Oast V ( 0">>'2. Book__ 4)^6, 9~ REPORT ON THE f Bmh AFFAIRS OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA • * \ : Y FROM THE EARL OF DURHAM, HER MAJESTY'S HIGH COMMISSIONER, &c. &c. &c, (Officially communicated to both Houses of the Imperial Parliament, on the 11th of February, 1839.) MONTREAL I PRINTED AT THE MORNING COURIER OFFICE, *T. TRANCOIt XAVIER ITREET. 1839. \ «0 V fj do REPORT, &e. To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY : — Your Majesty in entrusting me with the Government of the Province of Lower Canada, during the critical period of the suspension of its Constitution, was pleased, at the same time, to impose on me a task of equal difficulty, and of far more permanent importance, by appointing me " High Commissioner for the adjustment of certain important ques- tions depending in the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, respecting the form and future Government of the said Provinces." To enable me to discharge this duty with the greater efficiency, I was invested, not only with the title, but with the actual functions of Governor General of all your Majesty's North American Provinces ; and my instructions restrict- ed my authority by none of those limitations that had, in fact, deprived preceding Governors of Lower Canada of all controul over the other Provinces, which, nevertheless, it had been the practice to render nomi- nally subordinate to them. It was in addition, therefore, to the exclusive management of the administrative business of an extensive and disturbed Province, to the legislative duties that were accumulated on me during the abeyance of its representative government, and to the constant com- munications which I was compelled to maintain, not only with the Lieutenant-Governors, but also with individual inhabitants of the other five Provinces, that J had to search into the nature and extent of the questions of which the adjustment is requisite for the tranquillity of the Canadas ; to set on foot various and extensive inquiries into the institu. tions and administration of those Provinces ; and, to devise such reforms in the system of their Government as might repair the mischief which had already been done, and lay the foundations of order, tranquillity, and improvement. The task for providing for the adjustment of questions affecting the very •« form and administration of civil government was naturally lim. ited in the two provinces in which the settlement of such questions had been rendered matter of urgent necessity, by the events that had in one seriously endangered, and in the other actually suspended, the working of the existing constitution. But though the necessity only reached thus far, the extension of my authority over all the British provinces in North America, for the declared purpose of enabling me more effectually to ad- just the constitutional questions then at issue, in two of them, together with the specific instructions contained in Despatches from the Secretary of State, brought under my view the character and influence of the in. stitutions established in all. I found in all these Provinces a form of Government so nearly the same — institutions generally so similar, and occasionally so connected — and interests, feelings and habits so much in common, that it was obvious, at the first glance, that my conclusions would be formed without a proper use of the materials at my disposal, unless my inquiries were as extended as my power of making them.— How inseparably connected I found the interests of your Majesty's Pro. vinces in North America, to what degree I met with common disorders, requiring common remedies, is an important topic, which it will be my duty to discuss very fully before closing this report. My object at pre- sent is merely to explain the extent of the task imposed on me, and to point out the fact, that an inquiry originally directed only to two, has ne. cessarily been extended over all your Majesty's Provinces in North Ameri. ca. While I found the field of inquiry thus large, and every day's experi- ence and reflection impressed more deeply on my mind the importance of that decision which it would be my duty to suggest, it became equally clear that that decision, to be of any avail, must bo prompt and final. I needed no personal observation to convince me of this ; for the evils I had it in charge to remedy are evils which no civilized community can long continue to bear. There is no class or section of your Majesty's subjects in either of the Canadas that does not suffer from both the ex- isting disorder and the doubt which hangs over the future form and poli- cy of the Government. While the present state of things is allowed to last, the actual inhabitants of these Provinces have no security for per- eon or property, no enjoyment of what they possess, no stimulus to in- dustry. The developement of the vast resources of these extensive terri- tories is arrested ; and the population, which should be attracted to fill and fertilize them, is directed into foreign states. Every day during which a final and stable Settlement is delayed the condition of the Colo- nies becomes worse, the minds of men more exasperated, and the success of any scheme of adjustment more precarious. I was aware of the necessity of promptitude in my decision on the most important of the questions committed to me at a very early period after my acceptance of the mission which your Majesty was pleased to confide to me. Before leaving England, I assured your Majesty's ministers that the plan which I should suggest for the future Government of the Cana- das should be in readiness by the commencement of the ensuing session ; and, though I had made provision that, under any circumstances, the measures which I might suggest should be explained and supported in Parliament by some person who would have had a share in the prepara- tion of them, I added, that it was not improbable that I might deem it my paramount duty towards the Provinces entrusted to me to attend in my place in the House of Lords, for the purpose of explaining my own views, and supporting my own recommendations. My resignation of the office of Governor General has therefore in no wise precipitated my sug. gestion of the plan which appears to me best calculated to settle the fu- ture form and policy of Government in the Canadas. It has prevent- ed, certainly, my completing some inquiries which I had instituted, with a view of effecting practical reforms of essential, but still of subordinate importance. But with the chief of my duties as High Commissioner — that of suggesting the future constitution of these Colonies, that event has interfered in no way, except in so far as the circumstances which at- tended it, occasioned an undue intrusion of extraneous business on the time which was left for the completion of my labours. In truth, the administrative and legislative business which daily de- manded my attention could, with difficulty, be discharged by the most un- remitting labour on my own part, and on that of all those who accompa- nied me from England, or were employed by me in Canada. It is in these circumstances, and under such disadvantages, that this report has been prepared. I may not therefore present as extended and as complete a foundation as I could have wished, for those measures of vast and permanent importance which Parliament will find it necessary to adopt. But it will include the whole range of those subjects which it is essential should be brought under your Majesty's view, and will prove that I have not rested content without fully developing the evils which lie at the root of the disorders of the North American Provinces, and at the same time suggesting remedies which, to the best of my judgment, will provide an effectual cure. The same reasons and the same obstacles have prevented me from an- nexing a greater amount of detail and illustration, which, under more fa. vorable circumstances, it would have been incumbent on me to collect,for the purpose of rendering clear and familiar to every mind every par- licular of a state of things on which little correct and much false infor- mation has hitherto been current in this country. I cannot, therefore, but deeply regret that such a drawback on its efficacy should have been a necessary conseqnence of the circumstances under which the report has been prepared. I still hope that the materials collected by me, though not as ample as I could have desired, will, nevertheless, be found sufficient for enabling the Imperial Legislature to form a sound decision on the important interests which are involved in the result of its deliber- ations. These interests are indeed of great magnitude ; and on the course which your Majesty and your Parliament may adopt, with respect to the North American colonies, will dopend the future destinies, not only of the million and a half of your Majesty's subjects who at present inhabit those provinces, but of that vast population which those ample and fer- tile territories are fit and destined hereafter to support. No portion of the American continent possesses greater natural resources for the main- tenance of large and flourishing communities. An almost boundless range of the richest soil still remains unsettled, and may be rendered available for the purposes ot agriculture. The wealth of inexhaustible forests of the best timber in America, and of extensive regions of the most valuable minerals, have has yet been scarcely touched. Along the whole line of sea-coast, around each island, and in every river, are to be be found the greatest and richest fisheries in the world. The best fuel and the most abundant water-power are available for the coarser manufac- tures, for which an easy and certain market will bo found. Trade with other continents is favored by the possession of a large number of safe and specious harbours ; long, deep, and numerous rivers, and vast inland seas supply the means of easy intercourse ; and the structure of the country generally affords the utmost facility for every species of commu- nication by land. Unbounded materials of agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing industry are there : it depends upon the present decision of the Imperial Legislature to determine for whose benefit they are to be rendered available. The country which has founded and maintained these colonies at a vast expense of blood and treasure, may justly expect its compensation in turning their unappropriated resources to the account of its own redundant population ; they are the rightful patrimony of the English people, the ample apanage which God and nature have set aside in the new world for those whose lot has assigned them but insufficient portions in the old. Under wise and free institutions these great advan- tages may yet be secured to your Majesty's subjects, and a connection secured by the link of kindred origin, and mutual benefits may continue to bind to the British empire the ample territories of its North American provinces, and the large and flourishing population by which they will assuredly be filled. Lower Canada. The prominent place which the dissensions of Lower Canada had, for some years, occupied in the eyes of the Imperial Legislature, the alarm- ing state ef disorder indicated or occasioned by the recent insurrection, and the paramount necessity of my applying my earliest efforts to the re- establishment of free and regular government in that particular colony, in which it was then wholly suspended, necessarily directed my first inqui- ries to the province of which the local government was vested in my hands. The suspension of the constitution gave me an essential advan- tage over my predecessors in the conduct of my inquiries ; it not merely relieved me from the burden of constant discussions with the legislative bodies, but it enabled me to turn my attention from the alleged to the real grievances of the province ; to leave on one side those matters of temporary contest which accident or the interests and passions of parties had elevated into undue importance ; and, without reference to the re- presentations of the disputants, to endeavour to make myself master of the real condition of the people, and the real causes of dissatisfaction or suffering. It was also a great advantage to me in one respect that the 6 ordinary business of the government of the province was combined with the functions of my inquiry. The routine of every day's administrative business brought strongly and familiarly before me the working of the institutions on which I was called to judge. The condition of the peo- ple, the system by which they were governed, were thus rendered fami- liar to me, and I soon became satisfied that I must search in the very composition of society, and in the fundamental institutions of govern- ment, for the causes of the constant and extensive disorder which I wit- nessed. The lengthened and various discussions which had for some years been carried on between the contending parties in the colony, and the repre- sentations which had been circulated at home, had produced in mine, as in most minds in England, a very erroneous view of the parties at issue in Lower Canada. The quarrel which I was sent for the purpose of healing, had been a quarrel between the executive government and the popular branch of the legislature. The latter body had, apparently, been contending for popular rights and free government. The executive gov- ernment had been defending the prerogative of the Crown, and the insti- tutions which, in accordance with the principles of the British constitu- tion, had been established as checks on the unbridled exercise of popular power. Though, during the dispute, indications had been given of the existence of dissensions, yet deeper and more formidable than any which arose from simply political causes, I had still, in common with most of my countrymen, imagined that the original and constant source of the evil was to be found in the defects of the political institutions of the pro- vinces ; that a reform of the constitution, or perhaps merely the intro- duction of a sounder practice into the administration of the government, would remove all causes of contest and complaint. This opinion was strengthened by the well-known fact, that the political dissensions which had produced their most formidable results in this province, had assum- ed a similar, though milder, form in the neighbouring colonies ; and that the tranquillity of each of the North American provinces was subject to constant disturbance from collision between the executive and the repre- sentatives of the people. The constitutions of these colonies, the official characters and positions of the contending parties, the avowed subjects of dispute, and the general principles asserted on each side, were so sim- ilar, that I could not but concur in the very general opinion, that the common quarrel was the result of some common defect in the almost identical institutions of these provinces. I looked on it as a dispute analogous to those with which history and experience have made us so familiar in Europe — a dispute between a people demanding an extension of popular privileges on the one hand, and an executive, on the other, defending the powers which it conceived necessary for the maintenance of order. I supposed that my principal business would be that of deter- mining how far each party might be in the right, or which was in the wrong; of devising some means of removing the defects which had oc- casioned the collision ; and of restoring such a balance of the constitu- tional powers as might secure the free and peaceful working of the ma- chine of government. In a Despatch which I addressed to your Majesty's Principal Secreta- ry of State for "the Colonies, on the 9th of August last, I detailed with great minuteness the impressions which had been produced on my mind by the state of things which existed in Lower Canada : I acknowledge that the experience derived from my residence in the Province had com- pletely changed my view of the relative influence of the causes which had been assigned for the existing disorders. I had not, indeed, been brought to believe that the institutions of Lower Canada were less de- fective than I had originally presumed them to be. From the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed, I was enabled to make such effec. tual observations as convinced me that there had existed in the constitu- tion of the Province, in the balanco of political powers, in the spirit and practice of administration in every department of the Government, de- fects that were quite sufficient to account for a great degree of misman. mgement and dissatisfaction. The same observation had also impressed on me the conviction that, for the peculiar and disastrous dissensions of this Province, there existed a far deeper and far more efficient cause — a cause which penetrated beneath its political institutions into its social state — a cause which no leform of constitution or laws that should leave the elements of society unaltered could remove, but which must be re- moved ere any success could be expected in any attempt to remedy the many evils of this unhappy Province. I expected to find a contest be- tween a Government and a People : I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state: I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races ; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions, until we could first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English. It would be vain for me to expect that any description I can give will impress on your Majesty such a view of the animosity of these races as my personal experience in Lower Canada has forced on me. Our happy immunity from any feelings of national hostility, renders it difficult for us to comprehend the intensity of the hatred which the difference of language, of laws, and of manners, creates between those who inhabit the same village, and are citizens of the same state. We are ready to believe that the real motive of the quarrel is something else ; and that the difference of race has slightly and occasionally aggravated dissen- sions, which we attribute to some more usual cause. Experience of a state of society, so unhappily divided as that of Lower Canada leads to an exactly contrary opinion. The national feud forces itself on the very senses, irresistibly and palpably, as the origin or the essence of every dispute which divides the community ; we discover that dissensions, which appear to have another origin, are but forms of this constant and all-pervading quarrel ; and that every contest is one of French and Eng- lish in the outset, or becomes so ere it has run its course. The political discontents, for which the vicious system of Government has given too much cause, have for a long time concealed or modified the influence of the national quarrel. It has been argued that origin can have but little effect in dividing the country, inasmuch as individuals of each race have constantly been enlisted together on the side of Gov- ernment, or been found united in leading the assembly to assail its alle- ged abuses ; that the names of some of the prominent leaders of the rebellion mark their English, while those of some of the most unpopular supporters of the government denote their French origin ; and that the representatives, if not an actual majority (as has occasionally been as- serted,) at any rate of a large proportion of the purely English popula- tion, have been found constantly voting with the majority of 1 the assem- bly against what is called the British part} . Temporary and local causes have, no doubt, to a certain extent, produced such results. The national hostility has not assumed its permanent influence till of late years, nor has it exhibited itself every where at once. While it displayed itself long ago in the cities of Quebec and Montreal, where the leaders and masses of the rival races most speedily came into collision, the inhabitants of the Eastern Townships, who were removed from all personal contact with the French, and those of the District below Quebec, who experienced little interference from the English, continued to a very late period to entertain comparatively friendly feelings towards those of the opposite races. But this is a distinction which has unfortunately, year after year, been exhibiting itself more strongly, and diffusing itself more widely. — One by one the ancient English leaders of the assembly have fallen off from the majority, and attached themselves to the party which supported the British Government against it. Every election from the Town- ships added to the English minority. On the other hand, year after year, in spite ef the various influences which a government can exercise, and of which no people in the world are more susceptible than the French Canadians; in spite of the additional motives of prudence and patriotism which deter timid or calm men from acting with a party, obviously en. dangering the public tranquillity by the violence of its conduct, the num- ber of French Canadians, on whom the government could rely, has been narrowed by the influence of those associations which have drawn them into the ranks of their kindred. The insurrection of 1837 completed the division. Since the resort to arms, the two races have been distinctly and completely arrayed against each other. No portion of the English population was backward in taking arms in defence of the government : with a single exception, no portion of the Canadian population was al- lowed to do so, even where it was asserted by some that their loyalty in. clined them thereto. The exasperation thus generated has extended over the whole of each race. — The most just and sensible of the English, those whose politics had always been most liberal, those who had always advocated the most moderate policy in the provincial disputes, seem from that moment to have taken their part against the French as resolutely, if not as fiercely as the rest of their countrvmen, and to have joined in the determination never again to submit to a French majority. A few ex- ceptions mark the existence, rather than militate against the truth of the general rule of national hostility. A few of the French, distinguished by moderate and enlarged views, still condemn the narrow national pre- judices and ruinous violence of their countrymen while they equally re- sist what they consider the violent and unjust pretensions of a minority, and endeavour to form a middle party between the two extremes. A large part of the Catholie Clergy, a few of the principal proprietors of the seignorial families, and some of those who are influenced by ancient connexions of party, support the government against the revolutionary violence. A very few persons of English origin (not more, perhaps, than fifty out of the whole number,) still continue to act with the party which they originally espoused. Those who affect to form a middle party ex. ereised no influence on the contending extremes ; and those who side with the nation from which their birth distinguishes them, are regarded by their countrymen with aggravated hatred, as renegades from their race ; while they obtain but little of the real affection, confidence, or esteem of those whom they have joined. The grounds of quarrel which are commonly alleged appear, on inves- tigation, to have little to do with its real cause ; and the inquirer, who has imagined that the public demonstration or professions of the parties have put him in possession of their real motives and designs, is surprised to find, upon nearer observation, how much he has been deceived by the false colours under which they have been in the habit of fighting. It is not indeed, surprising that each party should, in this instance, have practised more than the usual frauds of language, by which factions in every country seek to secure the sympathy of other communities. A quarrel based on the mere ground of national animosity appoars so re. volting to the notions of good sense and charity prevalent in the civili- zed world, that the parties who feel such a passion the most strongly,and indulge it the most openly, are at great pains to class themselves under any denominations but those which would correctly designate their ob- jects and feelings. The French Canadians have attempted to shroud their hostility to the influence of English emigration, and the introduc- tion of British institutions, under the guise of warfare against the go- vernment and its supporters, whom they represented to be a small knot of corrupt and insolent dependents; being a majority, they have invoked the principles of popular control and democracy, and appealed with no little effect to the sympathy of liberal politicians in every quarter of the world. The English finding their opponents in collision with the go. vernment,have raised the cry of loyalty and attachment to British connec. tion, and denounced the republican designs of the French, whom they designate, or rather used to designate, by the appellation of Radicals. — Thus the French have been viewed as a democratic party, contending for reform ; and the English, as a Conservative minority, protecting the menaced connection with the British Crown, and the supreme authority of the empire. There is truth in this notion, in so far as respects the means by which each party sought to carry its own views of government into effect. The Frenoh majority asserted the most democratic doctrines of the rights of a numerical mnjority. The English minority availed it- self of the protection of the prerogative, and allied itself with all those of the colonial institutions which enabled the few to resist the will of the many. But when we look to the objects of each party, the analogy to our own politics seems to be lost, if not actually reversed; the French appear to have used their democratic arms for conservative purposes, ra. t her than those of liberal and enlightened movement; and the sympa- thies of the friends of reform are naturally enlisted on the 6ide of sound amelioration which the English minority in vain attempted to introduce into the antiquated laws of the Province. Yet even on the questions which had been most recently the prominent matters of dispute between the two parties, it is difficult to believe that the hostility of the races was the effect, and not the cause, of the pertina- city with which the desired reforms were pressed or resisted. The English complained of the Assembly's refusal to establish registry offices, and to commute the feudal tenures ; and yet it was among the ablest and most influential leaders of the English that I found some of the opponents of both the proposed reforms. The leaders of the French were anxious to disclaim any hostility to these reforms themselves. Many of them represented the reluctance which the assembly had exhibited to entertain these questions, as a result of the extraordinary influence which Mr. Papineau exercised over that body ; his opposition was accounted for by some peculiar prejudices of education and professional practice, in which he was said to find little concurrence among his countrymen ; it was stated that even his influence would not have prevented these ques- tions from being very favorably entertained by the assembly, had it ever met again ; and I received assurances of a friendly disposition towards them, which I must say were very much at variance with the reluctance which the leading men of the party showed to any co-operation with me in the attempts which I subsequently made to carry these very objects into effect. At the same time while the leading men of the French party thus rendered themselves liable to the imputation of a timid or narrow- minded opposition to these improvements, the mass of the French popu- lation, who are immediate sufferers by the abuses of the seignorial system, exhibited, in every possible shape, their hostility to the state of things which their leaders had so obstinately maintained. There is every reason to believe that a great number of the peasants who fought at St. Denis and St, Charles, imagined that the principal result of success would be the overthrow of tithes and feudal burthens ; and in the declaration of independence which Dr. Robert Nelson issued, two of the objects of the insurrection were stated to be the abolition of feudal tenures, and the establishment of registry offices.* When 1 observe these inconsistencies of conduct among the opponents and supporters of these reforms; when I consider that their attainment was prevented by means of the censitaires, the very persons most interested in their success, and that they were not more eagerly demanded by the wealthier of the English than by the arti- sans and labourers of that race whose individual interests would hardly have derived much benefit from their success, I cannot but think that many, both of the supporters and of the opponents, cared less for the measures themselves, than for the handle which the agitation of them * Among the few petitions, except those of mere compliment, which I received from French Canadians, were three or four for the abolition and commutation of the feudal tenures. But the mo$t remarkable was one which was presented from the inhabitants of the county of Saguenay, and supported by Mr. Charles Drolet, late M. P. P. for that county. The petitioners, who represented themselves as suffering under a degree of distress of which the existence is too deplorably cer- tain, prayed to be allowed to settle on the wild lands at the head of the Saguenay. They expressed their willingness to take the lands on any conditions which the government might propose, but they prayed that it should not be granted on the feudal tenure. 10 gave to their national hostility ; that the Assembly resisted these changes chiefly because the English desired them ; and that the eagerness with which many of the English urged them was stimulated by finding them opposed by the French. Nor did I find the spirit which animated each party at all more coinci- dent with the representations current in this country, than their objects appeared, when tried by English, or, rather, by European ideas of reform- ing legislation. An utterly uneducated and singularly inert population, implicitly obeying leaders who ruled them by the influence of a blind confidence and narrow national prejudices, accorded very little with the resemblance which had been discovered to that high spirited democracy which effected the American Revolution. Still less could I discover in the English population those slavish tools of a narrow official clique, or a few purse-proud merchants, which their opponents had described them as being. I have found the main body of the English population, consist, ing of hardy farmers and humble mechanics, composing a very independ- ent, not very manageable, and, sometimes, a rather turbulent, democra- cy. Though constantly professing a somewhat extravagant loyalty and high prerogative doctrines, I found them very determined on maintain, ing, in their own persons, a great respect for popular rights, and singu- larly ready to enforce their wishes by the strongest means of constitu- tional pressure on the government. Between them and the Canadians I found the strongest hostility ; and that hostility was, as might be expect, ed, most strongly developed among the humblest and rudest of the body. Between them and the small knot of officials, whose influence has been represented as so formidable, I found no sympathy whatever ; and it must be said, in justice to this body of officials, who have been so much assail, ed as the enemies of the Canadian people, that, however little J can ex. cuse the injurious influence of that system of administration, which they were called upon to carry into execution, the members of the oldest and most powerful official families were, of all the English in the country, those in whom I generally found most sympathy with, and kindly feel, ing towards the French population. I could not therefore believe that this animosity was only that subsisting between an official oligarchy and a people ; and again, I was brought to a conviction that the contest, which had been represented as a contest of classes, was, in fact, a con. test of races. However unwilling we may be to attribute the disorders of a country connected with us to a cause so fatal to its tranquillity, and one which it seems so difficult to remove, no very long or laboured consideration of the relative characters and position of these races is needed for convinc- ing us of their invincible hostility towards each other. It is scarcely pos- sible to conceive descendants of any of the great European nations more unlike each other in character and temperament, more totally separated from each other by language, laws, and modes of life, or placed in circum- stances more calculated to produce mutual misunderstanding,jealousy and hatred. To conceive the incompatibility of the two races in Canada, it is not enough that we should picture to ourselves a community compos, ed of equal proportions of French and English. We must bear in mind what kind of French and English they are that are brought in contact, and in what proportions they meet. The institutions of France, during the period of the colonization of Canada, were, perhaps, more than those of any other European nation, calculated to repress the intelligence and freedom of the great mass of the people. These institutions followed the Canadian colonist across the Atlantic. The same central, ill-organized, unimproving and repressive despotism extended over him. Not merely was he allowed no voice in the government of his province, or the choice of his rulers, but he was not even permitted to associate with his neighbours fer the regulation of those municipal affairs, which the central authority neglected under the pretext of managing. He obtained his land on a tenure singularly calcu- lated to promote his immediate comfort, and to check his desire to better his condition, he was placed at once in a life of constant and unvarying 11 labour, of great material comfort, and feudal dependence. The ecclesi- astical authority to which he had been accustomed established its institu- tions around him, and the priest continued to exercise over him, its an- cient influence. No general provision was made for education ; and, as its necessity was not appreciated, the colonist made no attempt to repair the negligence of his government. It need not surprise us that, under such circumstances, a race of men habituated to the incessant labour of a rude and unskilled, agriculture, ( and habitually fond of social enjoyments, congregated together in rural communities, occupying portions of the wholly unappropriated soil, sufficient to provide each family with mate- rial comforts, far beyond their ancient means, or almost their concep- tions ; that they made little advance beyond the first progress in comfort, which the bounty of the soil absolutely forced upon them ; that under the same institutions they remained the same un instructed, inactive unpro- gressive people. Along the alluvial banks of the St. Lawrence, and its tributaries, they have cleared two or three strips of land, cultivated them in the worst method of small farming, and established a series of conti- nuous village, which give the country of the seigniories the appearance of a never-ending street. Besides the cities which were the seats of go. vernment, no towns were established ; the rude manufactures of the country were and still are carried on in the cottage by the family of the habitant ; and an insignificant proportion of the population derived their subsistence from the scarcely discernible commerce of the province. What, ever energy existed among the population was employed in the fur trade, and the occupations of hunting, which they and their descendants have carried beyond the Rocky Mountains, and still, in a great measure, mono, polise in the whole valley of the Mississippi. The massof the commani. ty exhibited in the New World the characteristics of the peasantry of Eu- rope. Society was dense ; and even the wants and the poverty which the pressure of population occasioned in the Old World, became not to be wholly unknown. They clung to ancient prejudices, ancient customs and ancient laws, not from any strong sense of their beneficial effects, but with the unreasoning tenacity of an uneducated and unpregressive people. Nor were they wanting in the virtues of a simple and industrious jife, or in those which common consent attributes to the nation from which they spring. The temptations which, in other states of society, lead tooffen. ces against property, and the passions which prompt to violence, were little known among them. They are mild and kindly, frugal, industrious and honest, very sociable, cheerful and hospitable, and distinguished for a courtesy and real politeness which pervades every class of society. The conquest has changed them but little. The higher classes, andtheinhabi. tants of the towns, have adopted some English customs and feelings ; but the continued negligence of the British government left the mass of the people without any of the institutions which would have elevated them in freedom and civilization. It has left them without the education and without the institutions of local self-government, that would have assi- milated their character and habits, in the easiest and best way, to those of the empire of which they became a part. They remain an old and sta- tionary society, in a new and progressive world. In all essentials they are still French ; but French in every respect dissimilar to those of France in the present day . They resemble rather the French of the pro. vinces under the old regime. I cannot pass over this subject without calling particular attention to a peculiarity in the social condition of this people, of which the important bearing on the troubles of Lower Canada has never, in my opinion, been properly estimated. The circumstances of a new and unsettled coun. try, the operations of the French laws of inheritance, and the absence of any means of accumulation, by commerce or manufactures, have produ- ced a remarkable equality of properties and conditions. A few seigno. rial families possess large, though not often very valuable properties ; the class entirely dependent on wages is very small ; the bulk of the po- pulation is composed of the hard-working yeomanry of the country dis- tricts, commonly called habitants, and their connections engaged in other 12 occupations. It is impossible to exaggerate the want of education! among the habitans, no means of instruction have ever been provided for them, and they are almost universally destitute of the qualifications even of reading and writing. It came to my knowledge that out of a great number of boys and girls assembled at the school-house door of St. Tho- mas, all but three admitted, on inquiry, that they could not read. Yet the children of this large parish, attend school regularly, and actually make use of books. They hold the catechism book in their hand, as it they were reading, while they only repeat its contents, which they know by rote. The common assertion, however, that all classes of the Cana- dians are equally ignorant, is perfectly erroneous ; for I know of no peo- ple among whom a larger provision exists for the