seigneury surveyed into farms, or en censive holdings,
and to procure, as quickly as might be, settlers for
these farms. It was highly desirable, of course, that
the seigneurs should lend a hand in encouraging the
immigration of people from their old homes in France.
Some of them did this. Robert Giffard, who held the
seigneury of Beauport just below Quebec, was a notable
example. The great majority of the seigneurs, however,
made only half-hearted attempts in this direction, and
their efforts went for little or nothing. What they did
was to meet, on arrival at Quebec, the shiploads of
settlers sent out by the royal officers. There they
gathered about the incoming vessel, like so many land
agents, each explaining what advantages in the way of a
good location and fertile soil he had to offer. Those
seigneurs who had obtained tracts near the settlement at
Quebec had, of course, a great advantage in all this,
for the new-comers naturally preferred to set up their
homes where a church would be near at hand, and where
they could be in touch with other families during the
long winters. Consequently the best locations in all the
seigneuries near Quebec were soon taken, and then settlers
had to take lands more remote from the little metropolis
of the colony. They went to the seigneuries near Montreal
and Three Rivers; when the best lands in these areas were
taken up, they dispersed themselves along the whole north
shore of the St Lawrence from below the Montmorency to
its junction with the Ottawa. The north shore having been
well dotted with the whitewashed homes, the south shore
came in for its due share of attention, and in the last