis, a prelate distinguished as much by the breadth of his intelligence and the force of his char acter, as by his courtesy in all proceedings. He had to hold his own against a powerful oli garchy which would not recoil from extreme measures, and which was resolved to make the Church the vassal of the civil power, the slave i of the government; in fact to lead insensibly Canada to Anglicanism by the governmental channel. The soul of this plan was a certain Witzius Ryland, secretary of the governors of Canada from 1790 to 1812. It would take too long to enter into the details of this struggle, into which Sir James Craig was weak enough to enter; it suffices to say that Monsignor Ples sis by his individuality embodied Canadian re sistance without ever wounding English senti ment; that he obtained for himself official recognition of his title, bishop of Quebec (1818); that he removed the pretensions of the government to nominate rectors; that he en sured the independence of the Church against the State; and that he inspired his adversarieS, even, with respect and admiration for his great character. Faithful besides to the Crown of England, his was the act of a loyal subject in calling to arms his diocesans, on the occasion of the invasion of the United States in 1812. Well and justly could Lord Bathurst reply to the Anglican bishop of Quebec, J. Mountain, who protested again the favors accorded Mon signor Plessis by the London government. <'It is not when Canadians are fighting for Eng land that such questions should be agitated.* Consult Pagnuelo,
sur la liberte re ligieuse en Canada,' c.
p. 86-120;
Correspondant,> April 1877; (La France Cana dienne,) by J. Guerard; Garneau, 'Histoire du Canada,) t. III, 1 XIII, c. 11 and 1 XIV, c. I; (Mandetnents des &eves de Quebec,' t. III; (Conversation entre Sir J. Craig et Mgr. Ples sis,) p. 59; (Memoire au gouverneur,) p. 79; French,