higher kinds of ele- mentary education, or among whom such education is really extended to a larger proportion of the population. The piety and benevolence of the early possessors of the country founded, in the seminaries that exist in different parts of the province, institutions, of which the funds and acti- vity have long been directed to the promotion of education. Seminaries and colleges have been, by these bodies, established in the cities and in other central points. The education given in these establishments great- ly resembles the kind given in the English public schools, though it is rather more variod. It is entirely in the hands of the Catholic clergy. — The number of pupils in these establishments is estimated altogether at about a thousand ; aand they turn out every year, as far as I could ascer- tain, between two and three hundred young men thus educated. Almost all of these are members of the family of some habitant, whom the pos- session of greater quickness than his brothers has induced the father or the curate of the parish to select and send to the seminary. These young men possessing a degree, of information immeasurably superior to that of their families, are naturally averse to what they regard as de- scending to the humble occupations of their parents. A few become priests ; but as the military and naval professions are closed against the colonist, the greater part can only find a position suited to their notions of their own qualifications in the learned professions of advocate, notary, and surgeon. As from this cause these professions are greatly over- stocked, we find every village in Lower Canada filled with notaries and surgeons, with little practice to occupy their attention, and living among their own families, or at any rate among exactly the same class. Thus the persons of most education in every village belong to the same fami- lies, and the same original station in life, as the illiterate habitans whom I have described. They are connected with them by all the associations of early youth, and the ties of blood. The most perfect equality always marks their intercourse, and the superior in education is separated by no barrier of manners, or pride, or distinct interests, from the singularly ig- norant peasantry by which he is surrounded. He combines, therefore, the influences of superior knowledge and social equality, and wields a power over the mass, which I do not believe that the educated class of any other portion of the world possess. To this singular state of things I attribute the extraordinary influence of the Canadian demagogues. — The most uninstructed population anywhere trusted with political power is thus placed in the hands of a small body of instructed persons, in whom it reposes the confidence which nothing but such domestic con. nexion and such community of interest could generate. Over the class of persons by whom the peasantry are thus led the government has not acquired, or ever labored to acquire, influence. Its members have been thrown into opposition by the system of exclusion long prevalent in the colony, and it is by their agency that the leaders of the assembly have been enabled hitherto to move as one mass in whatever direction they thought proper, the simple and ductile population ot the country. The entire neglect of education by the government has thus, more than any other cause, contributed to render this people ungovernable, and to invest the agitator with the power which he wields against the laws and the public tranquillity. Among this people the progress of emigration has of late years intro 13 duced an English population, exhibiting the characteristics with which we are familiar, as those of the most enterprising of every class of our countrymen. The circumstances of the early colonial administration excluded the native Canadian from power, and vested all officers of trust and emolument in the hands of strangers of English origin. The highest posts in the law were confided to the same class of persons. The func. tionaries of the civil government, together with the officers of the army, composed a kind of privileged class occupying the first place in the com- munity, and excluding the higher class of the natives from society, as well as from the government of their own country. It was not till within a very few years, as was testified by persons who had seen much of the country, that this society of civil and military functionaries ceased to exhi- bit towards the higher order of Canadians an exclusiveness of demeanour which was more revolting to a sensitive and polite people than the mono- poly of power and profit ; nor was this national favouritism discontinued, until after repeated complaints and an angry contest, which had excited passions that concession could not allay. The races had become enemies ere a tardy justice was extorted ; and even then the government discover- ed a mode of distributing its patronage among the Canadians, which was quite as offensive to that people as their previous exclusion. It was not long after the conquest that another and larger class of English settlers began to enter the province. English capital was attracted to Canada by the vast quantity and valuable nature of the export, able produced of the country, and the great facilities for commerce, pre- sented by the natural means of internal intercourse. The ancient trade of the country, was conducted on a much larger and more profitable scale ; and new branches of industry were explored. The active and regular habits of the English capitalist drove out of all the more profitable kinds of industry their inert and careless competitors of the French race ; but, in respect of the greater part (almost the whole) of the commerce and manufactures of the country, the English cannot be said to have encroa- ched on the French ; for, in fact, they created employments and profits which had not previously existed. A few of the ancient race smarted under the loss occasioned by the success of English competition: but all felt yet more acutely the gradual increase of a class of strangers in whose hands the wealth of the country appeared to centre, and whose expenditure and influence eclipsed those of the class which had previously occupied the first position in the country. ]\or was the intrusion of the English limited to commercial enterprizes. By degrees, large portions of land were oc- cupied by them ; nor did they confine themselves to the unsettled and distant country of the townships. The wealthy capitalists invested his money in the purchase of seignorial properties ; and it is estimated that at the present moment full half of the more valuable seignories are actually owned by English proprietors. The seignorial tenure is one so little adapted to our notions of proprietary rights, that the new seigneur, with^- out any cr nsciousness or intention of injustice, in many instances exer- cised his rights in a manner which would appear perfectly fair in this country, but which the Canadian settler reasonably regarded as oppressive. The English purchaser found an equally unexpected and just cause of com- plaint in that uncertainty of the laws, which rendered his possession of property precarious, and in those incidents of the tenure which rendered its alienation or improvement difficult. But an irritation greater than that occasioned by the transfer of the large properties was caused by the competition of the English with the French farmer. The English farmer carried with him the experience and habits of the most improved agri* culture in the world. He settled himself in the townships bordering on the seignories, and brought a fresh soil and improved cultivation to com- pete with the worn-out and slovenly farm of the habitant. He often took the very farm which the Canadian settler had abandoned, and by superior management made that a source of profit which had only impoverished his predecessor. The ascendancy which an unjust favouritism had con- tributed to give to the English race in the government and the legal profession, their own superior energy, skill, and capital secured to them 14 in every branch of industry. They have developed the resources of the country — tbey have constructed or improved its means of communication — they have created its internal and foreign commerce- The entire wholesale, and a large portion of the retail trade of the province, with the most profitable and flourishing farms, are now in the hands of this numerical minority of the population. In Lower Canada the mere working class which depends on wages, though proportionally large in comparison with that to be found in any other portion of the American continent, is, according to our ideas, very small. Competition between persons of different origin in this class has not exhibited itself till very recently, and is, even now, almost confined, to the cities. The large mass of the labouring population are French in the employ of English capitalists. The more skilled class of artisans^are generally English ; but the general run of the more laborious employ- ments, the French Canadians fully hold their ground, against English rivalry. The emigration which took place a few years ago, brought in a class which entered into more direct competition with the French in some kinds of employment in the towns ; but the individuals effected by this competition were not very many. I do not believe that the animosity which exists between the working classes of the two origins is the neces- sary result of a collision of interests, or of a jealousy of the superior sue cess of English labour. But national prejudices naturally exercise the greatest influence over the most uneducated ; the difference of language is less easily overcome ; the difference of manners and customs less easily appreciated. The labourers, whom the emigration introduced, contained a number of very ignorant, turbulent, and demoralised persons, whose conduct and manners alike revolted the well ordered and courteousjna- tives of the same class. The working men naturally ranged themselves on the side of the educated and wealth of their own countrymen. When once engaged in the conflict, their passions were less restrained by educa- tion and prudence; and the national hostility now rages most fiercely be- tween those whose interests in reality bring them the least in collision. The two races thus distinct have been brought into the same commu- nity, under circumstances which rendered their contact inevitably pro- ductive of collision. The difference of language from the first kept them asunder. It is not anywhere a virtue of the English race to look with complacency on any manners, customs or laws which appear strange to them ; accustomed to form a high estimate of their own superiority, they take no pains to conceal from others their contempt and intolerance of their usages. They found the French Canadians filled with an equal amount of national pride ; a sensitive but inactive pride, which disposes that people not to resent insult, but rather to keep aloof from those who would keep them under. The French could not but feel the superiority of English enterprise ; they could not shut their eyes to their success in every undertaking in which they came into contact, and to the constant superiority which they were acquiring. They looked upon their rivals with alarm, with jealousy, and finally with hatred. The English repaid them with scorn, which soon also assumed the same form of hatred. The French complained of the arrogance and injustice of the English ; the English accused the French of the vices of a weak and conquered people, and charged them with meanness and perfidy. The entire mis- trust which the two races have thus learned to conceive of each other's intentions induces them to put the worst construction on the most inno- cent conduct; to judge every word, every act, and every intention un- fairly ; to attribute the most odious designs, and reject everyoverture of kindness or fairness, as covering secret designs of treachery and ma- lignity. Religion formed no bond of intercourse and union. It is, indeed, an admirable feature of Canadian society, that it is entirely devoid of any religious dissensions. Sectarian intolerance is not merely not avowed, but it hardly seems to influence men's feelings. But though the pru- dence and liberality of both parties has prevented this fruitful source of animosity from enbittering their quarrels, the difference of religion has i5 in fact tended to keep them asunder. Their priests have been distinct ; they have not met even in the same church. No common education has served to remove and soften the differences of origin and language. The associations of youth, the sports of child- hood, and the studies by which the character of manhood is modified, are distinct and totally different. In Montreal and Quebec there are English schools and French schools ; the children in these are accustomed to fight nation against nation, and the quarrels that arise among boys in the streets usually exhibit a division into English on one side, and French on the other. As they are taught apart, so are their studies different. The literature with which each is the most conversant, is that of the peculiar language of each J and all the ideas which men derive from books, come to each of them from perfectly different sources The difference of language in this respect produces effects quite apart from those which it has on the mere intercourse of the two races. Those who have reflected on the powerful influence of language and thought, will perceive in how differ- ent a manner people who speak in different languages are apt to think ; and those who are familiar with the literature of France, know that the same opinion will be expressed by an English and French writer of the present day, not merely in different words, but in a style so different as to mark utterly different habits of thought. This difference is very strik- ing in Lower Canada ; it exists not merely in the books of most influence and repute, which are of course those of the great writers of France and England, and by which the minds of the respective races are formed, but it is observable in the writings which now issue from the colonial press. The articles in the newspapers of each race, are written in a style as widely different as those of France and England at present ; and the ar- guments which convince the one, are calculated to appear utterly unin. telligible to the other. The difference of language produces misconceptions yet more fatal even than those which it occasions with respect to opinions ; it aggra- vates the national animosities, by representing all the events of the day in utterly different lights. This political misrepresentation of facts is one of the incidents of a free press in every free country ; but in nations in which all speak the same language, those who receive a misrepresen- tation from one side, have generally some means of learning the truth from the other. In Lower Canada, however, where the French and En- glish papers represent adverse opinions, and where no large portion of the community can read both languages with ease, those who receive the misrepresentation are rarely able to avail themselves of the means of cor- rection. It is difficult to conceive the perversity with which misrepre- sentations are habitually made, and the gross delusions which find cur- rency among the people ; they thus live in a world of misconceptions, in which each party is set against the other not only by diversity of feelings and opinions, but by an actual belief in an utterly different set of facts. The differences thus early occasioned by education and language, are in no wise softened by the intercourse of after-life ; their business and occupations do not bring the two races into friendly contact and co-op- peration, but only present them to each other in occasional rivalry. A laudable emulation has of late induced the French to enter on the field previously occupied by the English, and to attempt to compete with them in commerce, but it is much to be lamented that this did not commence until the national animosities had arrived almost at the highest pitch ; and that the competition has been carried on in such a manner as to wi- den the pre-existing differences. The establishment of the " Banque du Peuple" by French capitalists, is an event which may be regarded as a satisfactory indication of an awakening commercial energy among the French, and it is therefore very much to be regretted that the success of the new enterprise was uniformly promoted by direct and illiberal appeals to the national feelings of the race. Some of the French have lately es- tablished steamboats to compete with the monopoly which a combina- 16 tion of English capitalists had for some time enjoyed on the St. Law- rence, and small and somewhat uncomfortable as they were, they were regarded with favor on account of their superiority in the essential qua- lities of certainty and celerity. But this was not considered sufficient to insure their success ; an appeal was constantly made to the national feelings of the French for an exclusive preference of the «« French'* line, and I have known a French newspaper announce with satisfaction the fact, that on the previous day the French steamers to Quebec and Laprairie had arrived at Montreal with a great many passengers, and the English with very few. The English, on the other hand, appealed to exactly the same kind of feelings, and used to apply to the French steam- boats the epithets of " Radical," " Rebel," and " Disloyal." The intro- duction of this kind of national preference into this department of busi- ness, produced a particularly mischievous effect, inasmuch as it separat- ed the two races on some of the few occasions on which they had been previously thrown into each other's society. They rarely meet at the inns in the cities ; the principal hotels are almost exclusively filled with English and with foreign travellers ; and the French are, for the most part, received at each other's houses, or in boarding houses, in which they meet with few English. Nor do their amusements bring them more in contact. Social inter- course never existed between the two races in any but the higher classes, and it is now almost destroyed. I heard of but one house in Quebec in which both races met on pretty equal and amicable terms, and this was mentioned as a singular instance of good sense on the part of the gentle- man to whom it belongs. At the commencement of Lord Aylmer's ad- ministration, an entertainment was given to His Lordship by Mr. Papi- neau, the Speaker of the House of Assembly. It was generally under- stood to be intended as a mark of confidence and good-will towards the Governor, and of a conciliatory disposition. It was given on a very large scale, a very great number of persons were present; and of that number I was informed by a gentleman who was present, that he and one other were the only English, except the Governor and his suite. Indeed, the difference of manners in the two races renders a general social intercourse almost impossible. A singular instance of national incompatibility was brought before my notice, in an attempt which I made to promote an undertaking, in which the French were said to take a great deal of interest. I accepted the of- fice of president of the Agricultural Association of the District of Que-, bee, and attended the show previous to the distribution of the prizes. I then found that the French farmers would not compete even on this neu- tral ground with the English. Distinct prizes were given, in almost every department, to the two races ; and the national ploughing matches were carried on in separate and distant fields. While such is their social intercourse, it is not to be expected that the animosities of the two races can frequently be softened by the formation of domestic connexions. During the first period of the possession of the colony by the English, intermarriages of the two races were by no means uncommon. But they are now very rare, and where such unions occur they are generally formed with members of the French families, which I have described as politically, and almost nationally, separated from the bulk of their own race. I could mention various slight features in the state of society which show the all-pervading and marked division of the races, but nothing, (though it will sound paradoxical) really proves their entire separation so much as the rarity, nay, almost total absence, of personal encounters between the two races. Disputes of this kind are almost confined to the ruder order of the people, and seldom proceed to acts of violence. As respects the other classes, social intercourse between the two races is so limited, that the more prominent or excitable antagonists never meet in the same room. It came to my knowledge that a gentleman who was for some years a most active and determined leader amongst the English population, had never once been under a private roof with French Ca~ 17 h&dians of his own rank in life, until he met some at table on the invita- tion of persons attached to my mission, who were in the habit of associ. uting indifferently with French and English. There are therefore no po. litical personal controversies. The ordinary occasions of collision never occur, and men must quarrel so publicly or so deliberately, that prudence restrains them from commencing, individually, what would probably end in a general and bloody conflict of numbers. Their mutual fears restrain personal disputes and riots, even among the lower orders ; the French know and dread the superior physical strength ot the English in the cities; and the English in these places refrain from exhibiting their pow. er, from fear of the revenge that might be taken on their countrymen, who are scattered over the rural parishes. This feeling of mutual forbearance extends so far as to produce an ap- parent calm with respect to public matters, which is calculated to perplex a stranger who has heard much of the animosities of the province. Mo trace of them appears in public meetings ; and these take place in every direction, in the most excited periods, and go off without disturbance, and almost without dissent. The fact is, that both parlies have come to a tacit understanding, not in any way to interfere with each other on these occasions ; each party knowing that it would always be in the power of the other to prevent its meetings. The British party consequently have their meetings ; the French theirs ; and neither disturb the other. The complimentary addresses which I received on various occasions, marked the same entire separation, even in a matter in which it might be suppo- sed that party feeling would not be felt, or would from mere prudence and propriety be concealed. I bad from the same places French and English addresses, and I never found the two races uniting, except in a few cases, where I met with the names of two or three isolated members of one origin, who happened to dwell in a community almost entirely composed of the other. The two parties combine for no public object ; they cannot harmonise even in associations of charity. The only public occasion on which they ever meet is in the jury-box ; and they meet there only to the utter obstruction of justice. The hostility which thus pervades society was sometime growing be- fore it became of prominent importance in the politics of the Province. — It was inevitable that such social feelings must end in a deadly political s^ife. The French regarded with jealousy the influence in politics of a daily increasing body of the strangers, whom they so much disliked and dreaded ; the wealthy English were offended at finding that their proper- ty gave them no influence over their French dependents, who were acting under the guidance of leaders of their own race ; and the farmers and traders of the same race were not long before they began to bear with impatience their utter political nullity in the midst of the majority of a population, whose ignorance they contemned, and whose political views and conduct seemed utterly at variance with their own notions of the principles and practice of self-government. The superior political and practical intelligence of the English cannot be for a moment dispu. ted. The great mass of the Canadian population, who cannot read or write, and have found in a few of the institutions of their country, even the elements of political education, were obviously inferior to the Eng. # lish settlers, of whom a large proportion had received a considerable amount of education, and had been trained in their own country to take a part in public busines of one kind or another. With respect to the more educated classes, the superiority is not so general or apparent ; in. deed, from all the information that I could collect, I incline to think that the greater amount of refinement, of speculative thought, and of the knowledge that books can give, is, with some brilliant exceptions, to be found among the French. But I have no hesitation in stating, even more decidedly, that the circumstances in which the English have been placed in Lower Canada, acting on their original political education, have endowed the leaders of that population with much of that practical sagacity, tact, and energy in politics in which I must say that the bad institutions of the colony have, in my opinion, rendered the leaders of c 18 the French deplorably deficient. That a race which felt itself thus supe- rior in political activity and intelligence should submit with patience to the rule of a majority which it could not respect, was impossible. At what time and from what particular cause the hostility between such a majority and such a minority, which was sure sooner or later to break out, actually became of paramount importance, it is difficult to say. The hostility between the assembly and the the British government had long given a tendency to attacks, on the part of the popular leaders on the na- tion to which that government belonged. It is said that the appeals to the national pride and animosities of the French, became more direct and general on the occasion of the abortive attempt to re-unite Upper and Lower Canada in 1822, which the leaders of the assembly viewed or represented as a blow aimed at the institutions of their province. The anger of the English was excited by the denunciations of themselves, which, subsequently to this period, they were in the habit of hearing. — They had possibly some little sympathy with the members of the provin- cial government of their own race ; and their feelings were, probably,yet more strongly excited in favour of the connexion of the colony with Great Britain, which the proceedings of the Assembly appeared to en- danger. But the abuses existing under the provincial government, gave such inducements to remain in opposition to it, that the representatives of each race continued for a long time to act together against it. And as the bulk of the English population in the Townships and on the Otta- wa were brought into very little personal contact withthe French, I am in • clined to think that it might have been some time longer, ere the dis- putes of origin would have assumed an importance paramount to all others, had not the Assembly come into collision with the whole English population by its policy with respect to internal improvements, and to the old and defective laws, which operated as a bar to the alienation of land, and to the formation of associations for commercial purposes. TheEnglish population, an immigrant and enterprising population, look- ed on the American provinces as a vast field for settlement and specula- tion, and in the common spirit of the Anglo. Saxon inhabitants of that continent, regarded it as the chief business of the government to promote, by all possible use of its legislative and administrative powers, the in- crease of population and the accumulation of property ; they found the laws of real property exceedingly adverse to the easy alienation, of land, which is in a new country, absolutely essential to its settlement and im- provement ; they found the greatest deficiency in the internal communi- cations of the country, and the utter want of local self-government ren- der it necessary for them to apply to the Assembly for every road or bridge, or other public work that was needed ; they wished to form themselves in companies for the establishment of banks, and the con- struction of railroads and canals, and to obtain the powers necessary for the completion of such works, with funds of their own. And as the first requisite for the improvement of the country, they desired that a large proportion of the revenue should be applied to the completion of that great series of public works by which it was proposed to render the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa navigable throughout their whole extent. • Without going so far as to accuse the Assembly of a deliberate design to check the settlement and improvement of Lower Canada, it cannot be denied that they looked with considerable jealousy and dislike on the in- crease and prosperity of what they regarded as a foreign and hostile race ; they looked on the province as the patrimony of their own race ; they viewed it not as a country to be settled, but as one already settled ; and instead of legislating in the American spirit, and first providing for the future population of the province, their primary care was, in the spirit of legislation which prevails in the Old World, to guard the interests and feelings of the present race of inhabitants, to whom they considered the new comers as subordinate ; they refused to increase the burthens of the country by imposing taxes to meet the expenditure required for improve- ment, and they also refused to direct to that object any of the funds pre- viously devoted to the other purposes. The improvement of the harbour of 19 Montreal was suspended, from a political antipathy to a leading English merchant who had been the most active of the commissioners, and by whom it had been conducted with the most admirable success. It is but just to say that some of the works which the Assembly authorisnd and en- couraged were undertaken on a scale of due moderation, and satisfactory ly perfected and brought into operation. Others, especially the great communications which I have mentioned above, the Assembly showed a great reluctance to promote or even to permit. It is true that there was considerable foundation for their objections to the plan on which the Le* gislature of Upper Canada had commenced some of these works, and to the mode in which it had carried them on ; but the English complained that instead of profiting by the experience which they might have derived from this source, the Assembly seemed only to make its objections a pre- text for doing nothing. The applications for banks, railroads and canals were laid on one side until some general measures could be adopt- ed with regard to such undertakings ; but the general measures thus pro mised were never passed, and the particular enterprises were prevented. The adoption of, a registry was refused on the alleged ground of itsincon- sistency with the French institutions of the province, and no measuse to attain this desirable end, in a less obnoxious mode, was prepared by the leaders of the Assembly. The feudal tenure was supported, as a mild and just provision for the settlement of a new country ; a kind of assur- ance given by a committee of the Assembly, that some steps should be taken to remove the most injurious incidents of the seignorial tenure, produced no practical results ; and the enterprises of the English were still thwarted by the obnoxious laws of the country. In all these decisions of the Assembly, in its discussions and in the apparent motives of its con. duct, the English population perceived traces of a desire to repress the influx and the success of their race. A measure for imposing a tax on emigrants, though recommended by the Home Government, and war. ranted by the policy of those neighbouring states which give the greatest encouragement to immigration, was argued on such grounds in the As- sembly that it was not unj ustly regarded as indicative of an intention to exclude any further accession to the English population ; and the indus. try of the English was thus retarded by this conduct of the Assembly. Some districts, particularly that of the eastern townships, where the French race has no footing, were seriously injured by the refusal of ne~ jcessary improvements ; and the English inhabitants generally regarded the policy of the Assembly as a plan for preventing any further -emigra. tion to the province, of stopping the growth of English wealth, and of rendering precarious the English property already invested or acquired in Lower Canada. The Assembly of which they thus complained, and of which they en. tertained apprehensions so serious, was at the same time in collision with the executive government. The party in power, and which, by means of the legislative council, kept the Assembly in check, gladly availed it- self of the discontents of this powerful and energetic minority, offered it its protection, and undertook the furtherance of its views ; and thus was cemented the singular alliance between the English population and the colonial officials, who combined from perfectly different motives, and with perfectly different objects, against a common enemy. The English desired reform and liberal measures from the Assembly, which refused them, while it was urging other reforms and demanding other liberal measures from the executive government. The Assembly complained of the oppressive use of the power of the executive ; the English com- plained that they, a minority, suffered under the oppressive use to which power was turned by the French majority. Thus a bold and intelligent democracy was impelled, by its impatience for liberal measures, joined to its national antipathies, to make common cause with a government which was at issue with the majority on the question of popular rights. The actual conflict commenced by a collision between the executive and the French majority ; and, as the English population rallied round the government, supported its pretensions, and designated themselves by the 2d appellation of " loyal," the causes ofthe quarrel were naturally supposed to be much more simple than they really were; and the extent ofthe division which existed among the inhabitants of Lower Canada, the number and nature of the combatants arrayed on each side, and the irre- mediable nature ofthe dispute, Were concealed from the public view. The treasonable attempt ofthe French party to carry its political ob- jects into effect by an appeal to arms, brought these hostile races into general and armed collision. I will not dwell on the melancholy scenes exhibited in the progress of the contest, or the fierce passions which held an unchecked sway during the insurrection, or immediately after its suppression. It is not difficult to conceive how greatly the evils, which 1 have described as previously existing, have been aggravated by the war; how terror and revenge nourished, in each portion of the populai tion, a bitter and irreconcileable hatred to each other, and to the institu- tions of the country. The French population, who had for some time exercised a great and increasing power through the medium of the House of Assembly, found their hopes unexpectedly prostrated in the dust. The physical force which they had vaunted was cijjled into action, and proved to be utterly inefficient. The hope of recovering their previous ascendancy under a constitution similar to that suspended al- most ceased to exist. Removed from all actual share in the government of the country they brood in silence over the memory of their fallen countrymen, of their burnt' villages, of their ruined property, of their extinguished ascendance, and of their humbled nationality. To the go- vernment and the English they ascribe these wrongs, and nourish against both an indiscriminating and eternal animosity. Nor have the English inhabitants forgotten in their triumph the terror with which they saddenly saw themselves surrounded by an insurgent majority, and the incidents which alone appeared to save them from the unchecked domination of their antagonists. They find themselves still a minority in the midst of a hostile and organized people ; apprehensions of secret conspiracies and sanguinary designs haunt them unceasingly, and their only hope of safety is supposed to rest on systematically terrifying and disabling the French, and in preventing a majority of that race from ever again being predominant in any portion of the Legislature of that province, I describe in strong terms the feelings which appear to me to animate each portion of the population ; and the picture which I draw represents a state of things so little familiar to the personal experience of ofthe people of this country, that many will probably regard it as the work of mere imagination ; but I feel confident that the accuracy and moderation of my description will be acknowledged by all who have seen the state of society in Lower Canada during the last year. Nor do I exaggerate the inevitable constancy any more than the intensity of this animosity. Never again will the present generation of French Canadians yield a loyal submission to a British government; never again will the English population tolerate the authority of a House of Assem- bly in which the French shall possess or even approximate to a ma- jority. Nor is it simply the working of representative government which is placed out of question by the present disposition ofthe two races ; every institution which requires for its efficiency a confidence in the mas3 of the people, or co-operation between its classes, is practically in abeyance in Lower Canada. The militia, on which the main defence ofthe province against external enemies, and the discharge of many ofthe functions of internal police have hitherto depended, is completely disorganized. A muster of that force would, in some districts, be the occasion for quarrels between the races, and in the greater part of the country the attempting to arm or employ it would be merely arming the enemies ofthe government. The course of justice is entirely obstructed by the same cause ; a just decision in any political case is not to he relied upon ; even the judicial bench is, in the opinion of both races, divided into two hostile sections of French and English, from neither of whom is justice expected by the mass of the hostile party. The partiality of grand and 21 jpetty juries is a matter of certainty ; each race relies on the vote of its countrymen to save it harmless from the law, and the mode of challeng- ing allows of such an exclusion of the hostile party, that the French of- fender may make sure of, and the English hope for a favorable jury, and a consequent acquittal. This state of things and the consequent impunity of political offences, are distinctly admitted by both sides. The trial of the murderers of Chartrand has placed this disposition of the French jurors in a most glaring light; the notes of the Chief Justice in this case were transmitted by me to the Secretary of State ; and a perusal of them will satisfy every candid and well-ordered mind that a base and cruel as- sassination, committed without a single circumstance of provocation or palliation, was brought home by evidence which no man ever pretended to doubt, against the prisoner, whom the jury nevertheless acquitted. — ■ The duty ot giving this dishonest verdict had been most assiduously and shamefully inculcated by the French press before the trial came on ; the jurors are said to have boen kept for some time previous in the hands of zealous partisans, whose business it was not only to influence their in- clination, but to stimulate their courage ; the array of the leaders of the party who were present at the trial was supposed lo be collected for the same purpose ; and it is notorious that the acquittal was celebrated at public entertainments, to which the jurors were invited in order that they might be thanked for their verdict. But the influence ot this animosity does not obstruct the course of jus- tice in political causes alone. An example of obstruction of ordinary criminal Justice lately occurred at Quebec. A person had been, during a previous term, indicted and tried for some offence seriously affecting his moral character. The charge had been supported by a witness whom the jury considered perjured, and the accused had been acquitted. Hav- ing reason to believe that the witness had been instigated by a neighbour, the acquitted person indicted this neighbour for subornation of perjury, and brought the witness, who had formerly appeared against himself, to prove the falsehood of his previous evidence, and the fact of his subornation. The proof of subornation appears to have rested, in some particulars, too much on the unsupported evidence of this witness ; the jury differed in opinion, one portion of them believing the guilt of the accused to be, on the whole, satisfactorily established, the other refusing to believe that part of the case which depended solely on the evidence of a man who came into court to swear to the fact of his own previous perjury. Thi3 was a difference of opinion which might naturally divide a jury ; but as all the parties were French, and as there is nothing in the circumstances which marks this as a case in which feelings of politics or origin could be supposed to operate, it will, I imagine, appear singular that the jury, being composed nearly equally of French and English, all the French were on one side, all the English on the other. After long discussion the jury came into court, and declared their inability to agree ; and the foreman on being told by the judge that they must agree, answered that they were an equal number of French and English, and consequently never could agree. In the end they did not, and, after being locked up for twelve hours, they were discharged without giving a verdict ; so that even in a case in which no question of party or of race is concerned, the animosity of the races, nevertheless, appears to present an insurmountable barrier to the impartial administration of justice. In such a state of feelings the course of civil government is hopelessly suspended. No confidence can be felt in the stability of any existing in- stitution, or the security of person or property. It cannot occasion sur- prise that this state of things should have destroyed the tranquillity a.nd happiness of families ; that it should have depreciated the value of pro. perty, and that it should have arrested the improvement and settlement of the country. The alarming decline of the value of landed property w&s attested to me by some of the principal proprietors of the Province. The continual and progressive decrease of the revenue, though in some degree attributable to other causes, indicates a diminution of the Wealth of the country. The staple export trade of the province, the timber trade* 22 has not suffered ; but instead of exporting grain, the province is now obli* ged to import for its own consumption. The influx of emigrants, once so considerable, has very greatly diminished. In 1832 the number of emigrants w ho landed at the port of Quebec amounted to 53,000 ; in 1837 it had fallen to a few more than 22,000 ; and in 1838 it did not amount to 5,000. Insecurity begins to be so strongly felt by the loyal inhabitants of the seignories, that many of them are compelled, by fear or necessity, to quit their occupations, and seek refuge in the cities. If the present state of things continue, the most enterprising and wealthy capitalists of the province will thus in a short time be driven from the seats of their present industry. Nor does there appear to be the slightest chance of putting an end to this animosity during the present generation. Passions inflamed during so long a period cannot speedily be calmed. The state of education which I have previously described as placing the peasantry entirely at the mercy of agitators, the total absence of any class of persons, or any or- ganization of authority that could counteract this mischievous influence, and the serious decline in the district of Montreal of the influence of the clergy, concur in rendering it absolutely impossible for the Government to produce any better state of feeling among the French population. It is even impossible to impress on a people so circumstanced the salutary dread of the power of Great Britain, which the presence of a large mili- tary force in the province might be expected to produce. 