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Before opening as President the winter course of
lectures, I have a pleasant communication to make. Since we last met, His
Excellency, Lord Lorne, has honored this Society, by becoming its Patron,
during his term of office.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—In a paper
headed "The Component Parts of
our Nationality," we strove some time since to place on record the results
of our researches in Canadian History, and thus to dispel some of the
prejudices, entertained as to the origin of the first settlers on Canadian
soil. We felt a sincere pleasure in laying before an enlightened public,
the evidence which reliable historians furnish, as to the birth and
formation of the nationality of the majority in the old Province of
Quebec, in order to demonstrate
that the colonists sent out by the French Monarchs and French Companies,
unlike those of St. Christophe and other French Islands, were singularly
free from blemish.
These ethnological studies,
superficial as they may be, we
intend to prosecute, with respect to other factors in our nationality: this evening we
have selected a branch of the subject, which though less familiar to us,
is quite as worthy of your attention; the Scottish element in and round
Quebec.
A mark of distinction, as unexpected
as it was unsolicited recently bestowed on your humble servant, by the
Ethnographical Society of Paris, [Mr.
LeMoine, the bearer of a Diploma, as "Délegue Regional" for Quebec, of the
Institution Ethnographique de Paris, wore for the first time, the
Insignia of this learned Society.]
renders still more appropriate
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