A Few Acres of Snow - Historical Context of The Quotations

Historical Context of The Quotations

In Voltaire's day, New France included Canada, Acadia, Louisiana, and other territories. All parts of the colonies were the object of Voltaire's sarcastic comments at one point or another.

Through all his writings on the subject, Voltaire's basic idea about France's Canadian colony always remained the same. It can be summarized as comprising an economic premise and a strategic premise, both of which concur to a practical conclusion, as follows:

• Almost the entirety of Canada's territory is, and will remain, an almost unproductive and useless frozen wasteland.
• Great Britain, having colonized the more productive territories to the south and having already provided them with a much larger population, will not tolerate the presence of another European power in that area and will relentlessly attack Canada until such presence is ousted. Given the enormous disproportion in population and material resources between the French and British colonies in North America, the impossibility of modifying that imbalance in the foreseeable future and Britain's generally better control of the maritime routes to Europe, Britain will inevitably prevail sooner or later.
• Therefore, an effective defence of Canada by France requires an extraordinarily large commitment of resources in comparison to the scant economic value in return, and any resources thus expended, even if allowing victories in the short term, are wasted as they can only serve at best to postpone for a few more decades the handing over of Canada to Britain, which is inevitable in the long term. Consequently, sound economic policy dictates handing over Canada to Britain as soon as possible and concentrating France's resources in its Caribbean colonies, more valuable economically and more readily defensible.

Today's critics of Voltaire's opinion are directed primarily at his economic assessment of the Canadian colony. Voltaire’s idea of the Canadian colony based essentially on fur trade was, even at the time of his own writings, already outdated by almost a century. Thus, although it may be difficult to determine exactly what part of his depiction of Canada might be attributed to deliberate exaggeration for polemical purposes, to attachment to a preconceived idea or to mere misinformation, his few writings on the subject do seem to display a certain level of short-sightedness regarding the actual level of economic evolution that had, by then, already been reached in the settled parts of Canada and about the colony’s potential for further development.

On the other hand, Voltaire's assessment of the heavy financial burden required for the military defence of Canada and of the practical impossibility of such defence in the long term remains valid. Consequently, had he espoused a more favourable idea of the economic potential of the colony, that would likely not have changed his general conclusion.

Voltaire's famous quotations about New France were for the most part written between 1753 and 1763, shortly before, and then during, the Seven Years' War. Voltaire was living in Switzerland during most of this period. During the war, he sometimes appeared to favor the Prussian king Frederick II (allied to Britain against France), with whom he was maintaining a regular personal correspondence during the war (the two men being again in better terms after their quarrel of 1753). Voltaire was also at the same time in correspondence with some French ministers. He thus corresponded with both sides of the belligerents in the war, although mostly on a personal and literary level more than a political level. He thought that the war was a mistake for France and he used several opportunities to ask the French ministers to simply quit the war. Boundary disputes in their American colonies had been an early casus belli (1754) between Britain and France in this war, which was later (1756) further complicated by purely European considerations and ended seven years later (1763). Voltaire's position that France should let go of its North American colonies was in accord with his position about the war in general. For him, handing over New France would appease Britain. His position about the European war likely increased his tendency to paint New France as being of little value.