1 have been in. formed by witnesses so numerous and so trust worthy that I cannot doubt the correctness of their statements that the peasantry were generally ig- norant of the large amount of force which was sent into their country last year. The newspapers that circulate among them had informed them that Great Britian had no troops to send out ; that in order to pro- duce an impression on the minds of the country people, the same regi- ments were marched backwards and forward in different directions, and represented as additional arrivals from home . This explanation was pro- mulgated among the people by the agitators of each village ; and I have no doubt that the mass of the habitants really believed that the govern- ment was endeavouring to impose on them by this species of fraud. It is a population with whom authority has no means of contact or expla- nation. It is difficult even to ascertain what amount of influence the ancient leaders of the French party continue to possess. The name of Mr. Papineau is still cherished by the people ; and the idea is current that at the appointed time, he will return at the head of an immense army, and re-establish *• La Nation Canadienne." But there is great reason to doubt whether his name be not used as a mere watchword : whether the people are not in fact running entirely counter to his councils and poli- cy ; and whether they are not really under the guidance of separate pet- ty agitators, who have no plan but that of a senseless and reckless deter- mination to show in every way their hostility to the British Government and English race. Their ultimate designs and hopes are equally unin- telligible. Some vague expectation of absolute independence still seems to delude them. The national vanity, which is a remarkable ingredient in their character, induces many to flatter themselves with the idea of a Ca- nadian republic } the sounder information of others has led them to per- ceive that a separation from Great Britain must be followed by a junc- tion with the great confederation on their southern frontier. But they seem apparently reckless of the consequences, provided they can wreak their vengeance on the English. There is no people against which early associations and every conceivable difference of manners and opinions, have implanted in the Canadian mind a more ancient and rooted nation- al antipathy than that which they feel against the people of the United States. Their more discerning leaders feel that their chances of preserv- ing their nationality would bo greatly diminished by an incorporation with the United States ; and recent symptoms of anti-Catholic feeling in New England, well known to the Canadian population, have generated a very general belief that their religion, which even they do not accuse the Bri- tish party of availing, would find little favour or respect from their neigh. 23 bours. Yet none even of these considerations weigh against their present all-absorbing hatred to the English ; and I am persuaded that they would purchase vengeance and a momentary triumph, by the aid of any ene- mies, or submission of any yoke. This provisional but complete cessa- tions of their ancient antipathy to the Americans is now admittedeven by those who most strongly denied it during the last spring.and who then as- serted that an American war would as completely unite the whole popu- lation against the common enemy as it did in 1813. My subsequent ex- perience leaves no doubt in my mind that the views which were contain- ed in my despatch of the 9th of August are perfectly correct ; and that an invading American army might rely on the co-operation of almost the entire French population of Lower Canada. In the Despatch above referred to I also described the state of feeling among the English population, nor can I encourage a hope that that portion of the community is at all more inclined to any settlement of the present quarrel that would leave any share of power to the hostile race. Circum- stances having thrown the English into the ranks of the government, and the folly of their opponents having placed them, on the other hand, in a state of permanent collision with it, the former possess the advantage of having the force of Government and the authority of the laws on their side in the present stage of the contest. Their exertions during the recent troubles have contributed to maintain the supremacy of the law and the continuance of the connection with Great Britain ; but it would in my opinion be dangerous to rely on the countenance of such a state of feelingas now prevails among them, in the event of a different policy being adopted by the Imperial Government. Indeed the prevalent sentiment among them is one of anything but satisfaction with the course which has been long pursued with reference to Lower Canada by the British Legislature andExecutive.The calmer view which distant spectators are enabled to take of the conduct of the two parties, and the disposition which is evinced to make a fair adjustment of the contending claims, appear iniquitous and injurious in the eyes of men who think that they alone have any claim to the favour of that government by which they alone have stood fast. They complain loudly and bitterly of the whole course pursued by the Imperial Government with respect to the quarrel of the two races, as having been founded on an utter ignorance or disregard of the real question at issue, as having fostered the mischievious pretensions of French nationality, and as having by the vacillation and inconsistency which marked it, discouraged loyalty and fomented rebellion. Every measure of clemency or even justice towards their opponents they regard with jealousy, as indicating a disposition towards that conciliatory policy which is the subject of their angry recollection ; for they feel that beirg a minority, any return to the due course of constitutional government would again subject them to a French majority ; and to this I am persuaded they would never peaceably submit. They do not hesitate to say that they will not tolerate much longer their being made the sport of parties at home, and that if the mo. ther country forget what is due to the loyal and enterprising men of her own race, they must protect themselves. In the significant language of one of their own ablest advocates, they assert that •« Lower Canada must be English, at the expense, if necessary, of not being British." I have in despatches of a later date than that to which I have had oc- casion so frequently to refer, called the attention of the home government to the growth of this alarming state of feeling among the English po- pulation, The course of the late troubles, and the assistance which the French insurgents derived from some citizens of the United States, have caused a most intense exasperation among the Canadian loyalists against the American government and people. Their papers have teemed with the most unmeasured denunciations of the good faith of the au- thorities, of the character, and morality of the people, and of the politi- cal institutions of the United States. Yet under this surface of hostili- ty, it is easy to detect a strong under-current of an exactly contrary feel- ing. As the general opinion of the American people became more ap- parent during the course of the last year, the English of Lower Canada 24 Were surprised to find how strong, in spite of the firat hurst of sympa- thy, with a people supposed to be struggling for independence, was the real sympathy of their republican neighbours with the great objects of the minority. Without abandoning their attachment to their mother country, they have begun, a* men in a state of uncertainty are apt to do, to calculate the probable consequences of a separation, if it should un- fortunately occur, and be followed by an incorporation with the United States. In spite of the shock which it would occasion their feelings, they undoubtedly think that they should find some compensation in the promo- tion of their interests ; they believe that the influx of American emigration would speedily place the English in a majority ; they talk frequently and loudly of what has occurred in Louisiana, where, by means which they utterly misrepresent, the end nevertheless of securing an English pre- dominance over a French population, has undoubtedly been attained ; they assert very confidently that the Americans would make a very speedy and decisive settlement of the pretensions of the French ; and they believe that, after the first shock of an entirely new political state had been got over, they and their posterity would share in that amazing progress, and that great material prosperity which every day's experi- ence shows them is the lot of the people of the United States. I do not believe that such a feeling has yet sapped their strong allegiance to the British empire ; but their allegiance is founded on their deep-rooted at- tachment to British as distinguished from French institutions. And if they find that that authority which they have maintained against its re- cent assailants is to be exerted in such a manner as to subject them again to what they call a French dominion, I feel perfectly confident that they would attempt to avert the result by courting, on any terms, an union with an Anglo-Saxon people. Such is the lamentable and hazardous state of things produced by the conflict of races which has so long divided the province of Lower Cana- da, and which has assumed the formidable and irreconcilable character which I have depicted. In describing the nature of this conflict I have specified the causes in which it originated ; and though I have mention- ed the conduct and constitution of the colonial government as modi- fying the character of the struggle, I have not attributed to political causes a state of things which would, I believe, under any political insti- tutions, have resulted from the very composition of society. A jealousy between two racss, so long habituated to regard each other with heredi- tary enmity, and so differing in habits, in language, and in laws, would have been inevitable under any form of government. That liberal insti. tutions and a prudent policy might have changed the character of the struggle I have no doubt, but they could not have prevented it; they could only have softened its character, and brought it more, speedily to a m re decisive and peaceful conclusion. Unhappily, however, the system of government pursued in Lower Canada has been based on the policy of perpetuating that very separation of the races, and encouraging these very notions of conflicting nationalities which it ought to have been the first and chief care of government to check and extinguish. From the period of the conquest to the present time the conduct of the govern- ment has aggravated the evil, and the origin of the present extreme dis- order may be found in the institutions by which the character of the co. lony was determined. There are two modes by which government may deal with a conquered territory. The first course open to it is that of respecting the rights and nationality of the actual occupants; of recognizing the existing laws, and preserving established institutions; of giving no encouragement to the influx of the conquering people, and, without attempting any change in the elements of the community, merely incorporating the province under the general authority of the central government. The second is • that of treating the conquered territory as one open to the conquerors, of encouraging their influx, of regarding the conquered race as entirely subordinate, and of endeavouring as speedily and as rapidly as possible to uapimilate the character and institutions of its new subjects to those of 25 the great body of its empire. In the case of an old and long settled country, in which the land is appropriated, in which little room is left for colonization, and in which the race of the actual occupants must con- tinue to constitute the bulk of the future population of the province, pol. icy as well as humanity render the well. being of the conquered people the first care of a just government, and recommend the adoption ef the first. mentioned system ; but in a new and unsettled country, a provident legislator would regard as his first object the interests not only of the fe\r individuals who happen at the moment to inhabit a portion of the soil, but those of that comparatively vast population by which he may reason- ably expect that it will be filled ; he would form his plans with a view of attracting and nourishing that future population, and he would there, fore establish those institutions which would be most acceptable to the race by which he hoped to colonize the country. The course which I have described as best suited to an old and settled country would have been impossible in the American continent, unless the conquering state meant to renounce the immediate use of the unsettled lands of the Prov- ince ; and >b this case such a course would have been additionally unad- visable, unless the British government were prepared to abandon to the scanty population ol French whom it found in Lower Canada, not mere- ly the possession of the vast extent of rich soil which that province con- tains, but also the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and all the facilities for trade which the entrance of that great river commands. In the first regulations adopted by the British Government for the set. clement of the Canadas, in the proclamation of 1763, and the commission of the Governorin. Chief of the province of Quebec, in tho offers by which officers and soldiers of the British army, and settlers from the other North American Provinces, were tempted to accept grants of land in the Canadas, we perceive very clear indications of an intention of adopting the second and the wiser of the two systems. Unfortunately, however, the conquest of Canada was almost immediately followed by the commencement of those discontents which ended in the independence of the United Provinces. From that period the colonial policy cf this country appears to have undergone a complete change. To prevent the further dismemberment of the empire became the primary object with our statesmen ; and an especial anxiety was exhibited to adopt every expedi- ent which appeared calculated to prevent the remaining North American Colonies from following the example of successful revolt. Unfortunate- ly, the distinct national character of the French inhabitants of Canada, and their ancient hostility to the people of New England, presented the easiest and most obvious line of demarcation. To isolate the inhabitants of the British from those of the revolted colonies became the policy of the government, and the nationality of the French Canadians was therefore cultivated, as a means of perpetual and entire separation from their neighbours.* It seems also to have been considered the policy of the * This policy was not abandoned even at so late a period as the year 1816 ; as will appear by the following despatch from Lord Bathurstto the governor of Low- er Canada: — "Downing-street, July 1,1816. " Sir,— -You are, no doubt, aware of tho enquiries which have been made in the province as tj the practicability of leaving in a state of nature that part of the frontier which lies between the Lake Champlain and Montreal ; and you have, no doub t, had under your review, the report of the surveyor-general on this subject, which was enclosed in Sir Gordon Diummond's despatch of 21st April, 1816, No. 119. With the opinion which his Majesty's government entertains upon this subject, it cannot but be a matter of regret to think that any settlements should have been made in the districts of Hernmingford, Sherrington, Godman- chester, or Hinchinbrook. But at the same time I cannot recommend the dispos- session of the settlers, at the expense which must result from the purchase of the lands which they have cleared, and the improvements which they have made up- on them, unless, indeed, that purchase could be effected by an adequate assign- ment of other waste lands of the crown in other quarters. I must confine myself therefore, to instructing you to abstain altogether from making, hereafter, any grants in these districts, and to use every endeavor to induce those who have re- ceived grants there, and have not yet proceeded to the cultivation of them, to ac- D m British government to govern its colonies by means ot division, and to break them down as much as possible into petty isolated communities, incapable of combination, and possessing no sufficient strength for indi- vidual resistance to the empire. Indications of such designs are to be found in many of the acts of the British government with respect to its North American Colonies. In 1775 instructions were sent from Eng. land, directing that all grants of land within the province of Quebec, then comprising Upper and Lower Canada, were to be made in fief and seigniory ; and even the grants to the refugee loyalists, and officers and privates of the colonial corps, promised in 1786, were ordered to be made on the same tenure. In no instanco was it more singularly exhibited than in the condition annexed to the grants of land in Prince Edward's Island, by which it was stipulated that the island was to be settled by •« fo- reign Protestants ;" as if they were to be foreign in order to separate them from the people of New England, and Protestants, in order to keep them apart from the Canadian and Acadian Catholics. It was part of the same policy to separate the French of Canada from the British emigrants, and to conciliate the former by the retention of thsir language, laws and religious institutions. For this purpose Canada was afterwards divided into two provinces, the settled portion being allotted to the French, and the unsettled being destined to be become the seat of British colonization. Thus, instead of availing itself of the means which the extent and nature of the province afforded for the gradual introduction of such an English population into its various parts as might have easily placed the French in a minority, the government deliberately constituted the French into a majority, and recognised and strengthened their distinct national cha- racter. Had the sounder policy of making the Province English, in all its institutions, been adopted from the first, and steadily persevered in, the French would probably have been speedily outnumbered, and the be- neficial operation of the free institutions of England would never have been impeded by the animosities of origin. Not only, however, did the government adopt the unwise course of dividing Canada, and forming in one of its divisions a French commu- nity, speaking the French Language, and retaining French institutions, but it did not even carry this consistently into effect ; for at the same time provision was made for encoureging the emigration of English into the very province which was said t> be assigned to the French. Even the French institutions were not extended over the whole of Lower Ca- nada. The civil law of France, as a whole, and the legal provision for the Catholic clergy, were limited to the portion of the country then set- tled by the French, and comprised in the seigniories ; though some pro-> vision was made for the formation of new seignories, almost the whole of the then unsettled portion of the province was formed into town- ships, in which the law of England was partially established, and the protestant religion alone endowed. Thus two populations of hostile ori- gin and different characters were brought into juxta. position under a common government, but under different institutions ; each was taught to cherish its own language, laws, and habits, and each, at the same cept uncleared lands in other districts, more distant from the frontier of the Uni- ted States. In some cases, where the lands have been long granted, they must, . I apprehend, under the usual conditions of the grants, have become resumable by the Crown ; and in such case you can have no difficulty in preventing their cultivation ; and the expediency of making other grants, in lieu of those resumed, will depend upon the particular circumstances of each individual case. "It is also very desirable that you should, as far as lies in your power, prevent the extension of roads in the direction of those particular districts beyond the limits of that division of the province referred to in the plan of the Surveyor-gen- eral as being generally cultivated ; and if any means should present themselves of letting those which have been already made, fall into decay, you will best com- ply with the views of his Majesty's government, and materially contribute to the future security of the province by their adoption. I have the honor, Ac. (Signed) "Bathuhst. "Lieutenant- General Sir J. O. Sherbrooke, &c." 27 time, if it moved beyond its original limits, was brought under different institutions, and associated with a different people. The unenterprising character of the French population, and, above all, its attachment to its church (for the enlargement of which, in proportion to the increase or diffusion of the Catholic population, very inadequate provision was made) have produced the effect of confining it within its ancient limits. But the English were attracted into the eeignories, and especially into the cities, by the facilities of commerce afforded by the great rivers. To have effectually given the policy of retaining French institutions and a French population in Lower Canada a fair chance of success, no other institution should have been allowed, and no other race should have re- ceived any encouragement to settle therein. The province should have been set apart to wholly French, if it was not to be rendered com- pletely English. The attempt to encourage English Emigration into a community, of which the French character was still to be preserved, was an error which planted the seeds of a contest of races in the very con. stitution of the colony ; this was an error, I mean, even on the assump- tion that it was possible to exclude the English race from French Cana- da. But it was quite impossible to exclude the English race from any part of the North American continent. It will be acknowledged by ev- ery one who has observed the progress of Anglo Saxon colonization in America, that sooner or later the English race was sure to predominate even numerically in Lower Canada, as they predominate already, by their superior knowledge, energy, enterprise, and wealth. The error, therefore, to which the present contest must be attributed is the vain en- deavor to preserve a French Canadian nationality in the midst of Anglo- American colonies end states. That contest has arisen by degrees. The scanty number of the Eng. lish who settled in Lower Canada during the earlier period of our pos- session put out of the question any ideas of rivalry between the races.— Indeed until the popular principles of English institutions were brought effectually into operation, the paramount authority of the government left little room for dispute among any but the few who contended for its favors. It was not until the English had established a vast trade and accumulated considerable wealth, until a great part of the landed pro. perty of the province was vested in their hands, until a large English population was found in the cities, had scattered itself over large por- tions of the country, and had formed considerable communities in the townships, and not until the developement of representative government had placed substantial power in the hands of the people, that that people divided itself into races, arrayed against each other in intense and endur- ing animosity. The errors of the government did not cease with that to which I have attributed the origin of this animosity. The defects of the colonial con- stitution necessarily brought the executive government into collision with the people ; and the disputes of the government and the people cal- led into action the animosities of race ; nor has the policy of the gov. ernment obviated the evils inherent in the constitution of the colony, and the composition of society. It has done nothing to repair its origi- nal error, by making the province English. Occupied in a continual conflict with the assembly, successive governors and their councils have overlooked, in great measure, the real importance of the feud of origin; and the imperial government, far removed from opportunities of personal observation of the peculiar state of society, has shaped its policy so as to aggravate the disorder. In some instances it has actually conceded the mischievous pretensions of nationality, in order to evade popular claims ; as in attempting to divide the Legislative Council, and the patronage of government, equally between the two races, in order to avoid the de. mands for an elective council and a responsible executive : sometimes it has, for a while, pursued the opposite course. A policy founded upon imperfect information, and conducted by continually changing hands has exhibited to the colony a system of vacillation which was in fact no system at all. The alternate concessions to the contending races have 28 t)hly irritated both, impaired the authority of government, and by keep, ing alive the hopes of a French Canadian nationality, counteracted the influences which might, ere this, have brought the quarrel to its natural and necessary termination. It is imposible to determine precisely the respective effects of the social and political causes. The struggle be- tween the government and the Assembly has aggravated the animosities of race ; and the animosities of race have rendered the political difference irreconcileable, No remedy can be efficient that does not operate upon both evils. At the root of the disorders of Lower Canada, lies the con- flict of the two races, which compose its population; until this is settled, no good government is practicable ; for whether the political institutions be reformed or left unchanged, whether the powers of the government bo entrusted to the majority or the minority, we may rast assured that while the hostility of the races continues, whichever of them is entrusted with power will use it for partial purposes. I have described the contest between the French and English races in Lower Canada with minuteness, because it was my wish to produce a complete and general conviction of the prominent importance of that struggle, when we are taking into consideration the cases of those disor- ders which have so grievously afflicted the province. I have not, how*, ever, during the course of my preceding remarks, been able to avoid al- luding to other causes, which have greatly contributed to occasion the existing state of things ; and I have specified among these the defect of the constitution, and the errors arising out of the system of government. It is indeed impossible to believe that the assigned cause of the struggle between the government and the majority have had no effect, even though we may believe that they have had much less than the contending parties imagined. It is impossible to observe the great similarity of the consti- tutions established in all our North American provinces, and the striking tendency of all to terminate in pretty nearly the same result, without entertaining a belief th at some defect in the form of government, and some erroneous principle of administration ; have been common to all ; the hostility of the races being palpably insufficient to account for all the evils which have affected Lower Canada, inasmuch as nearly the same results have been exhibited among the homogeneous population of the other provinces. It is but too evident that Lower Canada, or the two Canadas, have not alone exhibited repeated conflicts between the execu- tive and the popular branches of the Legislature. The representative body of Upper Canada was, before the late election, hostile to the policy of the government ; the most serious discontents have only recently been calmed in Princo Edward's Island and New Brunswick ; the govern- ment is still, I believe, in a minority in the lower house in Nova Scotia ; and the dissensions of Newfoundland are hardly less violent than those of the Canadas. It may fairly be said that the natural state of go. vernment in all these colonies is that of collision between the executive and the representative body. In all of them the administration of pub- lic affairs is habitually confided to those who do not co-operate harmoni- ously with the popular branch of the legislature ; and the government is constantly proposing measures which the majority of the Assembly re. ject, and refusing its assent to bills which that body has passed. A state of things, so different from the working of any successful ex. periment of representative government appears to indicate a deviation from sound constitutional principles or practice. Though occasional collisions between the Crown and the House of Commons have occurred in this country since the establishment of our constitution at the revolu- tion of 1688, they have been rare and transient. A state of frequent and lasting collisions appears almost identical with one of convulsion and anarchy ; and its occurrence in any country is calculated to perplex us as to the mode in which any government can be carried on therein, without an entire evasion of popular control. But, when we examine into the system of government in these colonies, it would almost seem as if the object of those by whom it was established had been the com 29 billing of apparently popular institutions with an utter absence of all effi- cient control of the pople over their rulers. Representative assemblies were established on the basis of a very wide, and, in some cases almost universal snfferage ; the annual meoting of these bodies were secured by positive enactment, and their apparent attributes were locally nearly as extensive as those of the English House of Commons. At the same time the Crown almost entirely relied on it« territorial lesources, and on duties imposed by Imperial acts, prior to the introduction of the repre- sentative system, for carrying on the government without securing the assent of the representative body, either to its policy, or to the persons by whom that policy was to be administered. It was not until some years after the commencement of the present century that the population of Lower Canada began to understand the representative system which had been extended to them, and that tho Assembly evinced any inclination to make use of its powers. Immedi- ately, however, upon its so doing, it found how limited those powers were, and entered upon a struggle to obtain the authority which analogy pointed out as inherent in a representative assembly. Its freedom of speech immediately brought it into collision with the governor ; and the practical working of the Assembly commenced by its principal leaders being thrown into prison, In the course of time, however, the govern- ment was induced, by its necessities, to accept the Assembly's offer to raise an additional revenue by fresh taxes; and the Assembly thus acquir- ed a certain control over the levying and appropriation of a portion of the public revenue. From that time until the final abandonment in 1832 of every portion of the reserved revenue, excepting the casual and territorial funds, an unceasing contest was carried on, in which the Assembly, making use of every power which it gained for the purpose of gaining more, acquired step by step an entire control over the whole re- venue of the country. 