Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/44

 silver and copper coin. Fifteen wind and three water mills grind the wheat and prepare the malt of the inhabitants, who use neither barley nor oats in bread. Of all these mills two only have been erected by a Roman Catholic, a gentleman in the Company's pay as warden of the plains; the rest are in the hands of the Protestants, who constitute but two-fifths of the population. It may be remarked that, while not a few of the children, by native women, of the Company's retired European servants, who are chiefly Orkneymen, inherit the plodding careful disposition of their fathers, the half-breed descendants of the French Canadians are, with rare exceptions, characterised by the paternal levity and extravagance, superadded to the uncontrollable passions of the Indian blood. Many of the industrious Scotch, who first planted the colony in 1811, under the auspices of the late Earl of Selkirk, have saved handsome sums of money, besides rearing large families in rustic plenty. A considerable portion of this valuable class, however, dreading the predominance and violence of the half-breeds, with whom they have avoided intermarrying, have converted their property into money, and removed to the United States.

Besides extensive purchases of grain and pro