1 thus pass briefly over the events which has heretofore been consi- dered the principal feature of the Canadian controversy, because, as the contest has ended in concession of the financial demands of the As« sembly, and the admission by the Government of the impropriety of attempting to withhold any portion of the public revenues from its con- troul, that contest can now be regarded as of no importance, except as accounting tor the exasperation and suspicion which survived it. Nor am I inclined to think that the disputes which subsequently occurred are to be attributed entirely to tho operation of mere angry feelings. A sub- stantial cause of contest yet remained. The Assembly after it had ob- tained entire control over the public revenues, still found itself deprived of all voice in the choice or even designation of the persons in whose administration of affairs it could feel confidence. All the administrative power of government remained entirely free from its influences and though Mr. Papineau appears by his own conduct to have deprived himself of that influence in the government which he might have acquired, I must attribute the refusal of a civil list to the determination of the Assembly not to give up its only means of subjecting the functionaries of govern- ment to any responsibility. The powers for which the Assembly contended appear, in both instan- ces, to be such as it was perfectly justified in demanding. It is difficult to conceive what could have been their theory of government who ima- gined that in any colony of England a body invested with the name and character of a representative assembly could be deprived of any of those powers which, in the opinion of Englishmen, are inherent in a popular legislature It was a vain delusion to imagine that by mere limitations in the Constitutional Act, or an exclusive system of government, a body, strong in the consciousness of wielding the public opinion of the majo- rity, could regard certain portions of the provincial revenues as sacred from its control, could confine itself to the mere business of making laws, and look on as a passive or indifferent spectator, while those laws were carried into effect or evaded, and the whole business of the country was conducted by men in whose intentions or capacity it had not the slightest 30 confidence. Yet such was the limitation placed on the authority of tha Assembly of Lower Canada ; it might refuse or pass laws, vote or with, hold supplies, but it could exercise no influence on the nomination of a single servant of the crown. The Executive Council, the law officers, and whatever heads of departments are known to the administrative sys- tem of the province, were placed in power, without any regard to the wishes of the people or their representatives ; nor indeed are there want, ing instances in which a mere hostility to the majority of the Assembly elevated the most incompetent persons to posts of honour and trust. However decidedly the Assembly might condemn the policy of the go. ernment, the persons who had advised that policy, retained their offices and their power of giving bad advice. If a law was passed after repeat- ed conflicts, it had to be carried into effect by those who had most strenu- ously opposed it. The wisdom of adopting the true principle of repre- sentative government, and facilitating the management of public affairs, by entrusting it to the persons who have the confidence of the represen. tative body, has never been recognised in the government of the North American Colonies. Ali the officers of government were independent of the Assembly ; and that body which had nothing to say to ther appoint- ment, was left to get on as it best might, with a set of public functiona- ries, whose paramount feeling may not unfairly be said to have been one of hostility to itself. A body of holders of office thus constituted, without reference to the people or their representatives, must, in fact, from the very nature of colonial government, acquire the entire direction of the affairs of the pro- vince. A governor, arriving in a colony in which he almost invariably has had no previous acquaintance with the state of parties, or the cha- racter of individuals, is compelled to throw himself almost entirely upon those whom he finds placed in the position of his official advisers. His first acts must necessarily be performed, and his first appointments made, at their suggestion. And as these first acts and appointments give a character to his policy,he is generally brought thereby into collision with the other parties in the country, and thrown into more complete depen- dence upon the official party and its friends. Thus, a Gov. of L.Canada has almost always been brought into immediate collision with the As- sembly, which his advisers regard as their enemy. In the course of the contestin which he was thus involved, the provocations which he received from the assembly and the light in which their conduct was represented by those who alone had any access to him, naturally imbued him with many of their antipathies ; his position compelled him to seek the sup- port of some party against the Assembly ; and his feelings and his ne- cessities thus combined to induce him to bestow his patronage and to shape his measures to promote the interest of the party on which he was obliged to lean. Thus, every successive year consolidated and enlarged the strength of the ruling party. Fortified by family connection, and the common interest felt by all who held, and all who desire, subordinate offi- ces, that party was thus erected into a solid and permanent power, con- trolled by no responsibility, subject to no serious change, exercising over the whole government of the province an authority utterly independent of the people and its representatives, and possessing the only means of in- fluencing either the government at home, or the colonial representative of the Crown. This entire separation of the Legislative and Executive powers of state, is the natural error of government desirous of being free from the check of representative institutions. Since the revolution of 1688, the stability of the English constitution has been secured by that wise principle of our government which has vested the direction of the nation- al policy, and the distribution of patronage, in the leaders of the Parlia- mentary majority. However partial the Monarch might be to particular Ministers, or however he might have personlly committed himself to their policy, he has invariably been constrained to abandon both, as 6oon as the opinion of the people has been irrevocably pronounced against them through the medium of the House of Commons. The practice of 31 carrying on a representative government on a different principle seems to be the rock on which continental imitations of the British constitution have invariably split ; and the French revolution in 1830 was the neces- sary result 01 an attempt to uphold a ministry with which no Parliament could be got to act in concert. It is difficult to understand how any English statesman could have imagined that representative and irrespon- sible government could be successfully combined. There seems, indeed, to be an idea that the character of representative institutions ought«to be thus modified in colonies ; that it is an incident of colonial dependence, that the officers of government should be nominated by the crown, with. out any reference to the wishes of the community, whose interests are entrusted to their keeping. It has never been very clearly explained what are the imperial interests, which require the complete nullification of representative government. But, if there be such a necessity, it is quite clear that a representative government in a colony must be a mockery, and a source of confusion. For those who support this sys. tem have never yet been able to devise, or to exhibit in the practical working of colonial government, any means for making so complete an abrogation of political influence palatable to the representative body. — It is not difficult to apply the case to our own country. Let it be imagined that at a general election the opposition were to return 500 out of 658 members of the House of Commons, and that the whole policy of the min- istry should be condemned, and every bill introduced by it rejected by this immense majority. Let it be supposed that the crown should consider it a point of honour and duty to retain a ministry so condemned and so thwarted; that repeated dissolutions should in no way increase, but should even diminish, the ministerial minority ; and that the only result which could be obtained by such a developement of the force of the op- position, were not the slightest change in the policy of the ministry, not the removal of a single minister, but simply the election of a Speaker of the politics of the majority ; and, I think, it will not be difficult to ima- gine the fate of such a system of Government. Yet such was the sys- tem, such literally was the course of events in Lower Canada, and such in character, though not quite in degree, was the spectacle exhibited in Upper Canada, and, at one time or another, in every one of the North American Colonies. To suppose that such a system would work well there, implies a belief that the French Canadians have enjoyed represen- tative institutions for half a centuary, without acquiring any of the cha- racteristics of a free people ; that Englishmen renounce every political opinion and feeling when they enter a colony, or that the spirit of An- glo-Saxon freedom is utterly changed and weakened among those who are transplanted across the Atlantic. It appears, therefore, that the opposition of the Assembly to the gov- ernment was the unavoidable result of a system which stinted the popu- lar branch of the Legislature of the necessary privileges of a representa. tive body, and produced thereby a long series of attempts on the part of that body to acquire control over the administration of the province. I say all this without reference to the ultimate aim of the Assembly, which I have before described as being the maintenance of a Canadian nation- ality against the progressive intrusion of the English race. Having no responsible ministers to deal with, it entered upon that system of long inquiries by means of its committees, which brought the whole action of the executive immediately under its purview, and trangressed our no- tions of the proper limits of parliamentary interference. Having no in- fluence in the choice of any public functionary, no power to procure the removal of such as were obnoxious to it merely on political grounds, and seeing almost every office of the colony filled by persons in whom it had no confidence, it entered on that vicious course oi assailing its promi. nent opponents individually, and disqualifying them for the public ser. vice, by making them the subjects of inquiries and consequent impeach- ments, not always conducted with even the appearance of a due regard to justice ; and when nothing else could attain its end of altering the policy or the composition of the colonial government, it had recourse to 32 that ultima ratio ot representative power to which the more prudent for- bearance ot the Crown has never driven the house of Commons in Eng* land, and endeavoured to disable the whole machine of government by a general refusal of the supplies. It was an unhappy consequence of the system which I have been de- scribing, that it relieved the popular leaders of all the responsibilities of opposition. A member of opposition in this country acts and speaks with the contingency of becoming a minister constantly before his eyes, and he feels, therefore, the necessity of proposing no course, and of as- serting no principles, on which he would not be prepared to conduct the government, if he were immediately offered it. But the colonial dema- gogue bids high for popularity without the fear of future exposure. — Hopelessly excluded from power, he expresses the wildest opinions, and appeals to the most mischievous passions of the people, without any ap- prehension of having his sincerity or prudence heieafter tested, by being placed in a position to carry his views into effect ; and thus the prominent places in the ranks of opposition are occupied for the most part by men of strong passions, and merely declamatory powers, who think but little of reforming the abuses which serve them as topics for exciting dis- content. The collision with the Executive Government necessarily brought on one with the Legislative Council. The composition of this body, which has been so much the subject of discussion both here and in the colony, must certainly be admitted to have been such as could give it no weight with the people, or with the representative body, on which it was meant to be a check. The majority was always composed of members of the party which conducted the Executive Government ; the clerks of each council were members of the other ; and in fact, the Legislative Council was pratically hardly anything but a veto in the hands of public func- tionaries on all the acts of that popular branch of the Legislature in which they were always in a minority. This veto they used without much scruple. I am far from concurring in the censure which the as- sembly and its advocates have attempted to cast on the acts of the Legis- lative council. I have no hesitation in saying that many of the bills which it is most severely blamed for rejecting, were bills which it could not have passed without a dereliction of its duty to the constitution, the connection with Great Britain, and the whole English population of the colony. If there is any censure to be passed on its general conduct, it is for having confined itself to the merely negative and defensive duties of a legislative body ; for having too frequently contented itself, with merely defeating objectionable methods of obtaining desirable ends, with, out completing its duty by proposing measures, which would haveachiev. ed the good in view without the mixture of evil. The national animosi- ties which pervaded the legislation of the assembly, and its thorough want of legislation skill or respect for constitutional principles, rendered almost all its bills obnoxious to the objections made by the Legislative Council ; and the serious evil which their enactment would have occa- sioned, convinces me that the colony has reason to congratulate itself on the existence of an institution which possessed and used the power of stopping a course of legislation that, if successful, would have sacrificed every British interest, and overthrown every guarantee of order and na- tional liberty. It is not difficult for us to judge thus calmly of the res- pective merits of these distant parlies; but it must have been a great and deep-rooted respect for the constitution and composition of the Legisla- tive Council, that could havo induced tiie representatives of a great ma- jority to submit with patience to the impediment thus placed in their way by a few individuals. But the Legislative Council, was neither theoreti- cally unobjectionable, nor personally esteemed by the assembly ; its op- position appeared to that body but another form of official hos:ility, and it was inevitable that the assembly should, sooner or later, make those assaults on the constitution of the Legislative Council, which, by the sin. gular want of judgment and temper with which they were conducted, ended in the destruction of the provincial constitution. 93 From the commencement, therefore, to the end of the disputes which Ynark the whole parliamentary history of Lower Canada, I look on the conduct of the Assembly as a constant warfare with the Executive, for the purpose of obtaining the powers inherent in a representative body by the very nature of representative government. It was to accomplish this purpose, that it used every means in its power ; but it must be censured for having, in pursuit of this object, perverted its powers of legislation, and disturbed the whole working of the constitution. It made the business of legislation, and the practical improvement of the country, subordinate to its struggle for power ; and, being denied its legitimate privileges, it endeavoured to extend its authority in modes totally incompatible with the principles of constitutional liberty. One glaring attempt which was made directly and openly to subvert the constitution of the country, was by passing a bill for the formal repeal of those parts of the 31 Geo. III. c. 31, commonly called the Constitu- tional Act, by which the constitution and powers of the Legislative Coun- cil were established. It can hardly be supposed that the framers of this bill were unaware, or hoped to make any concealment of the obvious il- legality of a measure which, commencing, as all Canadian acts do, by a recital of the 31st Geo. III., as the foundation of the legislative autho. rity of the assembly, proceeded immediately to infringe some of the most important provisions of that very statute ; nor can it be supposed that the Assembly hoped really to carry into effect this extraordinary assump- tion of power, inasmuch as the bill could derive no legal effect from pas- sing the lower bouse, unless it should subsequently receive the assent of the very body which it purported to annihilate. A more dangerous, because, in some measure, more effectual device for assuming unconstitutional powers, was practised by the Assembly in its attempts to evade the necessity of obtaining the assent of the other bran- ches of the Legislature, by claiming for its own resolutions, and that too, on points of the greatest importance, the force of laws. A remarkable instance of this was exhibited in the resolution which the Assembly passed on the rejection of a bill for vacatingthe seats of members on the acceptance of offices under the Crown ; and which, in fact, and undisguisedly, purport, ed, by its own single authority, to give effect to the provisions of the re- jected bill. This resolution brought the Assembly into a long dispute with Lord Aylmer, in consequence of his refusing to issue a writ for the election of a member in place of Mr. Mondelet, whose seat was declared vacant in consequence of his having accepted the office of Ex-ecutive Councillor. The instance in which the Assembly thus attempted to en- force this principle of disqualification happened to be one to which it could not be considered applicable, either from analogy to the law of England, or from the apparent intent of the resolution itself; for the of- fice which Mr. Mondelet accepted, though one of high importance and influence, was one to which no salary or emolument of any kind was at- tached. But the evils resulting from such open attempts to dispense with the constitution were small, in comparison with the disturbance of the regu- lar course of legislation by systematic abuse of constitutional forms, for the purpose of depriving the other branches of the legislature of all real legislative authority. The custom of passing the most important laws in a temporary form has been an ancient and extensive defect of the le- gislation of the North American colonies, partially authorised by royal in- structions to the governors, but never sanctioned by the Imperial Legis- lature, until it was established in Lower Canada by the 1st Vict. c. 9. It remained, however, for the Assembly of Lower Canada to reduce the practice to a regular system, in order that it might have the most impor- tant institutions of the province periodically at its mercy, and use the ne- cessities of the government and the community for the purpose of extor. ting the concession of whatever demands it might choose to make. Ob- jectionable in itself, on account of the uncertainty and continual changes which it tended to introduce into legislation, this system of temporary laws derived its worst character from the facilities which it afforded to 34 She practice of " tacking" together various legislative measures J a prac^ lice not unknown to the British constitution, and which had sometimes been found useful, because the prudence of the House of Commons has induced that body rarely to have recourse to it, but which the legislators of Lower Canada converted into the ordinary mode of legislation. By the abuse of this practice, any branch of the legislature had during eve- ry session the power, if it had the inclination, to make the renewal of expiring laws the means of dictating its own terms to the others ; and to this end it was systematically converted by the Assembly. It adopted the custom of renewing all expiring laws, however heterogeneous in their character, in one and the same bill. Having the first choice to exercise, it renewed, of course, only those acts of which it approved, and left to the Legislative Council and the governors only the alternative of reject, ing such as had proved to be beneficial, or passing such as in their opinion had proved to be mischievous. A singular instance of this oc- curred in 1836 with respect to the renewal of the jury.law, to which the Assembly attached great importance, and to which the legislative coun. cil felt a strong repugnance, on account of its having in effect placed the juries entirely in the hands of the French portion of the population. In order to secure the renewal of this law, the Assembly coupled it in the same bill, by which it renewed the tolls of the Lashine Canal, calcula- ting on the Council not venturing to defeat a measure of so much im- portance to the revenue as the latter, by resisting the former. The Coun- cil, however, rejected the bill ; and thus the canal remained toll-free for a whole season, because the two houses differed about a jury law. Nor was this custom of •• tacking" confined to the case of the renew, al of expiring laws. A bill for the independence ot the judges was cou- pled with the establishment of a new tribunal for trying impeachments, and, with other provisions, to which it was known that the Crown was decidedly hostile, and thus, in the attempt to extort an objectionable concession, a most desirable guarantee for the pure administration of jus- tice was sacrificed. The system thus framed, was completed by the regulations with res. pect to a quorum, and the use which the majority made of them. A quorum of nearly half the whole house was required for the transaction of business. Towards the end of every recent session the majority used to break up the quorum and disperse to their respective homes, without wait, ing to be prorogued, immediately after sending up a number of bills to the council, thus leaving no means of considering or adopting any amend, ments which that body might make, and leaving it no option but that of rejecting or confirming by wholesale the measures of the assem- bly. Bat in describing the means by which the assembly obtained and at- tempted to consolidate its power, I must not omit to direct particular attention to that which, after all, was the most effectual, and which originated in a defect common to the system of government in all the North American colonies ; it is the practice of making parliamentary grants for local works— a system so vicious and so productive of evil, that I believe that until it is entirely eradicated, representative govern. ment will be incapable of working well and smoothly in those colonies. I know, indeed, of no difference in the machinery of government in the Old and New World that strikes a European more forcibly than the apparently undue importan ce whieh the business of constructing publio works appears to occupy in American legislation. In speaking of the character of a government, its merits appear to be estimated by the public works which it has carried into effect. If an individual is asked how his own Legislature has acted, he will generally say what roads or bridges it has made, or neglected to make, in his own district ; and if he is consult- ed about changes in a constitution, he seems to try their soundness by calculating whether his neighbourhood would get more and better roads and bridges under the existing or the proposed system. On examining the proceedings of a Legislature, we find that a great proportion of its discussions turn on such questions ; and if we look to the budget, we • 35 find that a still greater proportion of the public money is applied to these purposes. Those who reflect on the circumstances of the New World, will not find it very difficult to account for the attention there paid to what is necessarily the first business of society, and is naturally the first care of every responsible government. The provision which, in Europe, the state makes for the protection ofits citizens against foreign enemies, is in America required for what a French writer has beautifully and accurately called the " war with the wilderness." The defence of an important fortress, or the maintenance of a sufficient army or navy in exposed spots, is not more a matter of common concern to the European, than is the construction of the great communications to the American settler ; and the state, very naturally takes on itself the making of the works, which are matters of concern to all alike. Even the municipal institutions of the northern states of the'American Union have not entirely superseded the necessity of some interference on the part of the legislatures in aid of local improvements ; though the main efforts of those states have been directed to those vast undertakings which are the common concern and the common glory of their citizens. In the southern states, where municipal institutions are less complete, the legislature are in the habit of taking part more constantly and ex- tensively in works which are properly of mere local interest; and great complaints are made of consequent corruption and mismanagement.— But in the British colonies, in none of which is there any effectual sys. tern of municipal government, the evil has been carried to the greatest height, and exercises the most noxious influence. The great business of the Assemblies is, literally, parish business ; the making parish roads and parish bridges. There are in none of these provinces any local bo. dies possessing authority to impose local assessments, for the manage, ment of local affairs. To do these things is the business of the Assem- bly ; and to induce the Assembly to attend to the particular interests of each county, is the especial business of its county member. The sur- plus revenue of the province is swelled to as large an amount as possi. ble, by cutting down the payment of public services to as low a scale as possible ; and the real duties of government are, sometimes, insufficiently provided for, in order that more may be left to be divided among the con- etitutent bodies. "When we want a bridge, we take a judge to build it," was the quaint and forcible way in which a member of a provincial le- gislature described the tendency to retrench, in the most necessary de. partments of the public service, in order to satisfy the demands for local works. This fund is voted by the Assembly on the motion of its mem. bers ; the necessity of obtaining the previous consent of the Crown to money votes never having been adopted by the Colonial Legislatures from the practice of the British House of Commons. There is a perfect scramble among the whole body to get as much as possible of this fund for their respective constituents ; cabals are formed, by which tbe differ, ent members mutually play into each other's hands ; general politics are made to bear on private business, and private business on general poli- tics ; and at the close of the Parliament, the member who has succeeded in securing the largest portion of the prize for his constituents, renders an easy account of his stewardship, with confident assurance of reflec- tion. The provincial assemblies being, as I have previously staled, in a state of permanent collision with the government, have never been in the hab. it of entrusting the executive with any control over these funds ; and they have been wholly dispensed by commissioners named by the legis- lature. The Assemblies do not appear to have been at all insensible to the possibility of turning this patronage to their own account. An elec. tioneering handbill, which was circulated by the friends of government at the last dissolution in Upper Canada, exhibited, in a very strong light, the expense of the commissioners, of the Assembly, contrasted with those of the officers of the executive government ; but the province of Nova Scotia has carried this abuse to an extent which appears almost incon- ceivable. According to a report presented to me by Major Head, an as- 30 eistant commissioner of inquiry whom I sent to that colony, a sum of JEIO.OOO was, during the last session, appropriated to local improve. ments ; this sum was divided into 830 portions, and as many commis- sioners were appointed to expend it, giving, on an average, a commis- sioner for rather more than every £12, with a salary of 5s. a day, and a further remuneration of two and a half per cent, on the money expend- ed, to be deducted out of each share. Not only did the leaders of the Lower Canadian Assembly avail them- selves of the patronage thus afforded by the large surplus revenue of the province, but they turned this system to much greater account, by using it to obtain influence over the constituencies. In a furious political struggle, like that which subsisted in Lower Canada, it was natural that a body wielding, with hardly any responsibility, this direct power of pro- moting the immediate interests of each constituency, should show some favor to that which concurred in its political views, and should exhibit its displeasure towards that which obstinately resisted the majority. — But the majority of the Assembly of Lower Canada is accused by its op. ponents of having, in the most systematic and persevering manner, em- ployed this means of corrupting the electoral bodies. The adherents of Mr. Papineau are said to have been lavish in their promises of the bene, fits which they could obtain from the Assembly for the county whose suffrages they solicited. By such representations the return of members of opposition politics is asserted, in many instances, to have been secur- ed ; and obstinate counties are alleged to have been sometimes starved into submission, by an entire withdrawal of grants, until they returned members favorable to the majority. Some of the English members who voted with Mr. Papineau excused themselves to their countrymen, by al- leging that they were compelled to do so, in order to get a road or a bridge, which their constituents desired. Whether it be true or false that the abuse was ever carried to such a pitch, it is obviously one which might have been easily and safely perpetrated by a person possessing Mr. Papineau's influence in the Assembly. But the most bold and extensive attempt frr erecting a system of pa- tronage, wholly independent of the government, was that which was, for some time, carried into effect by the grants for education made by the Assembly, and regulated by the act, which the Legislative Council has been most bitterly reproached with refusing to renew- It has been stat- ed, as a proof of the deliberate intention of the Legislative Council to crush every attempt to civilize and elevate the great mass of the people, that it thus stopped at once the working of about 1,000 schools, and de- prived of education no less than 40.000 scholars, who were actually pro- fitting by the means of instruction thus placed within their reach. But the reasons which induced, or rather compelled, the Legislative Council to stop this system are clearly stated in the report of that body, which contains the most unanswerable justification of the course which it pur- sued. By that it appears that the whole superintendence and patronage of these schools had, by the expired law, been vested in the hands of the county members ; and that they had been allowed to manage the funds without even the semblance of sufficient accountability. The members of the Assembly had thus a patronage, in this single department, of about jE25,000 per annum, an amount equal to half of the whole ordinary civil expenditure of the Province. They were not slow in profitting by the occasion thus placed in their hands ; and as there existed in the pro- vince no sufficient supply of competent schoolmasters and mistresses, they nevertheless immediately filled up the appointments with persons who were utterly and obviously incompetent. A great proportion of the teachers could neither read nor write. The gentlemen whom I di- rected to inquire into the state of education in the province showed me a petition from certain schoolmasters, which had come into his hands, and the majority of the signatures were those of marksmen. These ignorant teachers could convey no useful instruction to their pupils ; the utmost amount which they taught them was to say the Catechism by rote. — Even within seven miles of Montreal there was a schoolmistress thus 37 unqualified. — These appointments were, as might have been expected, jobbed by the members among their political partisans ; nor were the funds very honestly managed. In many cases the members were sus- pected or accused of misapplying them to their own use ; and in the case of Beauharnois, whero the seigneur, Mr. Ellice, has, in the same spirit of judicious liberality, by which his whole management of that ex- tensive property has been marked, contributed most largely towards the education of his tenants, the school funds were proved to have been mis- appropriated by the county member. The whole system was a gross po- litical abuse ; and however laudable we must hold the exertions of those who really laboured to relieve their country from the reproach of being the least furnished with the means of education of any on the North American continent, the more severely must we condemn those who sa. crificed this noble end, and perverted ample means to serve the purposes of party. I know not whether to ascribe the system which was adopted for the relief of the distress periodically occurring in certain districts, to the same policy of extending the influence of the Assembly by local grants, or merely to the antiquated prejudices which seem to have pervaded many parts of the Assembly's legislation, which dictated laws against huck- sters and the maintenance of foundling hospitals. No general system for the relief of destitution, no poor-law of any kind was established and the wants of the country hardly demanded it. But when I arrived at Quebec, I received a number of petitions from parishes situated on the lower part of the St. Lawrence, praying for relief, in consequence of the failure of the harvest. I found, on inquiry, that relief had been granted to these districts for several successive years. The cause of the calamity was obvious ; it was the unsuilableness of wheat crops un- der the wretched system of Canadian small farming, to the severe cli- mate of that portion of the province. By the side of the distressed pa- rishes were large districts, in which a better system of farming, and above all, the employment of the land for pasture and green crops, had diffused the most general comfort among the agricultural population, and completely obviated the occurrence of failure or distress. There were, in the vicinity of the cistressed parishes, large tracts of rich and unsettled land, available for the permanent amelioration of the condition of this suffering people ; and there were valuable and extensive fishe- ries in the neighbourhood, which might have supported it in comfort ; yet no persevering attempt had been made to provide permanent relief by encouraging the population which was thus thrown on the legislature for support, either to adopt a better system of agriculture, or to settle on other portions of the country, or to avail itself of the fisheries — The Assembly met the evil by relieving the distress in such a way as to stave off its immediate results, and ensure its recurrence. It gave food for the season of scarcity, and seed to sow a crop even of wheat as late as the 20th of June, which was, of course, to fail in its turn ; for it had thus relieved the same kind of distress, in precisely the same places for several successive years ; and its policy seemed to be to pension a por- tion of the people to sow wheat where it would not ripen. It is melancholy to think of the opportunities of good legislation which were sacrificed in this mere contest for power. No country in the world ever demanded from a paternal government, or patriotic represen- tatives, more unceasing and vigorous reforms, both of its laws and its administrative system. Lower Canada had, when we received it at the conquest, two institutions, which alone preserved the semblance of order and civilization in the community — the Catholic church and the militia, which was so constituted and used as partially te supply the want of better civil institutions. The beneficial influence of the Catholic church has been cramped and weakened; the militia is now annihilated, and years must elapse ere it can be revived and used to any good purpose. — Lower Canada remains without municipal institutions of local self-gov- ernment, which are the foundations of Anglo-Saxon freedom and civili- zation : nor is their absence compensated by anything like the centrali- 38 lation of France. The most defective judicial institutions remain un. reformed. Alone, among the nations that have sprung from the French, Lower Canada remains under the unchanged civil laws of ancient France. Alone, among the nations of the American Continent, it is without a public system of education. .Nor has it, in other respects, caught the spirit of American progress. While' the Assembly was wasting the surplus revenues ot the province in jobs for the increase of patronage, and in petty peddling in parochial business, it left untouched those vast and easy means of communication which deserved, and would have re- paid the application of the provincial revenues. The State of New York made its own St. Lawrence from Lake Erie to the Hudson, while the government of Lower Canada could not achieve, or even attempt the few miles of canal and dredging which would have rendered its mighty riv- ers navigable almost to their sources. The time which should have been devoted to wise legislation was spent in a contest for power between the executive and the people, which a wise executive would have stop, ped at the outset, by submitting to a legitimate responsibility, and which a wise people would have ceased to press when it had virtually attained its end. This collision, and the defective constitution were, in conjunc tion with the quarrel of the races, the causes of the mischiefs which I have detailed. It will be a ground, I trust, of permanent congratula- tion, that the contest terminated in the destruction of the impracticable constitution, which caused the strife ; nor can I conceive any course of conduct which could so effectually have destroyed the previous system of mismanagement, and cleared the ground for future improvement, as that continued stoppage of supplies which the Assembly, in its intern, perance effected. It brake down at once the whole of that vicious ap- propriation of public funds which was the great bane of provincial legis. lation, and has left the abuses of the colony so long unfed, that a reform, ing government may hereafter work upon an unencumbered soil. The inevitable result of the animosities of race, and of the constant collision of the different powers of the state, which I have described, was a thorough disorganization of the institutions and the administrative system of the country. I do not think that I necessarily cast any stig. ma on my predecessors in Lower Canada, or on the uniform good inten- tions which the Imperial government has clearly evinced towards every class and every race in the colony, when I assert that a country which has been agitated by these social and political dissensions, has suffered under great misgovernment. The blame rests not on individuals, but on the vicious system, which has generated the manifold and deep-rooted abuses that pervade every department of the public service, and consti- tute the real grievances of the colony. These grievances are common to the whole people of Lower Canada ; and it is not one race, or one party only, that suffers by their existence ; they have hindered the prosperity, and endangered the security of all ; though, unquestionably, the inter- ests which have most materially been retarded by misgovernment.are the English- From the highest to the lowest officers of the Executive gov- ernment, no important department is so organized as to act vigorously and completely, throughout the province ; and every duty which a gov- ernment owes to its subjects is imperfectly discharged. The defective system of administration in Lower Canada, commences at the very source of power ; and the efficiency of the public service is impaired throughout by the entire want in the colony of any vigorous administration of the prerogative of the Crown. The fact is, that accor- ding to the present system, there is no real representative of the Crown, in the Province ; there is in it, literally, no power which originates and conducts the executive government. The governor, it is true, is said to represent the sovereign, and the authority of the Crown is, to a certain extent, delegated to him ; but he is, in fact, a mere subordinate officer, receiving his orders from the Secretary of State, responsible, to him for his conduct, and guided by his instructions. Instead of selecting a gov- ernor, with an entire confidence in his ability to use his local knowledge of the real state of affairs in the colony, in the manner which local ob- 39 nervation and practical experience best prescribe to him, it has been the? policy of the Colonial Department, not only at the outset, to instruct a governor as to the general policy which he was to carry into effect, but to direct him from time to time, by instructions, sometimes very precise as to the course which he was to pursue, in every important particular of his administration. Theoretically irresponsible to the Colonial Legisla- ture, the governor was, in effect, the only officer in the colony who was at all responsible ; inasmuch as the Assembly, by centering their attacks on him, and making him appear the sole cause of the difficulties, of the government, could occasion him so much vexation, and represent him in so unfavourable a light at home, that it frequently succeeded in imposing on him the necessity of resigning, or on the Colonial Minister, that of re. calling him. In order to shelter himself from this responsibility, it has inevitably, and I must say very justifiably, been the policy of governors to take care that the double responsibility shall be as light as possible ; to endeavor to throw it, as much as possible, on the home government, and to do as little as possible without previously consulting the Colonial Min. ister at home, and receiving his instructions. It has, therefore, been tho tendency of the local government to settle every thing by reference to the Colonial Department in Downing.street. Almost every question on which it was possible to avoid, even with great inconvenience, an imme- diate decision, has been habitually the subject of reference j and this ap- plies not merely to those questions on which the local executive and le- gislative bodies happened to differ, wherein the reference might be taken as a kind of appeal, but to questions of a strictly local nature, on which it was next to impossible for the colonial office to have any sufficient in. formation. It had been the habit of the colonial office to originate these questions, to entertain applications from individuals, to refer these appli. cations to the governor, and, on his answer, to make a decision. The governor has been enab'ed by this system to shift responsibility on the colonial office, inasmuch as in every important case he was, in reality, carrying into effect the order of the authority to which he was respon. eible. But the real vigour of the executive has been essentially impair, ed ; distance and delay have weakened the force of its decisions ; and the colony has, in every crisis of danger, and almost every detail of local management, felt the mischief of having its executive authority exercis. ed on the other side of the Atlantic. Nor has any thing been gained, either in effectual responsibility or sound information, by thus transferring the details of the executive gov- ernment to the Colonial Department at home. The complete and una. voidable ignorance in which the British public, and even the great body of its legislators, are with respect to the real interests of distant commu- nities, so entirely different from their own, produces a general indiffer- ence, which nothing but some great colonial crisis ever dispels ; and res- ponsibiity to Parliament, or to the public opinion of Great Britain, would, except on these great and rare occasions, be positively mischiev- ous, if it were not impossible. The repeated changes caused by political events at home having no connection with colonial affairs, have left to most of the various representatives of the Colonial Department in Par- liament too little time to acquire even an elementary knowledge of the condition of those numerous and heterogeneous communities for which they have had both to administer and legislate. The persons with whom the real management of these affairs has or ought to have rested have been the permanent but utterly irresponsible members of the office. — Thus the real government of the colony has been entirely dissevered from the slight nominal responsibility which exists. Apart even from this great and primary evil of the system, the pressure of multifarious bu- siness thus thrown on the Colonial-office, and the repeated changes of its ostensible directors, have produced disorders in the management of public business which have occasioned serious mischief, and very great irritation. This is not my own opinion merely ; for I do but repeat that of a select committee of the present House of Assembly in Upper Cana- da, who, in a report dated Fab. 8, 1838, say, " It appears to your com- 40 fmttee, that one of the chief causes of dissatisfaction with the admimt* tratioa of colonial affairs arises from the frequent changes in the office of Secretary of State, to whom the Colonial Department is intrusted. — Since the time the late Lord Bathurst retired from that charge, in 1827, your committee believe there has not been less than eight colonial min- isters, and that the policy of each successive statesman has been more or less marked by a difference from that of his predecessor. This frequen- cy of change in itself almost necessarily entails two evils; first an im- perfect knowledge of the affairs of the colonies on the part o*~ the chief secretary, and the consequent necessity of submitting important details to the subordinate officers of the department ; and, second, the want of stability and firmness in the general policy of the government, and which cf course creates much uneasiness on the part of the governors, and other officers of the colonies, as to what measure may be approved. 11 But undoubtedly" (continues the report) " by far the greatest objec. tion to the system is, the impossibility it occasions of any colonial min- ister, unaided by persons possessing local knowledge, becoming acquain- ted with the wants, wishes, feelings, and prejudices of the inhabitants of the colonies during his temporary continuance in office, and of deci- ding satisfactorily upon the conflicting statements and claims that are brought before him. A firm unflinching resolution to adhere to the prin. ciples of the constitution, and to maintain the just and necessary powers of the Crown, would do much towards supplying the want of local infor- mation. But it Would be performing more than can be reasonably ex- pected from human sagacity, if any man or set of men, should always decide in an unexceptionable manner on subjects that have their origin thousands of miles from the seat of the imperial government, where they reside, and of which they have no personal knowledge whatever ;. and therefore wrong may be often done to individuals or a false view ta- ken of some important political question, that in the end may throw a whole community into difficulty and dissension, not from the absence of the most anxious desire to do right, but from an imperfect knowledge of facts upon which to form an opinion. " To those objections," add the report, " it may be answered, that al- though the Chief Secretary of State retires with a change of Ministers,, the Under Secretaries (or at least one of them) and the other subordinate officers of the department, remain and hold their offices permanently,, and therefore information upon all subjects can be readily imparted to the superior by the gentlemen who are thus retained ; and it may be ad- mitted that the knowledge of this fact ought to lessen the force of the objections that rest on other grounds ; but it cannot be disguised that there is a growing impatience and unwillingness on the part of the colo- nists, especially in these extensive provinces, to have the measures of government whether connected with their general system of govern- ment, legislation, or patronage, controlled by persons who are utter strangers to them, not responsible in any way to themselves or the Brit- ish Parliament, and who perhaps, being advanced to their office from length of service, or other like cause, are not regarded as competent (perhaps unjustly) to manage and direct measures which they (the colo- nists) deem of vital importance. Much of this feeling may be traced to pride ; but it is a pride that springs from an honorable and laudable feel- ing, and always accompanies self-respect, true patriotism, and love of country, and it therefore ought not to be disregarded, nor should any at- tempt be made to lessen or control it, if it were possible to do so. But the imperfection that exists in the system of colonial government that prevails in England is rendered more apparent by the want of that confi. dence that ought to be reposed in the distinguished officers who from time to time are commissioned as governors to different colonies than by any other fact that can be distinctly pointed out." 1 will now only point out the instance of these evils, and I select it because it iB an instance occurring in relation to the most important function of the executive ; namely, its exercise of the legislative pre- rogative of the Crown, and because its existence has been admitted by 41 the present Secretary of State for the Colonies in his instructions to my predecessor, Lord Gosford — I mean the reservation of bills for the royal assent. The " too frequent reservation of bills" is a " grievance," says his lordship, " of which my inquiries lead me to believe the reality."— And in a subsequent part of the same despatch his lordship admits that, owing to this cause, great mischief has been done, by the wholly unin- tentional delay in giving the royal assent to some perfectly unobjection- able bills, having for their object the endowment of colleges by benevo- lent persons. This delay his lordship describes as " chiefly attributable to political events, and the consequent changes of the colonial adminis- tration at home.* I know not to what cause is to be attributed a delay, which produced, with respect to another bill the still more serious effect of a doubt of its legality, after it had been considered and acted on as law. This bill* was reserved ; and the royal assent was so long delayed through mere inadvertence, that when it was sent out to the colony as an act, the question was raised whether the royal assent had been delay, ed beyond the two years allowed by law, and whether, having been so delayed, it was valid. One of the greatest of all the evils arising from this system of irres- ponsible government, was the mystery in which the motives and actual purposes of their rulers were hid from the colonists themselves. The most important business of government was carried on, not in open dis- cussions or public acts, but in a secret correspondence between the gov- ernor and the secretary of state. Whenever this mystery was dispelled, it was long after the worst effects had been produced by doubts and mis. apprehension ; and the colonies have been frequently the last to learn the things that most concerned them by the publication of papers on the order of the British Houses of Parliament. The Governor, thus slightly responsible, and invested with functions ■o ill. defined, found himself at the head of a system in which all his ad- visers and subordinates had still less responsibility, and duties still less defined. Disqualified fit first by want of local information, and very of- ten, subsequently by an entire absence of all acquaintance with the bu- siness of civil government, the Governor, on his arrival in the colony, found himself under the necessity of being, in many respects gnided by the persons whom he found in office. In no country, therefore could there be a greater necessity for a proper demarcation of the business of each public officer, and of a greater responsibility resting on each. Now, I do not at all exaggerate the real state of the case when I assert that there is no head of any of the most important departments of public business in the colony. The limited powers of the local government in a colony necessarily obviate thejnecessity of any provision for some of the most important departments which elsewhere require a superintending mind. But the mere ordinary administration of justice, police, education, pub. lie works, and internal communications, of finance and of trade, would require the superintendence of persons competent to advise the gover. nor, on their own responsibility, as to the measures which should be adopted ; and the additional labors which fall on the heads of such de- partments in other countries, in devising improvements of the system and the laws relating to each, would certainly afford additional occupa. tion, growing out of the peculiarly defective legislation and administra- tion of Lower Canada. Yet, of no one of these departments is there any responsible head, by whose advice the governor may safely be guided.— There are some subordinate and very capable officers in each depart, menf, from whom he Is, in fact, compelled to get information from time to time. But there is no one to whom he, or the public, can look for the correct management and sound decision on the policy of each of these important departments. The real advisers of the governor have, in fact, been the Executive Council ; and an institution more singularly calculated for preventing * The 9 and 10 Geo. IV., e. 77. The period began to run in Mareh, 1899, and the royal assent was not given till May, 1331. F 42 the responsibility of Che acts of government resting on anybody can hard- ly be imagined. It is a body of which the constitution somewhat re- sembles that of the Privy Council ; it is bound by a similar oath of se- crecy ; it discharges in the same manner certain anomalous judicial func- tions; and its "consent and advice" are required in some cases in which the observance of that form has been thought a requisite check on the exercise of particular prerogatives of the Crown. But in other res. pects it bears a greater resemblance to a cabinet, the governor being in the habit of taking its advice on most of the important questions of his policy. But as there is no division into departments in the Council, there is no in. dividual responsibility, and no individual superintendence. Each member of the Council takes an equal part in all the business brought before it. The power of removing members being very rarely exercised, the Coun- cil is, in fact, for the most part composed of persons placed in it long ago ; and the governor is obliged either to take the advice of persons in whom he has no confidence, or to consult only a portion of the Council. The secrecy of the proceedings adds to their responsibility of the body j and when the governor takes an important step, it is not known, or not authentically known, whether he has taken the advice of this Council or not, what members he has consulted, or by the advice of which of the body he has been finally guided. The responsibility of the Executive Council has been constantly demanded by the Reformers of Upper Ca. nada, and occasionally by those of the lower province. But it is really difficult to conceive how desirable responsibility could be attained, except by altering the working of this cumbrous machine, and placing the busi. ness of the various departments of government in the hands of compe- tent public officers. In the ordinary course of public business in the colony, almost ail matters come, in fact, before the Governor or his immediate assistant, the Civil Secretary of the province. The Civil Secretary's office is, in fact, the one general public office in which almost every species of busi- ness originates, or through which it passes in some stage or other. The applications which every day reach this office show the singular want of proper organization in the province, and the great confusion of ideas respecting the functions of government, generated in the minds of the people. A very considerable proportion consists of requests to the governor to interfere with the course of civil justice. Every decision of subordinate officers is made matter of appeal and no reference to the pro. per department satisfies the applicants, who imagine that they have a right to claim a personal investigation of every case by the Governor or the Civil Secretary. The appeals from the past are equally numerous ; and it appears to be expected that every new Governor should sit in judg- ment on every decision of any or all of his predecessors, which happens to have dissatisfied the applicant. * But if such is the bad organization and imperfection of the system at the seat of government, it may be easily believed that the remainder of the province enjoyed no very vigorous or complete administration. In fact, beyond the walls of Quebec, all regular administration of the coun. try appeared to cease ; and there literally was hardly a single public offi- cer of the civil government, except in Montreal and Three Rivers, to whom any order could be directed. The solicitor general commonly re- sides at Montreal ; and in each of the districts there is a sheriff. In the rest of the province there is no sheriff, no mayor, no constable, no supe. rior administrative officer of any kind. There are no county, no muni- cipal, no parochial officers, either named by the Crown, or elected by the people. There is a body of unpaid justices of the peace, whom I will describe more particularly hereafter. The officers of the militia used to be employed for purposes of police, as far as regarded the service of cri. minal warrants ; but their services were voluntary, and not very as. siduous ; and the whole body is now completely disorganized. In everj case in which any information was required by the gevernment, or any service was to be performed in a remote part of the province, it. was necessary either to send some one to the spot, or to find out by inquiry at 43 the seat of government, the name of some resident there whom it was advisable and safe to consult on the subject, or direct to do the act requir- ed. Id the state of parties in the country, such a step could hardly ever be taken, without trusting to very suspicious information, or delegating power to persons who would be, or be suspected of being, likely to abuse it. This utter want of any machinery of executive government in the pro. vince is not perhaps, more striking than might be observed in some of the most flourishing portions of the American continent. — But in the greater part of the states to which I refer, the want of means at the dis. posal of the central executive is amply supplied by the efficiency of the municipal institution ; and even where these are wanting, or imperfect, the energy and self-government habits of an Anglo Saxon population enable it to combine whenever a necessity arises. But the French popu- lation of Lower Canada possesses neither such institutions, nor such a character. — Accustomed to rely entirely on the govornment, it has no power of doing anything for itself.much less of aiding the central authority. The utter want of municipal institutions giving the people any con. troul over their local affairs, may indeed be considered as one of the main causes of the failure of representative government and of the bad admi- nistration cf the country. If the wise example of those countries iu which a free representative government has alone worked well, had been in all respects followed in Lower Canada, care would have been taken that, at the same time that a Parliamentary system, based on a very ex- tended suffrage, was introduced into the country, the people should have been entrusted with a complete controul over their local affairs, and been trained for taking their part in the concerns of the province, by their ex. perience in the management of their local business which was most in- teresting; and most easily intelligible to them. But the inhabitants of Lower Canada were unhappily initiated into self government at exactly the wrong end, and those who were not trusted with the management of a parish, were enabled, by their votes to influence the destinies of a state. During my stay in the province, I appointed a commission to inquire into its municipal institutions, and the practicability of introducing an effec- tive and free system for the management of local affairs. The gentlemen entrusted with this inquiry had, when they were interupted in their la. bours, made considerable progress towards preparing a report, which will, I hope, develope, in a full and satisfactory manner, the extent of the ex- isting evil, and the nature of the practicable remedies. There never has been, in fact any institution in Lower Canada, in which any portion of the French population have been brought together for any administrative purpose, nor is there among the divisions of the country any one which has been constituted with a view of such an end. The larger divisions, called "districts," are purely iudicial divisions. The counties may be called merely parliamentary divisions; for I know of no purposes for which they appear to have been constituted, except for the election of members for the House of Assembly ; and during the pre. sent suspension of representative government, they are merely arbitrary and useless geographical divisions. There are no hundreds, or corres- ponding sub.divisions of counties. The parishes are purely ecclesiastical divisions, and may be altered by the Catholic bishops. The only institu- tion in the nature of local management, in which the people have any voice, is in the fabrique by which provision is made for the repairs of the Catholic churches. The townships are inhabited entirely by a population of British and American origin ; and may be said to be divisions established for survey- ing rather than other purposes. The eastern townships present a lamen- table contrast in the management of all local matters to the bordering; state of Vermont, in which the municipal institutions are the most com. plete, it is said, of any part even of New England. In any new settled district of New England, a small number of families settling within a certain distance of each other, are immediately empowered by law to as. eess themselves for local purposes, and to elect local officers. The sett- lers in the eastern townships, many of whom are natives of New Kng- 44 land, and all of whom can contrast the state of things on their own with that which is to be Seen on the other side of the line, have a serious and general cause of discontent in the very inferior management of all their own local concerns. The government appears even to have discouraged the American settlers from introducing their own municipal institutions by common assent. " I understood." said Mr. Richards, in a Report to the Secretary of State of the Colonies, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed in March, 1832, " that the Vermonters had crossed the line, and partially occupied several townships, bringing with them their own municipal customs; and that when the impropriety of electing their own officers was pointed out to them, they had quickly given them up and promised to conform to those of Canada." But the want of municipal institutions has been and is most glaringly remarkable in Quebec and Montreal. These cities were incorporated a few years ago by a temporary provincial act, of which the renewal was rejected in 1836. Since that time these cities have been without any municipal government ; and the disgraceful state of the streets, and the utter absence of lighting, are consequences which arrest the attention of all, and seriously affect the comfort and security of the inhabitants. The worst effects of this most faulty system of general adminstra. tion will be developed in the view which I shall hereafter give of the practices adopted with respect to the public lands, and the settlement of the Province, but which I postpone for the present because I purpose considering this subject with reference to all the North American Pro- vinces. — But I must here notice the mischievous results prominently ex. hibited in the provision which the government of Lower Canada makes for the first want of a people, the efficient administration of justice. The law of the province and the administration of justice are, in fact, a patch work of the results of the interference at different times of dif- ferent legislative powers, each proceeding on utterly different and gene, rally incomplete views, and each utterly regardless of the other. The law itself is a mass of incoherent and conflicting laws v part French and part English, and with the line between each very confusedly drawn. — Thus, the criminal law is the criminal law of England, as it was intro- duced in 1774, with such modifications as have since been made by the provincial Legislature, it being now disputed whether the provincial le- gislature, had any power to make any change whatever in that law, and it not being all clear what is the extent of the phrase •■ criminal law." — The civil law is the aneient civil law, also modified in some, but unfor- tunately very few, respects ; and these modifications have been almost exclusively effected by acts of the British Parliament and by ordinances of the Governor and Council constituted under the Quebec Act. The French law of evidence prevails in all civil matters, with a special ex. ception of" commercial" cases, in which it is provided that the English law is to be adopted ; but no two lawyers agree in their definition of *« commercial." •" For judicial purposes the province is divided into four superior dis- tricts, having unlimited and supreme original jurisdiction, and one infe- rior with limited jurisdiction. The four superior are those of Quebec and Montreal, Three Rivers and St. Francis ; the inferior that of Gasped The district of Gasp^ is subordinate to that of Quebec, with some spe- cial provisions for the administration of justice within it under a parti- cular Provincial Act, which expires next May. I could obtain no very satisfactory imformation respecting this district, except that every body appeared to be of opinion that, from its distance and scanty population, it had always met with very little attention from either the legislature or the executive government. About the administration of justice therein I could hardly obtain any information ; indeed, on one occasion, it being necessary, for some particular purpose, to ascertain the fact, inquiry was made at all the public offices in Quebec, whether or not there was any coroner of Gaspe. It was a long time before any information could be got on this point, and it was at last in some measure cleared up, by the Accountant. General discovering an estimate for the salary of such 45 an officer. The only positive information, therefore, that I can give re. specting the present administration of justice in Gaspe is, that I received a petition from the inhabitants praying that the act by which it is regula. ted might not be renewed. Each of the courts of Quebec and Montreal has a chief justice and three puisne judges ; there is but one judge in each of the districts of Three Rivers and St. Francis. During term time judges from other dis- tricts make up the bench in these two. In all civil cases these courts have original jurisdiction to an unlimited amount ; and in spite cf the immense extent of all, but particularly of the two great districts, the parties are in almost all cases brought up to the chief towns for the trial of their causes. An attempt, but of a very trifling and abortive character, has been made to introduce the English system of circuits. The judges of these districts make circuits once a year, in order to try causes in which the disputed value is not more than £10 sterling. The limitation of the val- ue, the introduction of small debt courts, and the consequent failure of attendance on the part of a bar during their progress, and the very in- sufficient time allotted for the stay at each place, have, I am informed, rendered these circuits almost useless ; and even the suits which might be tried at the circuits are generally in preference carried up for trial to the chief places of these districts. There are some complaints that excessive fees are taken in the courts of Montreal and Quebec. The distribution of legal patronage is a mat- ter of great it is not easy to say, of how just, complaint ; but the sub- stantial evil of the administration of civil justice consists in the practical denial of it caused by the utter inefficiency of the circuit system, and the enormous expense and delay of carrying every suit, where the value in dispute is more than £10 sterling, from the extremities of the three large and settled districts of the province to the three district towns ; in the vicious constitution of the inf«rior tribunals by which it has been attemp- ted to supply the want of an effective system, either of circuits or of local courts ; and in the very faulty nature of the supreme appellate jurisdic- tion of the province. The minor litigation of the country is, in fact, carried on throughout these three districts in the courts of the commissioners of small causes. These courts are established in the different parishes by the Governor* on an application made by a certain number of the parishioners, according to forms prescribed by the provincial statute, in which this institution takes its rise, and have jurisdiction overall debts not exceeding twenty, five dollars, equal to £6 5s. currency. The commissioners are appoint- ed by the Governor, upon the recommendation of the petitioners 5 these are residents in the parish, and almost wholly unversed in law. The constitution of these courts, is in fact, nothing else in substance but an elective judiciary, elected under most irregular, fraudulent and absurd electoral system that could possibly be devised. 1 cannot better illus. trate this description, than by narrating simply the mode in which the ap- pointment is, in fact, made. It is, and has for a long time been, left almost entirely in the hands of a subordinate assistant in the Civil Se- cretary's office. This gentleman stated that be took no steps and in- deed by law he could not, until he received a petition, with the requisite number of names attached. His impression was, that these signatures were generally obtained by assiduous canvassing in the parish, generally on the part of some person who wanted the appointment of clerk, which is paid, and who took his trouble, in order to secure the nomination of com. missioners, from whom he expected to get the appointment. After some inquiry from any person whom this assistant secretary thought proper to consult respecting the characters of the persons proposed, they were, al- most as a matter of course, appointed. After a short time, if some other person in the district happened to acquire more popularity, and to covet the office, a petition was got up, containing charges against the occu. pint of tbe office, and praying for his removal, and the substitution of foil rival. -Upon most of the appointments, also, there arose long con- 46 troversies respecting the politioa, qualification, and character of the can- didate for office ; and a removal or new appointment was always attribu- ted to some political causes by the newspapers of each party or race. — The inquiry into the qualification of persons proposed, the investigation of the charges made, the defence urged in reply, and the distant and unsatisfactory evidence adduced in support of each, formed a large pro- portion of the business of the Civil Secretary's office. Whatever ap- pointment was made, the government was 6ure to create dissatisfaction ; and the administration of justice was left in the hands of incompetent men, whose appointment had been made in such a manner, as even sometimes, to render their integrity suspicious in the eyes, not only of those who had opposed, but also of those who had supported, their no- mination. I shall only add, that some time previous to my leaving the province, I was very warmly and forcibly urged, by the highest legal authorities in the country, to abolish all these tribunals at once, on the ground that a great many of them, being composed entirely of disaffected French Canadians, were busily occupied in harrassing loyal subjects, by entertaining actions against them, on account of the part they had taken in the late insurrection. There is no appeal from their decision ; and it was stated that they had, in the most barefaced manner, given damages against loyal persons for acts done in discharge of their duty, and judg- ments by default against persons who were absent as Volunteers in the service of the Queen, and enforced their judgment by levying distresses on their property. I must now turn from the lowest to the highest civil tribunal of the province. In a country in which the administration of justice is so im- perfect in all the inferior stages, and in which two different and often conflicting systems of law are administered by judges whose professional education and origin necessarily cause different leanings in favour of the respective systems in which each is more particularly versed, the exist, ence of a good and available appellate jurisdiction, which may keep the law uniform and certain, is matter of much greater importance than in those countries in which the law is homogeneous, and its administration by the subordinate tribunals is satisfactory. But the appellate jurisdic- tion of Lower Canada is vested in the Executive Council — a body estab. lished simply for political purposes, and composed of persons in great part having no legal qualifications whatsoever. The Executive Council sits as a court of appeal four times in the year, and for the space of ten days during each session ; on these occasions the two chief justices of Quebec and Montreal were ex-officio, presidents, and each in turn pre- sided when appeais from the other's district were heard. The laymen who were present to make up the necessary quorum of five, as a matter of course, left the whole matter to the presiding chief justice, except in some instances, in which party feelings or pecuniary interests are as- serted to have induced the unprofessional members to attend in unusual numbers, to disregard the authority of the chief justice, and to pervert the law. In the general run of cases, therefore, the decision was left to the President alone, and each chief justice became, in consequence, the real judge of appeal from the whole court of the other district. It is a matter of perfect and undisputed notoriety, that this system has produc- ed the results which ought to have been foreseen as inevitable ; and that, for some time before I arrived in the province, the two chief justices had constantly differed in opinion upon some most important points, and had been in the habit of generally reversing each other's judgments. Not only, therefore, was the law uncertain and different in the two districts, but, owing to the ultimate power of the Court of Appeal, that which was the real law of each district was that which was held not to be law by the judges of that district. This is not merely an inference of my own ; it is very clear that it was the general opinion of the profession and the public. The Court of Appeal, as re-modelled by me, at the only sitting which it held, reversed all but one of the judgments brought be- fore it. This induced a member of the court to remark to one of the thief justices, that so general a reversal of the law of a very competent 47 court below, by a tribunal so competent as the Court of Appeals thea was, appeared to him utterly inexplicable, inasmuch as it could in no. wise be attributed, as it was before, to the influence of a single judge. — The reply of the chief justice was, that the matter was easily accounted for, that the system previously adopted in the Court of Appeals had ren- dered the decision of the court below so complete a nullity, that the par- ties and counsel below often would not take the trouble to enter into the real merits of their case, and that the real hearing and law of the case were, generally, most fully stated before the Court of Appeals. As the business of the Court of Appeals was thus of great extent and importance, it became necessary that, having from political considera. tions altered the composition of the Executive Council, I should re-or- ganize the Court of Appeals. I determined to do this upon the best principle that I could carry into effect under the circumstances of the case ; for, as the constitution of the Court of Appeals is prescribed by the Constitutional Act, I could not vest the appellate jurisdiction in any other body than the Executive Council. I called, therefore, to the Ex* ecutive Council the chief justice and one puisne judge from each of the two districts of Quebec and Montreal, and by summoning also the judge of Three Rivers, I gave the members of the two conflicting tribunals an impartial arbiter, in the person of M. Vallieres de St. Real, admitted by universal consent to be the ablest French lawyer in the province. But the regulations of the Executive Council, which it was supposed 1 could not alter in this case, required the presence of a quorum of five ; and as no judge could sit on an appeal from his own court, I had now only pro- vided three for every appeal from the two greater districts. In order to make up the quorum, the court was therefore attended by two other exe- cutive councillors, one of whom, by his thorough knowledge of commer- cial law, and his general legal experience, was commonly admitted to have rendered essential service. I believe I may confidently say that the decisions of the court carried far greater weight than those of any previ- ous court of appeals. The further appeal to the Privy Council, allowed in cases where the value was above £'500, is, from the great delay and great expense atten- dant on it, hardly ever resorted to. The establishment of a good appel- late jurisdiction for the whole of the North American colonies is there- fore greatly desired by every province ; and a competent tribunal for this purpose would spare the cost and delay of a resort to the Privy Council, and answer all the purposes proposed to be attained by the present double system of appeal. The evils of the system of criminal justice are not so various, but from the faulty judicial division and administrative system of the province, the defects which exist in the constitution of the courts of justice are even more severely felt in this department; for, except at the principal towns of the five districts, there is not the slightest provision for criminal jus- tice, and to these places all prisoners must be brought for trial from the most remote parts, subject to their jurisdiction. Thus, from the extreme settlements on the Ottawa, where is now the great seat of the lumber trade, and of the large and wild population which it brings together, all prisoners have to be carried to a distance of two hundred miles, by bad and uncertain means of conveyance, to Montreal for trial. On the left bank of the Ottawa the law has, according to high legal authority, no power. It was but lately that a violent mob, called Shiners, for a long time set the law at defiance, and had entirely at their mercy the large properties invested in that part of the country. Besides those in the five places above mentioned, there are only three county gaols, one of which is in the district of Gaspe. There are no sessions held in any other than those places. At the Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers quarter sessions there were, some years ago, profes- sional and salaried chairmen, but the Assembly discontinued them. There are sheriffs only in the districts, and not in each county. They are named by the crown for life, and are removable at pleasure. The offices are y^iy lucrative, and are said to have been frequently disposed of from personal or political favouritism. It ia also a matter of complaint, that insufficient security has been taken from those appointed to them ; and many individuals have consequently sustained very serious loss from the defalcation of sheriffs. But the most serious mischief in the administration of criminal justice, arises from the entire perversion of the institution of juries, by the poli- tical and national prejudices of the people. The trial by jury was intro- duced with the rest of the English criminal law. For a long time the composition of both grand and petit juries were settled by the governor, and they were at first taken from the cities, which were the chefs lieux of the district. Complaints were made that this gave an undue prepon- derance to the British in those cities; though, from the proportions of the population, it is not very obvious how they could thereby obtain more than an equal share. In consequence, however, of these complaints, an order was issued under 'he government of Sir James Kempt, directing the sheriffs to take the juries not only from the cities, but from the adjacent country, for fifteen leagues in every direction. An act was subsequently passed, commonly called " Mr. Viger's Jury Act," extending these limits to those of the district. The principle of taking the jury from the whole district, to which the jurisdiction of the court extended, is undoubtedly in conformity with the principles of English law ; and Mr. Viger's Act, adopting the other regulations of the English jury law , provided a fair selection of juries. But if we consider the hostility and proportions of the two races, the practical effect of this law was to give the French an entire preponderance in the juries. This act was one of the temporary acts of the Assembly, and having expired in 1836, the Legislative Council refu- sed to renew it. Since that period there has been no jury law whatever. The composition of the juries has been altogether in the hands of the government ; private instructions, however, have been given to the sheriff to act in conformity with Sir James Kempt's ordinance ; but though he has always done so, the public have had no security for any fairness in the selection of the juries. There was no visible check on the sheriff ; the public knew that he could pack a jury whenever he pleased, and suppos- ed, as a matter of course, that an officer holding a lucrative appointment at the pleasure of government would be ready to carry into effect those unfair designs which they were always ready to attribute to the govern, ment. When I arrived in the Province the public was expecting the trials of the persons accused of participation in the late insurrection. I was on the one hand informed by the law officers of the Crown and the highest judicial authorities, that not the slighest chance existed under any fair system of getting a jury that would convict any of these men, however clear the evidence of their guilt might be ; and on the other side 1 was given to understand that the prisoners and their friends sup. posed that, as a matter of course, they would be tried by packed juries, and that even the most clearly innocent of them would be convicted. It is indeed a lamentable fact, which must not be concealed, that there does not exist in the minds of the people of this province the slightest confidence in the administration of criminal justice ; nor were the com. plaints, or the apparent grounds for them, confined to one party. The French complain that the institution of both grand and petit juries have been repeatedly tampered with against them. They complain that when it has suited the interests of the government to protect persons guilty of gross offences against the French party, they have attained their end by packing the grand jury. Great excitement has long existed among the French party in consequence of a riot which took place at the election for the West Ward of Montreal, in May, 1832, on which occasion the troops were called out, fired on the people, and killed three of them. An indictment was preferred against the magistrates and officers who ordered the troops to fire. It was urged by the French that the grand jury was composed almost entirely of Englishmen, that twelve out of the twenty- three were taken from the parish of Lachine, the smallest in the whole island : a selection which, they said, could hardly be attributed to mere chance, and that they were not in the usual station in life of grand jurymen. 49 The opposite party, it must be observed, however, argued that this apparent selection of a majority of the grand jury from a single parish was a necessary result of some ill-contrived provision of Mr. Vigor's Jury Act. The bill was thrown out, and all judicial investigation into the circumstances consequently quashed. I am merely mentioning the com- plaints of parties. I know not whether the preceding allegations were well founded, but there can be no doubt that such was the impression produced among the French Canadians by these proceedings, which, in their minds, completely destroyed all confidence in the administration of justice. The French Canadians further complain that the favorable decision of a grand jury was of no avail to those who had fallen under the displea- sure of the government. There are several instances in the recent his- tory of Lower Canada, in which an attorney-general, being dissatisfied with the conduct of the grand jury in ignoring a bill, either repeatedly preferred indictments for the same offence, until he obtained a grand jury which would find them, or filed ex officio informations. Nor are the complaints of the English popula'ion of a less serious na- ture. They assert, unhappily on too undispulable grounds, that the Canadian grand and petit juries have invariably used their power to in- sure impunity to such of their countrymen as had been guilty of political offences. The case of Chartrand is not the only one in which it is gen- erally believed that this has been done. The murderers of an Irish pri- vate soldier of the 24th Regiment, of the name of Hands, are asserted to have been saved by an equally gross violation of their oaths on the part of the jury. A respectable and intelligent member of the grand jury which sat at Montreal, in October, 1837, informed the government that nothing could be more proper than the behaviour of a great majority of the jurymen, who were French Canadians, vyjiile they were occupied with cases not connected with politics. They attended patiently to the evidence, and showed themselves well disposed to follow the opinion of the foreman, who was a magistrate of great competence ; but it was ad- ded, that the instant they came to a political case, all regard for even the appearance of impartiality vanished, and they threw out the bills by acclamation, without listening to the remonstrances of the foreman. The trial by jury is therefore at the present moment not only produc- tive in Lower Canada of no confidence in the honest administration of the laws, but also provides impunity for every political offence. I cannot close this account of the system of criminal justice without making some remarks with respect to the body by which it is adminis- tered in its primary stages and minor details to the great mass of the peo- ple of the province. I mean the magistracy ; and I cannot but express my regret, that among the few institutions for the administration of jus- tice throughout the country which have been adopted in Lower Canada from those of England should be that of unpaid justices of the peace. — I do not mean in any way to disparage the character, or depreciate the usefulness of that most respectable body in this country. But the warm. est admirer of that institution must admit that its benefits result entirely from the peculiar character of the class from which our magistracy is se- lected ; and that without the general education, the moral responsibility imposed by their high station in the eyes of their countrymen, the check exercised by the opinion of their own class, and of an intelligent and vi- gilant public, and the habits of public business, which almost every En- glishman more or less acquires ; even the country gentlemen of England could not wield their legally irresponsible power as justices of the peace to the satisfaction of their countrymen. What, then, must be conceived of the working of this institution in a colony by a class over whom none of these checks exist, and whose station in life and education would alone almost universally exclude them from a similar office at home ? — When we transplant the institutions of England into our colonies, wo ought at least to take care beforehand that the social state of the colony should possess these peculiar materials on which alone the excellence of those institutions depends in the mother country. The body of jus. G 50 tices of the peace scattered over the whole of Lower Canada are named by the governor, on no very accurate local information, there being no lieutenants or similar officers of counties in this, as in the Upper Prov- ince. The real property qualification required for the magistracy is so low, that in the country parts almost every one possesses it ; and it only excludes some of the most respectable persons in the cities. In the rural districts the magistrates have no clerks. The institution has become un- popular among the Canadians, owing to their general belief that the ap- pointments have been made with a party and national bias. It cannot be denied that many most respectable Canadians were long left out of the commission of the peace, without any adequate cause ; and it is still more undeniable, that most disreputable persons of both races have found their way into it, and still continue to abuse the power thus vested in them. Instances of indiscretion, of ignorance, and of party feeling, and accusations of venality, have been often adduced by each party. Wheth- er these representations be exaggerated or not, or whether they apply to a small or to a large portion of the magistracy, it is undeniable that the greatest want of confidence in the practical working of the institution exists ; and I am therefore of opinion that, whilst this state of society continues, and, above all, in the present exasperation of parties, small stipendiary magistracy would be much better suited to both Upper and Lower Canada. The police of the province has always been lamentably defective. No city, from the lawless and vicious character of a great part of its popu- lation, requires a more vigilant police than Quebec. Until May, 1836, the police of this city was regulated by an act which then expired, and was not renewed, and it consisted of forty.eight watchmen, half of whom served every night for the whole town. The day police consisted of six constables, who were under no efficient control. On the expira- tion of this act there was no night police at all, and murders occurring in the streets, the inhabitants formed a voluntary patrol for the upper town. Lord Gosford, in December, 1837, appointed Mr. Young inspector of po. lice, with eight policemen under him ; a sergeant and eight men of the Volunteer Seaman's Company were placed under his order ; and another magistrate had a corporal and twelve men of the same company for the police of the lower town. Finding their force wholly insufficient, re- ceiving daily complaints, and witnessing daily instances of disorder and neglect, and above all being much pressed to inorease the police by the owners of vessels, who had no power of restraining the desertion of their crews, I ordered a regular police of thirty-two men to be organized on the plan of the London police in June last. This body was further aug- mented in October to seventy-five ; and this number is represented to me by the inspector as by no means more than sufficient. In Montreal, where no approach to a general system of police had been made, I directed Mr. Leclere, who had been appointed a stipendiary magistrate by Lord Gosford, to organize a force similar to that of Que- bec The number of this is now carried, I think, as high as 100. Throughout the rest of the province, where the functions of a police used to be discharged by the militia, that body being now disorganized, there is, in fact, no police at all. In the course of the autumn, I was informed by Mr. Young, that at St. Catherine's, forty-six miles from Quebec, a man, after notoriously committing an assault with an intent to murder, was still at large a fortnight after the act; and that no means had been found of executing a warrant issued against him by a county magistrate. As the only means of enforcing the law, Mr. Young was authorized to send policemen, sworn in as special constables, the place being out of his jurisdiction ; and by them the arrest was effected. — When Theller and Dodge escaped from the citadel, and were supposed to have taken the direction of the Kennebec road, no means existed of stopping their flight, except by sending the police of Quebec to the very frontier of the United Slates. As there was no rural police, the same step had been taken in the case of a deserter. 51 In the course of the preceding account, I have already incidentally given a good many of the most important details of the provision for education made in Lower Canada. I have described the general igno- rance of the people* and the abortive attempt which was made, or rather which was professed to be made, for the purpose of establishing a gene- ral system of public instruction; I have described the singular abundance of a somewhat defective education which exists for the higher classes, and which is solely in the hands of the Catholic priesthood. It only re- mains that I should add, though the adults who have come from the old country are generally more or less educated, the English are hardly better off than the French for the means of education for their children, and indeed possess scarcely any except in the cities* There exists at present no means of college education for Protestants in the Province ; and the desire of obtaining general, and still more pro- fessional, instruction, yearly draws a great many young men into the United States. I can, indeed, add little to the general information possessed by the government respecting the great deficiency of instruction, and of the means of education in this province. The commissioner whom I ap- pointed to inquire into the state of education in the province endeavor- ed very properly to make inquiries so minute and ample, that the real state of things should be laid fully open ; and with this view he had with great labour prepared a series of questions, which he had transmitted to various persons in every parish. At the time when his labours were brought to a close, together with mine, he had received very few an- swers ; but it was desirable that the information which he had thus pre- pared the means of obtaining should not be lost, a competent person has been engaged to receive and digest the returns. Complete information respecting the state of education, and of the result of past attempts to instruct the people, will thus, before long, bo laid before the Govern- ment. The inquiries of the commissioner were calculated to inspire but slen- der hopes of the immediate practicability of any attempt to establish a general and sound system of education for the province. Not that the people themselves are different or opposed to such a scheme. I was rejoiced to find that there existed among the French population a very general and deep sense of their own deficiencies in this respect, and a great desire to provide means for giving their children those advantages which had been denied to themselves. Among the English the same de- sire was equally felt ; and I believe that the population of either origin would be willing to submit to local assessments for this purpose. The inhabitants of the North American Continent, possessing an amount of material comfort, unknown to the peasantry of any other part of the world, are generally very sensible to the importance of educa- tion. And the noble provision which every one of the northern states of the Union has gloried in establishing for the education of its youth, has excited a general spirit of emulation amongst the neighbouring pro- vinces, and a desire, which will probably produce some active efforts, to improve their own educational institutions. It, is therefore, much to be regretted, that there appear to exist obsta- cles to the establishment of such a general system of instruction as would supply the wants, and, I believe, meet the wishes of the entire po- pulation. Ihe Catholic clergy, to whose exertions the French and Irish population are indebted for whatever means of education they have ever possessed, appear to be very unwilling that the state should in any way take the instruction of youth out of their hands. Nor do the clergy of some other denominations exhibit generally a less desire to give to edu- cation a sectarian character, which would be peculiarly mischievous in this province, inasmuch as its inevitable effect would be to aggravate and perpetuate the existing distinctions of origin. But as the laity of every denomination appear to be opposed to these narrow views, I feel confi- dent that the establishment of a strong popular government in this pro. 52 vince would very soon lead to the introduction of a liberal and general system of public education. I am grieved to be obliged to remark, that the British Government has, since its possession of this province, done, or even attempted, nothing for the promotion of general education. Indeed the only matter in which it has appeared in connection with the subject, is one by no means credU table to it. For it has applied the Jesuits' estates, part of the property destined for purposes of education, to supply a species of fund for secret service, and for a number of years it has maintained an obstinate strug- gle with the Assembly in order to continue this misappropriation. Under the head of the hospitals, Prisons, and Charitable Institutions of Lower Canada, I beg to refer to some valuable information collected, by my direction, by Sir John Doratt, during the exercise of his office of In- spector-general of Hospitals and Charitable and Literary Institutions, which will be found in a separate part of the appendix to this report. I regret that the pressure of more urgent subjects did not allow me time to institute into these subjects so searching and comprehensive an inqui- ry as 1 should have desired to make in other circumstances. But there are some points brought under my notice by Sir John Doratt, to which I think it important that the attention of your Majesty's government should be directed without delay. I advert to the existing want of any public establishment for the reception of insane persons either in Lower or Upper Canada; to the bad state of the prisons in general, and especi. ally the disgraceful condition of the gaol of the city of Quebec ; to the defects of the quarantine station at Grosse Isle ; to the low and igno- rant state of the medical profession throughout the rural districts ; and to the necessity of a change in the system of providing for the insane, the invalid poor and foundlings, by payments of public moneys to con- vents for that purpose. It is evident that considerable abuses exist in the management of several philanthrophic institutions. I have adver- ted, in another part of my report, to the subject of pauperism, as connec- ted with emigration ; and the evidence there cited is in some respects confirmed by the information communicated by Sir John Doratt. It is a subject of very just congratulation, that religious differences have hardly operated as an additional cause of dissension in Lower Cana- da ; and that a degree of practical toleration, known in very few com- munities has existed in this colony from the period of the conquest down to the present time. The French Canadians are exclusively Catholic, and their church has been left in the possession of the endowments which it had at the con- quest. The right to tithe is enjoyed by their priests; but as it is li- mited by law to lands of which the proprietor is a Catholic, the priest loses his tithe the moment that an estate passes, by sale, or otherwise, into the hands of a Protestant. This enactment which is at variance with the true spirit of national endowments for religious purposes, has a natural tendency to render the clergy averse to the settlement of Pro- testants in the seigniories. But the Catholic priesthood of this province have, to a very remarkable degree, conciliated the good will of persons of all creeds; and I know of no parochial clergy in the world whose practice of all the Christian virtues, and zealous discharge of their cleri- cal duties, is more universally admitted, and has been productive of more beneficial consequences. Possessed of incomes sufficient, and even large, according to the notions entertained in the country, and enjoying the advantage of education, they have lived on terms of equality and kindness villi the humblest and least instructed inhabitants of the rural districts. Intimately acquainted with the wants and characters of their neighbours, they have been the promoters and dispensers of charity, and the effectual guardians of the morals of the people ; and in the general absence of any permanent institutions of civil government, the Catholic church has presented almost the only semblance of stability and organi- zation, and furnished the only effectual support for civilization and order. The Catholic clergy of Lower Canada are entitled to this expression of my esteem, not only because it is founded on truth, but because a great, ful recognition of their eminent services, in resisting the arts of the dis- affected, is especially due to them from one who has administered the government of the province in these troubled times. The Constitutional Act, while limiting the application of the Clergy Reserves in the townships to a Protestant clergy, made no provision for the extension of the Catholic Clerical institution, in the event of the French population settling beyond the limits of the seignories. Though I believe that some power exists, and has been in a few cases used, for the creation of new Catholic parishes, I am convinced that this absence of the means of religious instruction has been the main cause of the in* disposition of the French population to seek new settlements, as the in- crease of their numbers pressed upon their resources. It has been rightly observed that the religious observances of the French Canadians are so intermingled with all their business and all their amusements, that the priest and the church are with them, more than any other people, the centres of their little communities. In order to encourage them to spread their population, and to seek for comfort and prosperity in new settle. ments, a wise government would have taken care to aid, in every possi- ble way, the diffusion of their means of religious instruction. The Protestant population of Lower Canada have been of late some- what agitated by the question of the clersy reserves. The meaning of the ambiguous phrase " Protestant clergy" has been discussed with great ardour in various quarters ; and each disputant has displayed his inge. nuity in finding reasons for a definition in accordance with his own in- clination, either to the aggrandizement of his own sect, or the e stablish- ment of religious equality. Owing to the small numbers of the British population, to the endowment of the Catholic Church in most of the peopled and important districts of the colony, and, above all, to the much more formidable and extensive causes of dissension existing in the pro- vince, the dispute of the various Protestant denominations for the funds reserved for a " Protestant clergy," has not assumed the importance which it has acquired in Upper Canada. In my account of that province I shall give a more detailed explanation of the present position oi this much-dis- puted question. I have reason to know, that the apprehension of mea- sures tending to establish the predominance of a particular creed and clergy, has produced an irritation in this Province which has very nearly deprived the Crown of the support of some portions ot the British popu- lation, in a period of very imminent danger. I must, therefore, most strongly recommend, that any plan by which the question of clergy re- serves shall be set at rest in Upper Canada, should also be extended to the Lower Province. The endowments of the Catholic church, and the ser- vices of its numerous and zealous parochial clergy, have been of the greatest benefit to the large body of Catholic emigrants from Ireland, who have relied much on the charitable as well as religious aid which they have received from the priesthood. The priests have an almost un- limited influence over the lower classes of Irish ; and this influence is said to have been vigorously exerted last winter, when it was much need- ed, to secure the loyalty of a portion of the Irish during the troubles. — The general loyalty exhibited by the Irish settlers in the Canadas during the last winter, and the importance of maintaining it unimpaired in fu- ture times of difficulty, render it of the utmost moment that the feelings and interests of the Catholic clergy and population should invariably meet with due consideration from the government. Setting on one side the management of the Crown Lands, and the re- venue derived therefrom, which will be treated of fully in another part, it is not necessary that I should on the present occasion, enter into any detailed account of the financial system of Lower Canada, my object be- ing merely to point out the working of the general system of govern- ment, as operating to produce the present condition of the Province. I need not inquire whether its fiscal, monetary, or commercial arrange- ments have been in accordance with the best principles of public eco- 54 homy. But I have reason to behove that improvements may be made ir? the mode of raising and expending the provincial revenue. During my stay in Canada, the evils of the banking and monetary systems of the province forced themselves on my attention I am not inclined, how- ever, to regard these evils as having been in anywise influential in caus- ing the late disorders. I cannot regard them as indicative of any more mismanagement or error than are observable in the measures of the best governments with respect to questions of so much difficulty ; and though the importance of finding somo sufficient remedy for some of these dis- orders has, as I shall hereafter explain, very materially influenced my views, of the general plan to be adopted for the government of this and the other North American Colonies, I regard the better regulation of the financial and monetary systems of the Province as a matter to be settled by the local government, when established on a permanent basis. With the exception of the small amount now derived from the casual and territorial funds, the public revenue of Lower Canada is derived from duties imposed, partly by Imperial and partly by Provincial statutes. — These duties are, in great proportion, levied upon articles imported into the Colony from Great Britain and foreign countries ; they are collected at the principal ports by officers of the impeiial customs. The amount of the revenue has within the last four years diminished from about £150,000 to little more than £100,000 per annum. This di- minution is ascribed principally to the decreased consumption of spiritu- ous liquors, and some other articles of foreign import, in consequence of the growth of native manufactures of such articles. Nevertheless, as the permanent expenditure of the civil government only amounts to about £60,000 a year, there remains still a considerable surplus to be disposed of for local purposes, in the mischievous manner which I have described in the preceding pages. A vigorous and efficient government would find the wholo revenue hardly adequate to its necessities; but in the present state of things, I consider the existence and application of this surplus revenue as so prejudicial, that I should, as the less of two evils, recom- mend a reduction of the duties levied, were it possible to do this without an equal diminution of the revenue of Upper Canada, which can by no means afford it. The financial relations between these two Provinces are a source of great and increasing disputes. The greater part, almost the whole of the imports of Upper Canada entering at the ports of Lower Canada, the Upper Province has urged and established its claim to a proportion of the duties levied on them. This proportion is settled, from time to time, by commissioners appointed from each province. Lower Canada now receives about three, and Upper Canada about two-fifths of the whole amount : nor is this the greatest cause of dissension and dissatis- faction. The present revenue of Upper Canada being utterly inadequate to its expenditure, the only means that that province will have of paying the interest of its debt, will be by increasing its Customs' duties. But, as these are almost all levied in Lower Canada, this cannot be dene without raising the taxation also of the Lower Canadians, who have, as it is, a large surplus revenue. It was for the better settlement of these points of difference, that the Union of the two Canadas was proposed in 1822 ; and the same feeling produces a great part of the anxiety now manifested for that measure by a portion of the people of Upper Can- ada. A considerable revenue is raised from all these provinces by the Post-Office establishment common to all of them, and subordinate to the General Post-Office in England. The surplus revenue, which appears from a report to the House of Assembly to amount to no less than £10,- 000 per annum, is transmitted to England\ The Assembly made it a matter of great complaint that an important internal public institution of the provinces should be entirely regulated and administered by the rulers and servants of an English public office, and that so large an amount of revenue, raised entirely without the consent of the colonies. 55 in a manner not at all free from objectiors, should be transmitted to tha mother country.* I cannot but say that there is great justice in these complaints, and I am decidedly of opinion that if any plan of an united government of these provinces should be adopted, the control and reve- nue of the post-office should be given up to the Colony. For the reasons I have before explained, there is hardly the semblance of direct taxation in Lower Canada for general and local purposes. — This immunitv from taxation has been sometimes spoken of as a great privilege of the people of Lower Canada, and a great proof of the jus- tice and benevolence of their government. The description which I have given of the singularly defective provision made for the discharge of the most important duties of both the general and local government, will, I think, make it appear that this apparent saving of the pockets of the people has been caused by their privation of many of the institutions which every civilized community ought to possess. A people can hard- ly be congratulated on having had at little cost a rude and imperfect ad- ministration of justice, hardly the semblance of police, no public provi. sion for education, no lighting, and bad pavements in its cities, and means of communication so imperfect, that the loss of time, and wear and tear caused in taking any article to market, may probably be esti. mated at ten times the expense of good roads. If the Lower Canadians had been subjected, or rather had been taught lo subject themselves, to a much greater amount of taxation, they would probably at this time have been a much wealthier, a much better governed, a much more civi- lized, and a much more contented people. Upper Canada* The information which I have to give respecting the state of Upper Canada not having been acquired in the course of my actual administra- tion of the government of that province, will necessarily be much less ample and detailed than that which I have laid before your Majesty res. pecting Lower Canada. My object will be to point out the principal causes to which a general observation of the province induces me to at- tribute the late troubles.; and even this task will be performed with comparative ease and brevity, inasmuch as I am spared the labor of much explanation and proof, by being able to refer to the details which I have given, and the principles which I have laid down in describing the institutions of the lower province. At first sight it appears much more difficult to form an accurate idea of the state of Upper than of Lower Canada. The visible and broad line of demarcation which separates parties by the distinctive character^ of race, happily has no existence in the Upper province. The quarrel is one of an entirely English, it not British population. Like all such quarrels, it has, in fact, created not two, but several parties ; each of which has some objects in common with some one of those to which it is opposed. They differ on one point and agree on another ; the sec- tions which unite together one day, are strongly opposed the next ; and the very party which acts as one against a common opponent, is in truth composed of divisions seeking utterly different or incompatible objects. It is very difficult to make out from the avowals of parties the real ob- jects of their struggles, and still less easy is it to discover any cause of such importance as would account for its uniting any large mass of the * The privilege of franking possessed by a few public officers in this province, is of a singular kind ; for as it is necessary for the public service that such privi- lege should be exercised, and as the English office accords no immunities to the functionaries of a colonial government, the postage is charged on all franked let- ters, and the Provincial Treasury has to pay the amoont over to the post-office.— This, in fact, destroys in a great measure the utility of the privilege for public purposes, because public officers are unwilling to use the post for their commu- nications, when their doing so diminishes the revenues of the province. 56 yeople in an attempt to overthrow, by forcible means, the existing form of government . The peculiar geographical character of the province greatly increases the difficulty of obtaining very accurate information. Its inhabitants scattered along an extensive frontier, with very imperfect means of com- munication, and a limited and partial commerce, have, apparently, no unity of interest or opinion. The province has no great centre with which all the separate parts are connected, and which they are accus- tomed to follow in sentiment and action ; nor is there that habitual in- tercourse between the inhabitants of different parts of the country, which, by diffusing through all a knowledge of the opinions and inter- ests of each, makes a people one and united, in spite of extent of territo- ry and dispersion of population. Instead of this, there are many petty local centres, the sentiments and the interests (or at least what are fan- cied to be so) of which, are distinct, and perhaps opposed. It has been stated to me, by intelligent persons from England, who had travelled through the province for purposes of business, that this isolation of the different districts from each other was strikingly apparent in all attempts to acquire information in one district respecting the agricultural or com- mercial character of another ; and that not only were very gross at- tempts made to deceive an inquirer on these points, but that even the in- formation which had been given in a spirit of perfect good faith, gene- rally turned out to be founded in great misapprehension. From these causes a stranger who visits any one of these local centres, or who does not visit the whole, is almost necessarily ignorant of matters, a true knowledge of which is essential to an accurate comprehension of the real position of parties, and of the political prospects of the country. The political contest which has so long been carried on in the Assem- bly and the press appears to have been one exhibiting throughout its whole course the characteristic features of the purely political part of the contest in Lower Canada; and, like that, originating in an unwise distribution of power in the constitutional system of the province. The financial disputes which so long occupied the contending parties in Low- er Canada, were much more easily and wisely arranged in the Upper Province ; and the struggle, though extending itself over a variety of questions of more or less importance, avowedly and distinctly rested on the demand for responsibility in the executive government. In the preceding account of the working of the constitutional system in Lower Canada, I have described the effect which the irresponsibility of the real advisers of the Governor had in lodging permanent authority in the hands of a powerful party, linked together not only by common party interests, but by personal ties. But in none of the North Ameri- can provinces has this exhibited itself for so long a period, or to such an extent, as in Upper Canada, which has long been entirely governed by a party commonly designated through the Province as the " family compact," a name not much more appropriate than party designations usually are, inasmuch as there is, in truth, very little of family con- nection among the persons thus united. For a long time this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its numbers, possessed almost all the highest public offices by means ot which and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council ; and it disposed of the large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the gov- ernment all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to iis influ- ence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to !this well-organized party the real conduct of affairs. The Bench, the Magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party; by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the province ; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, Bhared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of tru&t 57 and profi*. The bulk of this party consists, for the most part,, of native* born inhabitants of the colony, ot of emigrants who settled in it befcra the last war with the United States; the principal members of it belong to the church of England, and the maintenance of the claims, of that church has always been one of its distinguishing characteristics. A monopoly of power so extensive and so lasting could not fail, in process of time, to excite envy, create dissatisfaction, and ultimately provoke attack ; and an opposition consequently grew up in the Assem. bly which assailed the ruling party, by appealing to popular principles of government, by denouncing the alleged jobbing and profusion of the official body, and by instituting inquiries into abuses, for the purpose, of promoting reform, and especially economy. The question of the greatest importance, raised in the course of these disputes, was that of the disposal of the Clergy Reserves; and, though different modes of applying these lands, or, rather, the funds derived from them, were suggested, the Reformers, or opposition, v \vero generally very successful in their appeals to the people, against the project of the Tory or official party, which was that of devoting them exclusively to the maintenance of the English Episcopal Church. The Reformers, by successfully agitating this and various economical questions, obtained a majority, Like almost all pop* Ular colonial parlies, it managed its power with very little discretion and skill, offended a large number of the constituencies, and, being baffled by the Legislative Council, and resolutely opposed by all the personal and official influence of the official bociy, a dissolution again placed it in a minority in the Assembly. This turn of fortune was not confined to a single instance ; for neither party has for some time possessed the majo<. rity in two successive parliaments. The present is the fifth of these aU iernating Houses of Assembly. The Reformers, however, at last discovered that success in the elecv tions insured them very little practical benefit. For the official party, not being removed when it failed to command a majority in the Assem* bly, still continued to wield all the powers of the executive government, to strengthen itself by its patronage, and to influence the policy of the colonial governor and of the colonial department at home. By its se- cure majority in the Legislative Council, it could effectually control the legislative powers of the Assembly. It could choose its own moment for dissolving hostile assemblies ; and could always insure, for those that were favorable to itself, the tenure of their seats for the full term of four years allowed by the law. Thus the reformers found that their triumph at elections could not in any way facilitate the progress of their view*, while the executive government remained constantly in the hands of their opponents. They rightly judged that, if the higher offices and the executive council were always held by those who could command a ma- jority in the Assembly, the constitution of the Legislative Council Was a matter of very little moment, inasmuch as the advisers of the Governor could always take care that its composition should be modified so as to suit their own purposes. They concentrated their powers, therefore, for the purpose of obtaining the responsibility of the Executive Council ; and I cannot help contrasting the practical good sense of the English Reformers of Upper Canada with the less prudent course of the French majority in the Assembly of Lower Canada, as exhibited in the different demands of constitutional change, most earnestly pressed hy each.— Both, in fact, desired the same object, namely, an extension of popular influence in the government. The Assembly of Lower Canada attacked the Legislative Council ; a body, of which the constitution was certain, ly the most open to obvious theoretical objections, on the part of all the advocates of popular institutions, but, for the same reason, most sure of finding powerful defendants at home. The Reformers of Upper Canada paid little attention to the composition of the Legislative Council, and directed their exertions to obtaining such an alteration of the Executive Council as might have been obtained without any derangement of the constitutional balance of power ; but they well knew, that if once they obtained possession of the Executive Council and the higher offices of H 3S the Province, the Legislative Council would noon be unable to offer any effectual reaistance to their meditated reforms. It was upon this question of the responsibility of the Executive Coun- cil that the great struggle has for a long time been carried on between the official party and the reformers ; for the official party like all par- ties long in power, was naturally .unwilling to submit itself to any such responsibility as would abridge its tenure or cramp its exercise of au- thority. Reluctant to acknowledge any responsibility to the people of the colony, this party appears to have paid a somewhat refractory and nominal submission to the imperial government, relying in fact on .secu- ring a virtual .independence by this nominal submission to the distant au- thority of the Colonial Department, or to the powers of a governor, over whose policy they were certain, by their facilities of access, to obtain a paramount influence. The views of the great body of the Reformers appear to have been li- mited, according to their favourite expression, to the making the coloni- al constitution " an exact transcript " of that of Great Britain ; and they only desired that the Crown should, in Upper Canada, as at home , entrust the administration of affairs to men possessing the confidence of the Assembly. It cannot be doubted, however, that there were many of the party who wished to assimilate the institutions of the province rather to those of the United States than to those of the mother country. A few persons, chiefly of American origin, appear to have entertained these designs from the outset ; but the number had at last been very much increased by the despair which many of those who started with more li- mited views conceived of their being carried into effect under the exist- ing form of government. Each party, while it possessed the ascendency, has been accused by its opponents of having abused its power over the public funds in those modes of local jobbing which I have described as so common in the North American Colonies. This, perhaps, is to be attributed partly to the cir. cumstance adverted to above, as increasing the difficulty of obtaining any accuiate information as to the real circumstances of the province. From these causes it too often happened that the members of the House of As- sembly come to the meeting of the Legislature ignorant of the real char, acterof the general interests intrusted to their guaidianship, intent only on promoting sectional objects, and anxious chiefly to secure for the coun- ty they happen to represent, or the district with which they are connect- ed, as large a proportion as possible of any funds which the Legislature may have at its disposal. In Upper Canada, however, the means of do- ing this were never so extensive as those possessed by the lower province ; and the great works which the province commenced on a very extended scale, and executed in a spirit of great carelessness and profusion, havo left so little surplus revenue, thai this province alone, among the North American Colonies, has fortunately for itself been compelled to establish a system of local assessments, and to leave local works in a great meas- ure, to the energy and means of the localities themselves. It is asserted, however, that the nature of those great works, and the manner in which they were carried on, evinced merely a regard for local interests, and a disposition to strengthen party influence. The inhabitants of the less thickly-peopled districts complained that the revenues of the province were employed in works by which only the frontier population would be. nefit. The money absorbed by undertakings which they described as dis. proportioned to the resources and to the wants of the province, would, they alleged, have sufficed to establish practicable means of communi- cation over the whole country ; and, they stated, apparently not without foundation, .that had this latter course been pursued, the population and the resources of the province would have been so augmented as to make the works actually undertaken both useful and profitable. The careless- ness and profusion which marked the execution of there works, the ma- nagement of which, it was complained, was entrusted chiefly to members of the ruling party, were also assumed to be the result of a deliberate purpose, and to be permitted, if not encouraged, in order that a few indi» 59* vidualsrnight be enriched at the expense of lb a community. Circum- stances to which I shall hereafter revert, by which the further progress of theso works has been checked, and the large expenses incurred iff' bringing them to their present state of forwardness, have been rendered unavailing, have given greater force to these complaints, and, in addition;' to the discontent produced by the objects of the expenditure, the govern- ing party has been made responsible for a failure in the accomplishment of those objects, attributable to causes over which it had no controul.— ■ But to whatever extent these practices may have been carried, the course of the parliamentary contest in Upper Canada has not been marked by that singular neglect of the great duties of a legislative body, which I- have remarked in the proceedings of the parliament of Lower Canada. The statute book of the upper province abounds with useful and well, constructed measures of reform, and presents an honourable contrast to that of the lower province. While the parties were thus struggling, the operation of a cause.utterly unconnected with their disputes, suddenly raised up a very considerable third party, which began to make its- appearance among the political dis- putants about the time that the quarrel was at its height. I have said that in Upper Canada there is no animosity of races ; there is nevertheless a distinction of origin which has exercised a very important influence on the- com position of parties, and appears likely, sooner or later, to become the prominent and absorbing element of political division. The official and reforming parties which I have described were both composed for the most part, and were almost entirely led, by native-born Canadians, Ame- rican settlers, or emigrants of a very ancient date ; and as one section of this more ancient population possessed, so another was the only body of persons that claimed, the management of affairs, and the enjoyment of of offices conferring emolument or power, until the extensive emigration from Great Britain, which followed the disastrous period of 1825 and 1826, changed the state of things, by suddenly doubling the population, and introducing among. the ancient disputants for power, an entirely new class of persons. The new comers, however, did not for a long-time ap. pear as a distinct' party in the politics of Upper Canada. A large num- ber of the higher class of emigrants, particularly the half-pay officers, who were induced to settle in this province, had belonged to the Tory party in- England, and, in conformity with their ancient predilections, naturally arrayed themselves on the side of the official party, contending with the representatives of the people. The mass of the humbler order of emigrants, accustomed in the mother country to complain of the cor. ruptien and profusion of the government, and to seek- for a reform of abuses, by increasing the popular influence in the representative body, arrayed themselves on the side of those who represented the people,, and attacked oligarchical power and abuses ; but there was still a great dif. ference of opinion between each of the two Canadian parties, and that section of the British which for a while acted with it: Each of the Ca- nadian parties, while it differed with the other about the tenure of politi- cal powers- in the colony, desired almost the same degree of practical in. dependence of the mother country ; each felt and each betrayed in its po- litical conduct a jealousy of the emigrants, and a wish to maintain- the powers of office and the emoluments of the professions in the hands of persons born or long resident in the colony. The British, on the contra- ry, to whichever party they belonged, appeared to agree in desiring that the connection with the mother country should be drawn closer. They differ very little among themselves, I imagine, in desiring such a change as should assimilate the government of Upper Canada, in spirit as well as in form, to the government of England, retaining an Executive suffi- ciently powerful to curb popular excesses, and giving to the majority of the people, or to such of them as the less liberal would trust with politi- cal rights, some substantial control over the administration of affairs.— But the great common object was, and is, the removal of those disquali- fications to which British emigrants are subject, so that they might Keel as citizens instead of aliens in the land of their adoption. 60 Srieh was the state of parties when Sir F. Head, on assuming the g(v- ternment of the colony dismissed from the Executive Council some of the members who were most obnoxious to the House of Assembly, and requested three individuals to succeed them. Two of these gentlemen, Dr. Rolph and Mr. R. Baldwin, were connected with the reforming parly, and the third, Mr. Dunn, was an Englishman, who had held the office ot Receiver-General for nearly fourteen years, and up to that time had ab. stained from any interference in politics. These gentlemen were, at first, reluctant to take office, because they feared that, as there were still three ot the former council left, they should be constantly maintaining a doubtful struggle for the measures which they considered necessary. — They were, however, at length induced to forego their scruples, chiefly upon the representations of some of their friends, that when they had a goVernor who appeared sincere in his professions of reform, and who promised them his entire confidence, it was neither generous nor prudent to persist in a refusal which might be taken to imply distrust of his sin- cerity, and they accordingly accepted office. Among the first acts of the governor, after the appointment of this council, was, however, the nomi. nation to some vacant offices of individuals, who were taken from the old official party, and this without any communication with his council. These appointments were attacked by the House of Assembly, and the new council, finding that their opinion was never asked upon these cr other matters, and that they Were seemingly to be kept in ignorance of all those public measures, which popular opinion nevertheless attributed to their advice, remonstrated privately on the subject with the governor. Sir Francis desired them to make a formal representation to him on the subject; they did so, and this produced such a reply from him as left them no choice but to resign. The occasion of the differences whiGh had caused the resignation, was made the subject of communication be- tween the governor and the Assembly, so that the whole community were informed of the grounds of the dispute. The contest which appeared to be thus commenced on the question of the responsibility of the Executive Council, was really decided on very different grounds. Sir F. Head who appears to have thought that the main- tenance of the connection with Great Britain depended upon his triumph over the majority of the Assembly, embarked in the contest with a de. termination to use every influence in his power in order to bring it to a successful issue. He succeeded, in fact, in putting the issue in such a light before the province, that a great portion of the peeple really ima. gjned that they were called upon to decide the question of separation by their votes. The dissolution, on which he ventured, when he thought the public mind sufficiently ripe, completely answered his expectations. The British, in particular, were roused by the proclaimed danger to the connection with 1he mother country ; they were indignant at some por- tions of the conduct and speeches of certain members of the late majority, which seemed to mark a determined preference to American over British institutions. They were irritated by indications of hostility to British emigration which they saw, or fancied they saw, in some recent proceed- ings of the Assembly. Above all, not only they, but a great many others, had marked with envy the stupendous public works which were at that period producing their eff-ct in the almost marvellous growth of the wealth and population of the neighboring 6tate of New York ; and they reproached the Assembly with what they considered an unwise econo- my, in preventing the undertaking or even completion of similar works, that might, as they fancied, have produced a similar developenicnt of the resources of Upper Canada. The general support of the British deter- mined the elections in favour of the government ; and though very large and close minorities which in many cases supported the defeated candi- dates, marked the force which the Reformers could bring into the field, even in spite of the disadvantages under which they laboured from the momentary prejudices against them, and the unusual manner in which the Crown, by its representative, appeared to make itself a pcrty in an 6tf electioneering contest, the reault was the return of a vary largo majority bostila in politics to that of the late Assembly. It is rather singular, however, that the result which Sir F. Head ap- pears really to have aimed at vttta by no means secured by this apparent triumph. His object in all his previous measures, and in the nomina- tion of the executive councillors, by whom he replaced the retiring mem- bers, was evidently to make the council a means of administrative inde- pendence for the Governor. Sir F. Head would seem to have been, at the commencement ot his administration, really desirous of effecting certain reforms which he believed to be needful, and of rescuing the substantial power of the Government from the hands of the party by which it had been so long monopolized. The dismissal of the old mem- bers of (he Executive Council was the consequence of this intention ; but though willing to take measures for the purpose of emancipating him. self from the thraldom in which it was stated that oth<\r Governors had been held, he could not acquiesce in the claims of the House of Assem- bly to have a really responsible colonial executive. The result of the elec- tions was to give him, as h« conceived, a House of Assembly pledged to support him as Governor, in the exercise of the independent authority he had claimed. On the very first occasion, however, on which he at- tempted to protect an officer of the Government, unconnected whh the old official party, from charges which, whether well or ill-founded, were obviously brought forward on personal grounds, he found that tho new house was even more determined than its predecessor to assert its right to exercise a substantial controul over the government ; and that unless he was disposed to risk a collision with both branches of the Legislature, then composed of similar materials, and virtually under one influence, he must succumb. Unwilling to incur tho risk, when, as he justly irna. gined, there was no party upon whose support he could rely to bear him safely through the contest, he yielded the point. Although the commit, tee appointed to inquire into the truth 'of the charges made against Mr. Hepburn refused to adopt a report confirming these charges, prepared by their chairman, (by whom the accusation had been brought forward, and by whom the committee was virtually nominated,) Sir F, Head per- suaded the individual in question to resign his office, and to take one of very inferior emolument. From that time he never attempted to assert the independence which the new House of Assembly had been elected to se. cure. The Government consequently reverted in effect to the party which ho had found in office when he assumed the governorship, and which it had been his first act to dispossess. In their hands it still re- mains; and 1 must state that it is the general opinion, that never was the power of the " family compact" so extensive or so absolute as it has been from the first meeting of the existing parliament down to the present time. It may, indeed, be fairly said, that the real result of Sir F. Head's policy was to establish that very administrative influence of the leaders of a majority in the Legislature which he had so obstinately disputed. — The executive councillors of his nomination, who seem to have taken office almost on the express condition of being mere ciphers, are not, in fact, then, the real government of the province. It is said that the new of- ficers of government whom Sir F Head appointed from without the pale of official eligibility, feel more apprehension of the present house than, so far as can be judged, was ever felt by their predecessors with regard to the most violent of the reforming House of Assembly. Their appre. hension, however, is not confined to the present house ; they feel that under no conceivable contingency can they expect an Assembly dispo- sed to support them ; and they accordingly appear to desire such a change in the colonial system as might make them dependant upon the Imperial Government alone, and secure them against all interference from the Legislature of the Province, whatever party should obtain a preponder- ance in the Assembly. .While the nominal government thus possesses no real power, the Lc- 6$ gsslatiue, by whose leaders the substantial power is enjoyed, by riorneau*- possesses so much of the real confidence of the people as a Legislature ought to command, even from those who differ from it on the questions of the day. I say this without meaning, to cast any imputation on the members of the House of Assembly, because, in fact, the circumstances under which they were elected were such as to render them peculiarly objects of suspicion and reproach to a number of their countrymen. — They were accused of having violated their pledges at the election. It is said that many of them came forward and were elected, as being real- ly reformers, though opposed to any such claims to colonial independ- ence as might involve a separation from the mother country. There seems to be no doubt that in several places, where the Tories succeeded, the electors were merely desirous of returning members who would not-haz- ard any contest with England by the assertion of claims which, from trie proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor, they believed to be practically needless 5 and who should support Sir F. Head in those economical re- forms which the country desired far more than political changes— re- forms, for the sake of which alone political changes had been sought.— In a number of other instances, too, the elections were carried by the Unscrupulous exercise of the influence of the government, and by a dis- play of violence on the part of the Tories, who were emboldened by the countenance afforded to them by the authorities. It was stated, but I believe without any sufficient foundation, that the government made grants of land to persons who had no title to them, in order to secure their votes. This report originated in the fact, that patents for persons who were entitled to grants, but had not taken them out, were sent down to the polling places, to be given to the individuals entitled to them if they were disposed to vote for the government candidate. The taking such measures, in order to secure their fair right of voting to the electors in a particular interest, must be considered rather as as an act of official favor- itism, than as an electoral fraud. But we cannot wonder that the defeat- ed party put the very worst construction on acts which gave some ground for it; and they conceived, in consequence, a strong resentment against the means by which they believed that the Representative of the Crown had carried the elections, his interference in which in any way was stig- matised by them as a gross violation of constitutional privilege and pro- priety. It cannot be matter of surprise, that such facts and such impressions produced in the country an exasperation and a despair of good govern- ment, which extended far beyond those who had actually been defeated at the poll. For there was nothing in the use which the leaders of the Assembly have made of their power to soften the discontent excit- ed by the alleged mode of obtaining it. Many even of those who had supported the successful candidates, were disappointed in every expectation which they had formed of the policy to be pursued by their new representatives. No economical reforms were introduced. The Assembly, instead of supporting the Governor, compelled his obedience to itself, and produced no change in the administration of affairs, ex. cept that of reinstating the "family compact" in power. On some topics on which the feelings of the people were very deeply engaged, as, for instance, the Clergy Reserves, the Assembly is accused of hav- ing shown a disposition to act in direct defiance of the known senti- ments of a vast majority of its constituents. The dissatisfaction arising from these causes was carried *o its height by an act that appeared in defiance of all constitutional right, to prolong the power of a majori- ty which, it was supposed, counted on not being able to retain its ex- istence after another appeal to the people. This was the passing an act preventing the dissolution of the existing, as well as any future As- sembly, on the demise of the Crown. The act was passed in expecta- tion of the approaching decease of his late Majesty; and it has, in fact, prolonged the existence of the present Assembly, from the period of a single year to one of four. It is said that this step is justified by the example of the other North American Colonies. But it is cer- 63 -tain that it nevertheless caused very great dissatisfaction, and was re* garded as an unbecoming usurpation of power. It was the prevalence of the general dissatisfaction thus caused that emboldened the parties who instigated the insurrection to an attempt, which may be characterized as having been as foolishly contrived and as ill.conducted, as it was wicked and treasonable. This ouibreak, which common prudence and good management would have prevented from coming to a head, was promptly quelled by the alacrity with which the population, especially the British portion of it, rallied round the govern- ment. The proximity of the American frontier, the nature of the border country, and the wild and daring character, together with the periodical want of employment of its population, have unfortunately enabled a few desperate exiles to continue the troubles of their coqntry, by moans of the predatory gangs which have from time to time invaded and robbed, under the pretext of revolutionising the province. But the general loyalty of the population has been evinced by the little disposition that has been exhibited by any portion of it to accept the proffered aid of the refugees and foreign invaders, and by the unanimity with which all have turned out to defend their country. It has not, indeed, been exactly ascertained what proportion of the in- habitants of Upper Canada were prepared to join Mackenzie in his trea- sonable enterprise, or were so disposed that we may suppose they would have arrayed themselves on his side, had he obtained any momentary suc- cess, as indeed was for some days within his grasp. Even if I were con- vinced that a large proportion of the population would, under any cir- cumstances, have lent themselves to his projects, I should be inclined to attribute such a disposition merely to the irritation produced by those tem- porary causes of dissatisfaction with the Government of the Province, which I have specified, and not to any settled design on the part qf any great number, either to subvert existing institutions, or to change their present connection with Great Britain for a junction with the United States. I am inclined to view the insurrectionary movements which did take place as indicative of no deep roojLed disaffection, and to believe that -almost the entire body of the reformers of this province sought only by constitutional means to obtain those objects for which they had so long peaceably struggled before the unhappy troubles occasioned by the vio- lence of a few unprincipled adventurers and heated enthusiasts. It cannot, however, be doubted, that the events of the past year have greatly increased the difficulty of settling the disorders of Upper Canada. A degree of discontent, approaching, if not amounting, to disaffection, has gained considerable ground. The causes of dissatisfaction continue to act on the minds of ihe reformers ; and their hope of redress, under the present order of things, has been seriously diminished. The exaspe- ration caused by the conflict itself, the suspicions and terror of that try- ing period, and the use made by the triumphant party of the power thrown into their hands, have heightened the passions which existed before. It certainly appeared too much as if the rebellion had been purposely invi- ted by the government, and the unfortunate men who took part in it de- liberately drawn into a trap by those who subsequently inflicted so severe a punishment on them for their error. It seemed, too, as if the dominant party made use of the occasion afforded it by the real guilt of a few des- perate and imprudent men, in order to persecute or disable the whole body of their political opponents. A great number of perfectly innocent individuals were thrown into prison, and suffered in person, property and character. The whole body of reformers were subjected to suspicion, and to harrassing proceedings, instituted by magistrates, whose political leanings were notoriously adverse to them. — Severe laws we-e passed, under colour of which individuals very generally esteemed were punished without any jform of trial. The two persons who suffered the penalty of the law unfortunately engaged a great share of the public sympathy; their pardon had been solicited in petitions signed, it is generally asserted, by no less than 30,- rOOO of their countrymen. The rest of the prisoners were detained in 64 confinement a considerable time. A large number of the subordinate ac- tors in the insurrection were severely punished and public anxiety was raised to the highest pitch by the uncertainty respecting the fate of the others, who were from time to time partially released. It was not until the month of October last that the whole of the prisoners were disposed of, and a partial amnesty proclaimed, which enabled the large numbers who had fled the country, and so long, and at such imminent hazard, hung on its frontier.to return in security to their homes. I make no men- tion of the reasons which, in the opinion of the local government render- ed these different steps advisable, because my object is not to discuss the propriety of its conduct, hut to point out the effect which it necessarily had in augmenting irritation. The whole party of the Reformers a party which I am inclined to estimate as very considerable, and which has commanded large majorities in different Houses of Assembly, has certainly felt itself assailed by the policy pursued. It sees the whole powers of government wielded by its enemies, and imagines that it can perceive also a determination to use these powers inflexibly against all the objects which it most values. The wounded private feelings of individuals, and the defeated public policy of a party, combine to spread a wide and serious irritation ; but I do not believe that this yet proceeded so far as to induce at all a general dispo. eition to look to violent measures for redress. The reformers have been gradually recovering their hopes of regaining their ascendancy by con- stitutional means ; the sudden pre-eminence which the question of the clergy reserves and rectories has again assumed during the last summer, appears to have increased their influence and confidence ; and I have no reason to believe that anything can make them generally and decidedly desirous of separation, except some such act of the imperial government as shall deprive them of all hopes of obtaining real administrative power even in the event of their again obtaining a majority in the Assembly.— With such a hope before them, I believe that they will remain in tranquil expectation of the result of the general election, which cannot be delayed beyond the summer of 1840. To describe the character and objects of the other parties in this Pro- vince would not be very easy : and their variety and complication is so great, that it would be of no great advantage were I to explain the va- rious shades of opinion that mark each. Jn a very laboured essay, which was published in Toronto during my stay in Canada, there was an attempt to classify the various* parties in the province under six dif- ferent heads. Some of these were classified according to strictly politi- cal opinions, some according to religion, and some according to birth- place ; and each party, it was obvious, contained in its ranks a great many who would, according to the designations used, have as naturally belonged to soma other. But it is obvious, from all accounts of tho dif- ferent parties, that the nominal government, that is, the majority of the executive council, enjoy the confidence of no considerable party, and that the parly called the "family compact," which possessess the major- ity in both branches of the Legislature, is, in fact, supported at present by no very largo number of persons of any party. None are mora hos- tile to them than the greater part of that large and spirited British-born population to whose steadfast exertions the preservation of the Colony during the last winter is mainly attributable, and who see with indigna- tion that a monopoly of power and profit is still retained by a small body of men, which seems bent on excluding from any participation in it the British emigrants. Zealously co-operating with the dominant party in resisting treason and foreign invasion, this portion of the population, nevertheless, entertains a general distrust and dislike of them ; and though many of the most prominent of the British emigrants have al- ways acted, and still invariably act, in opposition to the Reformers, and dissent from their views of responsible government, I am very much in- clined to think that they, and certainly the great mass of their country men, really desire such a responsibility of the government as would break up the present monopoly office and influence. 65 Besides those causes of complaint which are common to the whole of the colony, the British settlers havo many peculiar to themselves. The emigrants who have settled in the country within the last ten years, are supposed to comprise half the population. They complain that while the Canadians are desirous of having British capital and labour brought into the colony, by means of which their fields may be cultivated, and the value of their unsettled possession increased, they refuse to make the colony really attractive to British skill and British capitalists. They say that an Englishman emigrating to Upper Canada is practically as much an alien in that British colony as ha would be if he were to emigrate to the United States. He may equally purchase and hold lands, or invest his capital in trade in one country as in the other, and he may in either exercise any mechanical avocation, and perform any species of manual labour. This, however, is the extent of his privileges; his English qualifications avail him little or nothing. He cannot, if a surgeon, licensed to act in Eng- land, practise without the license of a board of examiners in the province. If an attorney, he has to submit to an apprenticeship of five years before he is allowed to practise. If a barrister, he is excluded from the profit, able part of his profession, arid though allowed to practise at the bar, the permission thus accorded to him is practically of no use iri a country where, as nine attorneys out of ten are barristers also, there can be no business tor a mere barrister. — -Thus, a person who has been admitted to the English bar is compelled to serve an apprenticeship of three years to a provincial lawyer. B/ an act passed last session difficulties are thrown in the way of the employment of capital in banking, which have a tendency to preserve the monopoly possessed by the chartered banks of the colony, in which the Canadian party are supreme, and the influence of which is said to be em- ployed directly as an instrument for upholding the political supremacy of the party. Under the system, also, of selling land pursued by the govern- ment, an individual does not acquire a patent for his land until he has paid the whoie of the purchase-money — a period of four to ten years, according as his purchase is a Crown or clergy lot ; and until the patent issues he has no right to vote. In some of the new states of America, on the contrary, especially in Illinois, an individual may practise as a surgeon or lawyer almost immediately on his arrival in the country, and he has every right of citizenship after a residence of six months in the state. An Englishman is therefore, in effect, less an alien in a foreign country than in one which forms a part of the British empire. Such are the superior advantages in the United States at present, that nothing but the feeling, that in the one country he is among a more kindred people, Under the same laws, and in a society whose habits and sentiments are similar to those to which he ha3 been accustomed, can induce an English man to settle in Canada, in preference to the States ; and if in the farmer he is deprived of rights which he obtains in the latter, though a foreigner, it is not to be wondered at that he should, in many cases, give the pre- ference to the land in which he is treated most as a citizen. It is very possible that there are but few cases in which the departure of an English- man from Upper Canada to the States can be traced directly to any of these circumstances in particular; yet the state of society and of feeling 1 which they have'engendered, has been among the main causes of the great extent of re-emigration to the new States of the Union. It operates, too, still more to deter emigration from England to the provinces and thus both to retard the advance of the colony, and to deprive the mother coun- try of one of the principal advantages on account of which the existence of the colonies is desirable — the field which they afford for the employ- ment of her surplus population and wealth. The native Canadians, however, to whatever political party they may belong, appear to be unanimous in the wish to preserve these exclusive privileges. The course of legislation since the tide of emigration set most strongly to the country, and while under its influence the value of all species of property was rising, and the resources of the province were rapidly, and (for the old inhabitants) profitably developed, has been to draw a yet more marked' I 86 line between the two classes, instead of obliterating the former distinc- tions. The law excluding English lawyers from practice is of recent origin. The Speaker of the Reforming House of Assembly, Mr. Bidwel!, was among the strongest opponents of any alteration of that law which might render it less rigidly exclusive, and, on more than one occasion, gave his easting vote against a bill having for its object the admission of an English lawyer to practise in the province without serving a previous apprenticeship. This point is of more importance in a colony than it would at first sfght appear to any one accustomed only to such a state of society as exists in England. The members of the legal profession are in effect the leaders of the people, and the class from which,, in a larger proportion than from any other class, legislators are taken. It is, therefore, not merely a monopoly of profit, but, to a considerable extent, a monopoly of power, which the present body of lawyers contrive, by means of this exclusion, to secure to themselves. No man of mature age emigrating to a colony could afford to lose five years of his life in an apprenticeship from which he could acquire neither learning nor skill. The few professional men, therefore who have gone to Upper Canada have turned their attention to other pursuits, retaining, however, a strong feeling of discontent against the existing order of things. And many who might have emigrated remain at home, or seek some other colony where their course is not impeded by similar restrictions. But as in Upper Canada, under a law passed immediately after the last war with the States, American citizens are forbidden to hold land.it is of the more consequence that the country should be made as attractive as possi- ble to the emigrating middle classes of Great Britain, the only class from which an accession of capital, to be invested in the purchase or improvement of lands, can be hoped for. The policy of the law just refer- red to may well be doubted, whether the interest of the colony or of the mother country are considered, since the wealth and activity, and con- sequent commerce, of the province would have been greatly augmented had its natural advantages of soil and position been allowed to operate in attracting those who were most aware of their existence, and eminently fitted to aid in their developement ; and there is great reason to believe that that the uncertainty of the titles which many Amoricans possess to the land on which they have squatted since the passing of this law, is the main case of much of the disloyalty, or rather very lukewarm loyalty, evinced by that population in the western district. But when this exclusion had been determined upon, it would at least have been wise to have removed everything that might have seemed like an obstacle in the way of those for whom the land was to be kept open, instead of closing the principal avenues to wealth or distinction against them in a spirit of petty provincial jealousy. The great practical question, however, on which these various parties have for a long time been at issue, and which has within a few months again become the prominent matter in debate, is that of the clergy reserves. The prompt and satisfactory decision of this question is essential to the pacification of Canada; and as it was one of the most important questions referred to me for investigation, it is necessary that I should state it fully and not shrink from making known the light in which it has.presented itselt to my mind. The disputes on this subject are now of long standing. By the Constitutional Act a certain portion ofthelandin every township was set apart for the maintenance of a "Protestant" clergy. In that portion of this report which treats of the management of the waste lands, the economical mischiefs which have resulted from this appropriation of territory are fully detailed ; and the present disputes relate solely to the application, and not to the mode of raising the funds which are now derived from the sale of the clergy re- serves. Under the term " Protestant clergy," the clergy of the church of England have always claimed the sole enjoyment of those funds. The members of the church of Scotland have claimed to be put entirely on a level with the church of England, and have demanded that these funds should be equally divided between both. The various deno- 67 rmnations of Protostant dispenters have asserted that the term includes them, and that out of these funds an equal provision should bo made for all Christians who do not belong to the Church of Rome. But a great body of all Protestant denominations, and the numerous Catholics who inhabit the province, have maintained that any such favor towards any one, or even all of the Protestants sects would be most unadvisable, and have either demanded the equal application of those funds to the purpose of all religious creeds whatsoever, or have urged the propriety of leaving each body of religionists to maintain its establishment, to repeal or dis- regard the law, and to apply the clergy funds to the general purpose of the government, or the support of a general system of education. The supporters of these different schemes have long contended in this province, and greatly inconvenienced the imperial government by con. etant references to its decision, the Secretary of State for the Colonies proposed to leave the determination of the matter to the provincial Le- gislatures, pledging the imperial government to do its utmost to get a parliamentary sanction to whatever course they might adopt. Two bills in consequence passed the last House of Assembly, in which the reformers had the ascendancy, applying these funds to the purpose of education ; and both these bills were rejected by the legislative council. During all this time, however, though much irritation had been caus- ed by the exclusive claims of the Church of England, and the favour shown by the government to one, and that a small religious community, the clergy of that church, though an endowed, were not a dominant priesthood. They had a far larger share of the public money than the clergy of any other denomination ; but they had no exclusive privileges, and no authority, save such as might spring from their efficient discharge of their sacred duties, or from the energy, ability, or influence of mem- bers of their body. But the last public act of Sir John Colborne before quitting the government of the province in 1835, which was the estab- lishment of the fifty-seven rectories, has completely changed the aspect of the question. It is understood that every rector possesses all the spir • itualand other privileges enjoyed by an English rector ; and that though he may have no right to levy tithes (for even this has been made a ques- tion), he is in all other respects in precisely the same position as a cler- gyman of the established church in England. This is regarded by all other teachers of religion in the country as having at once degraded them to a position of legal inferiority to the clergy of the church of Eng- land ; and it has been resented most warmly. In the opinion of many persons this was the chief pre-disposing cause of the recent insurrection, and it is an abiding and unabating cause of discontent. Nor is this to be wondered at. The church of England, in Upper Canada, by numbering in its ranks all those who belong to no other sect, represents itself as being more numerous than any single denomination of Christians in the country. Even admitting, however, the justice of the principle upon which this enumeration proceeds, and giving that church credit for all that it thus claims, its number could not amount to rne-third, probably not a fourth, of the population. It is not, therefore, to be expected that the other sects, three at least of whom, the Methodists, the Presbyte- rians, and the Catholics, claim to be individually more numerous than the church of England, should acquiesce quietly in the supremacy thus given to it. And it is equally natural that the English dissenters and Irish Catholics, remembering the position which they have occupied at home, and the long and painful struggle through which alone they have obtained the imperfect equality they now possess, should refuse to ac- quiesce for themselves in the creation of a similar establishment in their new country, and thus to bequeath to their children a strife as arduous and embittered as that from which they have so recently and imperfectly escaped. But for this act, it would have been possible, though highly impolitic, to have allowed the clergy reserves to remain upon their former, unde- termined and unsatisfactory footing. But the question as to the appli- cation of this property must now be settled, if it is intended that the pro» vinee is to be free from violent and perilous agitation. Indeed, the whole controversy, which had been in a great measure suspended by the insurrection, was, in the course of last summer, revived with more heat than ever by the most inopportune arrival in the colony of opinions giv* en by the English law officers of the Crown in favor of the legality of the establishment ot the rectories. Since that period the question has again absorbed public attention ; and it is quite clear that it is upon this practical point that issue must sooner or later be joined on all the consti- tutional questions to which I have previously adverted. I am well aware that there are not wanting some who represent the agitation of this ques- tion as merely the result of its present unsettled character, and who as- sert, that if the claims of the English church to the exclusive enjoyment of this property were established by the Imperial Parliament, all parlies, however loud their present pretensions, or however vehement their first complaints, would peacefully acquiesce in an arrangement which would then be inevitable. This might be the case if the establishment of some dominant church were inevitable. But it cannot be necessary to point out that, in the immediate vicinity of the United States, and with their example before the people of Canada, no injustice, real or fancied, occa-r sioned and supported by a British rule, would be regarded in this light. — The result of any determination on the part of the British government or Legislature to give one sect a predominance and superiority would be, it might be feared, not to secure the favored sect, bu*, to endanger the loss of the colony, and, in vindicating the exclusive pretensions of the Eng- lish church, to hazard one of the fairest possessions of the British Crown. I am bound, indeed, to state, there is a degree of feeling, and an unani. mity of opinion in the question of ecclesiastical establishment over the northern part of the continent of America, which it will be prudent not to overlook in the settlement of this question. The superiority of what is called " the voluntary principle" is a question on which I may almost say that there is no difference of opinion in the United States : and it cannot be denied that on this, as on other points, the tone of thought prevalent in the Union has exerted a very considerable influ- ence over the neighbouring provinces. Similar circumstances, too, have had the effect of accustoming the people ot both countries to regard this question in a very different light from that in which it appears in the old world ; and the nature of the question is indeed entirely different in old and new countries. The apparent right which time and custom give to the maintenance of an ancient and respected institution cannot exist in a recently settled country, in which everything is new ; and the establishment of a dominant church there is a creation of exclusive privi- leges in favour of one out of the many religious denominations, and that composing a small minority, at t*e expense not merely of the majority, but of many as large minorities. The church, too, for which alone it is pro- posed that the state should provide, is the church which, being that of the wealthy, can best provide for itself, and has the fewest poor to supply with gratuitous religious instruction. Another consideration, which distinguishes the grounds on which such a question must be decided in old and new countries, is, that the state of society in the latter is not susceptible of such an organization as is necessary for the efficiency of any church establishment of which I know, more especially of one so constituted as the established church of England ; for the essence of the establishment is its parochial clergy. The services of a parochial cler- gy are almost inapplicable to a colony, where a constantly varying population is widely scattered over the country. Any clergy there must be rather missionary than parochial. A still stronger objection to the creation of a church establishment in this colony is, that not merely are the members of the church of England a small minority at present ; but, inasmuch as the majority of emigrants are not members of the church of England, the disproportion is likely to increase, instead of disappearing, in the course of time. The mass of British emigrants will be either from the middle classes of Great Britain, 69 or the poorer classes of Ireland ; the latter almost exclusively Catholics, and the former in a great proportion either Scotch Presbyterians or English dissenters. It is most important that this question should be settled, and so settled as to give satisfaction to the majority of the people of the two Canadas, whom it equally concerns. And I know of no mode of doing this but by repealing all provisions in imperial acts that relate to the application of the clergy reserves, and the funds arising trom them, leaving the dis- posal of the funds to the local 1 gislature, and acquiescing in whatever decision it may adopt. The views which I have expressed on this sub- ject sufficiently mark my conviction that, without the adoption of such a course, the most mischievous practical cause of dissension will not be removed. I feel it my duty also, in this as in the Lower Province, to call es- pecial atiention to the policy which has been, and which ought to be, pursued towards the large Catholic population of the Province. On this subject I have received complaints of a general spirit of intolerance and disfavour towards all persons of this creed, to which I am obliged to give considerable credit from the great respectability and undoubted loyalty of those who from whom the complaints were received. Bishop M'Donnell, the venerable Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston, and Mr. Manahan, M.P.P. for the County of Hastings, have made representa- tions in letters, which will be given in the appendix to this report. — The Catholics constitute at least a fifth of the whole population ofUp- per Canada. Their loyalty was most generally and unequivocally ex- hibited at the late outbreak. Nevertheless, it is said that they are wholly excluded from all share in the government of the country and the patronage at its disposal, " In Upper Canada," says Mr. Manahan, " there never was one Irish Roman Catholic an Executive or Legisla- tive Councillor ; nor has one been ever appointed to any public situa- tion of emolument and profit in the colony." The Irish Catholics complain very loudly and justly of the existence of Orangeism in thi'? Colony. They are justly indignant that, in a Pro- vince which their loyalty and bravery have materially contributed to save, their feelings are outraged by the symbols and processions of this association. It is somewhat difficult to understand the nature and ob- jects of the rather anomalous Orangeism of Upper Canada. Its mem- bers profess to desire to uphold the Protestant religion, but to be free from those intolerant feelings towards their Catholic countrymen which are the distinctive marks of the Irish Orangemen. They assert, that the main object to which the support of the English church is subsidia- ry, is to maintain the connection with Great Britain. They have sworn, it is said, many ignorant Catholics into their body ; and- at their public dinners, after drinking the " pious, glorious, and immortal memory," with all the usual formality of abuse of the Catholics, they toast the health of the Catholic Bishop, M'Donnell. It would seem that their great pur- pose has been to introduce the machinery, rather than the tenets, of Orangeism ; and the leaders probably hope to make use of this kind of permanent conspiracy and illegal organization to gain political power for themselves. In fact, the Catholics scarcely appear to view this institu- tion with more jealousy than the Reformers of the Province. It is an Irish Tory institution, having not so much a religious as a political bear, ing. The Irish Catholics who have been initiated have entered chiefly from its supposed national character, and probably with as little regard to the political as to the religious objects with which it is connected. — Still the organization of this body enables its leaders to exert a powerful influence over the populace; and it is stated that, at the last general election, the Tories succeeded in carrying more than one seat by means of the violence of the organized mob thus placed at their disposal. It is not, indeed, at the last election only that the success of the government candidate has been attributed to the existence of this association. At former elections, especially those for the County of Leeds, it is asserted that the return of the Canadian Deputy-Grand-Master and the then At- 70 torney- General, his colleague, was procured by means of a violent and riotous mob of Orangemen, who prevented the votera in the opposition interest from coming up to the poll. In Consequence of this and other similar outrages, the Assembly presented an address to Sir Francis B. Head, begging "that His Excellency would be pleased to inform the House whether the Government of the Province had taken, or deter- mined to take, any steps to prevent or discourage public processions of Orange Societies, or to discourage the formation and continuance of such societies." To this address the Governor made the following reply: — •« The Government of this Province has neither taken, nor has it deter- mined to take, any steps to prevent or discourage the formation or con- tinuance of such societies." It is to be presumed that this answer pro- ceeded from a disbelief of the truth of those charges of outrage and riot which were made the foundation b of the address. But it can excite no sur- prise that the existence of such an institution, cffending one claps by its contemptuous hostility to their religion, and another by its violent oppo- sition to their politics, and which had been sanctioned by the Governor, as was conceived, on account of its political tendencies, should excite among both classes a deep feeling of indignation, and add seriously to the distrust with which the government was regarded. In addition to the irritation engendered by the position of parties by the specific causes of dispute to which I have adverted, and by those features in the government of the colony which deprived the people of all power to effect a settlement of the questions by which the country is most deeply agitated, or to redress abuses in the institutions or in the administration of the province, there are permanent causes of discontent, resulting from the existence of deep-seated impediments, in the way of its industrial progress. The province is without any of those means by which the resources of a country are developed, and the civilization of a people is advanced or upheld. The general administration of justice, it is true, appears to be much better in Upper than in Lower Canada. Courts of Justice, at least, are brought into every man's neighbourhood by a system of circuits ; and there is still some integrity in juries. But there are general complaints of the union of political and judicial functions in the Chief Justice ; not because any suspicion attaches to that Judge's discharge of his duties, but on account of the party grounds upon which his subordinates are supposed to be appointed, and the party bias attri- buted to them. Complaints, too, similar to those which I have advert- ed to in the Lower Province, are made against the system by which the Sheriffs are appointed. It is stated that they are selected exclusive- ly from the friends or dependents of the ruling party ; that very insuffi- cient securities are taken from them ; and that the money arising from executions and sales, which are represented as unhappily very numerous in this Province, generally remains in their hands for at least a year. — For reasons also which I have specified in my account of the Lower Province, the composition of the magistracy appears to be a serious cause of mischief and dissatisfaction. But, independently of these sources of complaint, are the impediments which I have mentioned. A very considerable portion of the Province has neither roads, post-offices, mills, schools, nor churches. The people may raise enough for their own subsistence, and may even have a rude and comfortless plenty, but they can seldom acquire wealth ; nor can even wealthy landowners prevent their children from growing up igno- rant and boorish, and from occupying a far lower mental, moral, and social position than they themselves fill. Their means of communica- tion with each other of the chief towns of the Province are limited and uncertain. With the exception of the labouring class, most of the emi- grants who have arrived within the last ten years are poorer now than at the time of their arrival in the Province. There is no adequate system of local assessment to improve the means of communication ; and the funds occasionally voted for this purpose are, under the present system, disposed of by a House of Assembly which represents principally the interests of the more settled districts, and which it is alleged has boen 71 chiefly intent in making their disposal a means of strengthening the in* rluence of its members in the constituencies which they represent. — These funds have consequently almost always been applied in that part of the country where they were least needed ; and they have been too frequently expended so as to produce scarcely any perceptible advanta- ges. Of the lands which were originally appropriated to the support of schools throughout the country, by far the most valuable portion has been diverted to the endowment of the university, from which those only derive any benefit who reside in Toronto, or those who, having a large assured income, are enabled to maintain their children in that town at an expense which has been estimated at .£50 per annum for each child. Even in the most thickly peopled districts there are but few schools, and those of a very inferior character ; while the remote settle, ments are almost entirely without any. Under such circumstances there is little stimulus to industry or enter- prise, and their effect is aggravated by the striking contrast presented by such of the United States as border upon this province, and where all is activity and progress. I shall, hereafter, in connection with the dispo- sal of the public lands, advert to circumstances affecting not Upper Cana- da merely, but the whole of our North American colonies in an almost equal degree, which will illustrate in detail the causes and results of the more prominent of these evils. I have referred to the topic in this place in order to notice the inevitable tendency of these inconveniences to ag- gravate whatever discontent may be produced by purely political causes, and to draw attention to the fact, that those who are most satisfied with the present political state of the province, and least disposed to attribute economical injuries or social derangement to the form or the working of the government, feel and admit that there must have been something wrong to have caused so striking a difference in progress and wealth be- tween Upper Canada and the neighbouring states of the Union. I may also observe, that these evils affect chiefly that portion of the people which is composed of British emigrants, and who have had no part in the causes to which they are attributable. The native-born Canadians, as they generally inhabit the more settled districts of the province, are the owners of nearly all the waste lands, and have almost exclusively had the application of all public funds, might be expected to have escaped from the evils alluded to, and even to have profited by the causes out of which they have sprung. Tne number of those who have thus profited is, how- ever, comparatively small ; the majority of this class, in common with the emigrant population, have suffered from the general depression, and share in the discontent and restlessness which this depression hasprodu. ced. The trade of the country is, however, a matter which appears to de- mand a notice here, because so long as any such marked and striking ad- vantages in this respect are enjoyed by Americans, as at present arise from causes which government has the power to remove, it is impossible but that many will look forward with desire to political changes. There are laws which regulate, or rather prohibit, the importation of particular articles, except from England, especially of tea, which were framed origi- nally to protect the privileges of monopolies here ; but which have been continued in the province after the English monopoly has been removed. It is not that these laws have any appreciable effect in raising the price of the commodities in question — almost all used in the province is smug- gled across the frontier — but their operation is at once injurious to the fair dealer, who is undersold by persons who have obtained their articles in the cheaper market of the United States, and to the province, which can neither regulate the traffic nor make it a source of revenue It is probable, indeed, that the present law has been allowed to continue through inadvertence ; but, if so, it is no very satisfactory evidence of the care or information of the imperial government that it knows or feels so little the oppressive influence of the laws to which it subjects its de - pendencies. Another and more difficult topic connected with this subject, is the ft ■frisli of this province that it should be allowed to make uso oi New York as a port of entry. At present the rate of duty upon all gojds coming from the United States, whatever may be thei mature, or the port in Eu- rope from which they have been shipped, is such as to compel all impor- ters to receive the articles of their trade through the St. Lawrence, the navigation of which river opens generally several weeks later than thei time at which goods may be obtained in all the parts of Upper Canada bordering upon Lake Ontario, by way of Oswego. The dealer, therefore, must submit to an injurious delay in his business, or must obtain his goods in the autumn, and have his capital lying dead for six months. Either of these courses must lessen the amount of traffic by diminishing the quantity, or increasing the price, of all commodities ; and the mis- chief is seriously enhanced by thj monopoly which the present system places in the hands of what are called the " forwarders" on the St. Law- rence and the Rideau canal. If goods might be shipped from England to be landed at New York in bond, and to be admitted into Upper Canada free of duty, upon the production of a certificate from the officer of cus- toms at the Englis ) port from which they are shipped, this inconvenience would be removed, and the people of the province would in reality bene- fit by their connection with England in the superior cheapness of their ar- ticles, without paying for it as highly as they do at present in the limita- tion of their commerce. I have already stated, in my account of Lower Canada, the difficulties and disputes which are occasioned by the financial relations of the two provinces. The state of affairs, however, which cause these disputes is of far greater practical mischief to Upper Canada. That province some years ago conceived the very noble project of removing or obviating all the natural impediments to the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and. the design was to make these works on a scale so commensurate with the capabilities of that broad and deep river, as to enable sea-going vessels to navigate its whole course to the head of Lake Huron. The design was, perhaps, too vast, at least for the first effort of a state at that time comparatively so small and poor ; but the boldness with which the people undertook it, and the immense sacrifice which they made in order to achieve it, are gratifying indications of a spirit which bids fair hereafter to ren- der Upper Canada as thriving a country as any state of the American Union. The House of Assembly, with this object in view, took a large portion of the shares of the Welland Canal, which had been previously commenced by a few enterprising individuals. It then commenced the great ship canal, called the Cornwall Canal, with a view of enabling ships of a considerable draught to avoid the Long Sault Rapids; and this work was, at an immense out-lay, brought very far towards a comple- tion. It is said that there was great mismanagement, and perhaps no little jobbing, in the application of the funds, and the exclusion of the work. But the greatest error committed was the undertaking the works in Upper, without ensuring their continuation in Lower Canada. For the whole of the works in the upper province, when completed, would be comparatively, if not utterly, useless, without the execution of similar works on that part of the St. Lawrence which lies between the province line and Montreal. But this co-operation the Lower Canadian Assembly refused or neglected to give ; and the works of the Cornwall Ca- nal are now almost suspended from the apparent inutility of completing them. The necessary expense of these great undertakings was very large ; and the prodigality superadded thereto has increased it to such an extent, that this province is burthened with a debt of more than a miljion of pounds ; the whole revenue, which is about £60,000, being hardly ade- quate to pay the interest. The province has already been fortunately obliged to throw the whole support of the few and imperfect local works which are carried on in different parts of the province on local assess- ments ; but it is obvious that it will soon be obliged to have recourse to direct taxation to meet its ordinary civil expenditure. For the custom duties cannot be increased without the consent of Lower Canada ; and that consent it is useless to expect from any House of Assembly chosen under the suspended constitution. The canals, which the tolls would, if the whole series of necessary works were completed, in all probability render the past outlay a source of profit, instead of loss, remain in a state of almost hopeless suspension : the Cornwall Canal being unfinished, and the works already completed daily falling into decay, and the Welland Canal, which has been a source of great commercial benefit, being now in danger of becoming useless, from want of money to make the necessary repairs. After all its great hopes, and all the great sacrifices which it has made to realize them, Upper Canada now finds itself loaded with an enormous debt, which it is denied the means of raising its indirect taxa. tion to meet, and mocked by the aspect of those unfinished works which some small combined efforts might render a source of vast Wealth and prosperity, but which now are a source of useless expense and bitter dis- appointment. It may well be believed that such a state of things is not borne without repining by some of the most enterprising and loyal people of the pro- vince. It is well known that the desire of getting over these difficultias has led many persons in this province to urge the singular claim to have a convenient portion of Lower Canada taken from that province, and an. nexed to Upper Canada ; and that it induces many to desire an union of the provinces as the only efficient means of settling all these disputes on a just and permanent footing. But it cannot be matter of surprise that in despair of any sufficient remedies being provided by the imperial go- vernment, many of the most enterprising colonists of Upper Canada look to that bordering country in which no great industrial enterprise ever feels neglect or experiences a check, and that men the most attached to the existing form of government would find some compensation in a change, whereby experience might bid them hope that eVery existing obstacle would be speedily removed, and each man's fortune share in the progressing prosperity of a flourishing^ state. A dissatisfaction with the existing order of things, produced by causes such as I have described, necessarily extends to many who desire no' change in the political institution's of the province. Those who most admire the form of the existing system wish to see it administered in a very different mode. Men of all parties feel that the actual circumstances of the colony are such as to demand the adoption of widely different mea- sures from a ny that have yet been pursued in reference to them. They ask for greater firmness of purpose in their rulers, and a more defined and consistent policy on the part of the government ; something, in short, that will make all parties feel that an order of things has been established to which it is necessary that they should conform themselves, and Which is not to be subject to any unlooked for and sudden interruption conse- quent upon some unforeseen move in the game of politics in England. Hitherto the course of policy adopted by the English government towards this colony has had reference to the state of parties in England, instead of the wants and circumstances of the province j neither party could cal- culate upon a successful result to their struggles for arty particular ob- ject, because, though they might be able to estimate accurately enough their strength in the colony, they could not tell how soon some hidden spring might be put in motion in the Colonial-office in England which would defeat their best laid plans, and render utterly unavailing whole years of patient effort. The Eastern Provinces and Newfoundland. Though I have stated ray opinion that my inquiries would have been very incomplete had they been confined to the two Canadas, the inform- ation which I am enabled to communicate with respect to the other North American colonies is necessarily very limited. As, however, in these provinces, with the exception of Newfoundland, there are no such dis. contents as threaten the disturbance of the public tranquillity, I do not K 74 think it necessary to institute any minute inquiries into the details of the various departments of government. It is only necessary that I should state my impression of the general working of the government in these colonies, in order that if institutions similar to those of the disturbed provinces should here appear to be tending to similar results, a common remedy may be devised for the impending as well as for existing disor- ders. On this head I have obtained much useful information from the communications which I had with the lieutenant governors of these col. onies, as well as with individuals connected with them, but above all, from the frequent and lengthened discussions which passed between me and the gentlemen who composed the deputations sent to me last autumn from each of the three eastern provinces, for the purpose of discussing the principles as well as details of a plan of general government for the whole of the British North American colonies. It was most unfortunate that the events of temporary, but pressing importance which compelled my return to England interrupted those discussions ; but the delegates with whom I had the good fortune to carry them on, were gentlemen of so much ability, so high in station, and so patriotic in their views, that their information could not fail to give me a very fair view of the working of the colonial constitution under somewhat different circumstances in each. I insert in the Appendix a communication which I received from one of those gentlemen, Mr. Young, a leading and very active member of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, respecting that province. It is not necessary, however, that I should enter into any lengthened account of the nature or working of the form of government established in these provinces, because in my account of Lower Canada I have des- cribed the general characteristics of the system common to all, and ad- duced the example of these provinces in illustration of the defects of their common system. In all these provinces we find representative go- vernment coupled with an irresponsible executive; we find the same constant collision between the two branches of the government ; the same abuse of the powers of the representative bodies, owing to the anomaly of their position, aided by the want of good municipal institutions ; and the same constant interference of the imperial administration in matters which should be left wholly to the provincial governments. And if in these provinces there is less formidable discontent and less obstruction to the regular course of government, it is because in them there has been recently a considerable departure from the ordinary course of the colo- nial system, and a nearer approach to sound constitutional practice. This is remarkably the case in New Brunswick, a province which ^as till a short time ago one of the most constantly harrassed by collisions between the executive and legislative powers ; the collision has now been in part terminated by the concession of all the revenues of the province to the Assembly. The policy of this concession, with reference to the extent and mode in which it was made, will be discussed in the separate Report on the disposal and management of public lands, but the policy, of the government in this matter has at any rate put an end to disputes about the revenue which were on the point of producing a constant par- liamentary conflict between the Crown and the Assembly in many res- pects like that which has subsisted in Lower Canada ; but a more im. portant advance has been made towards the practice of the British con- stitution in a recent change which had been made in the executive and legislative councils of the colony, whereby, as I found from the repre- sentatives of the present official body in the delegation from New Bruns- wick, the administrative power of the province had been taken out of the hands of the old official party, and placed in those of members of the former liberal opposition. The constitutional practice had been, in fact, fully carried into effect in this province ; the government had been tak- en out of the hands of those who could not obtain the assent of the ma- jority of the Assembly, and placed in the hands of those who possessed its confidence ; the result is, that the government of New Brunswick, till lately one of the most difficult in the North American colonies, is now the most harmonious and easy. 75 In Nova Scotia some, but not a complete, approximation has been made to the 6ame judicious course. The Government is in a minority in the House of Assembly, and the Assembly, and the Legislative Council do not perfectly harmonize. But the questions which divide parties at pre. sent happen really to be of no great magnitude ; and all are united and zealous in the great point of maintaining the connection with Great Bri- tain. It will be seen from Mr. Young's paper, that the questions at is- sue, though doubtless of very considerable importance, involve no serious discussion between the government and the people. The majority of the oppposition is stated by the official party to be very uncertain, and is ad- mitted by themselves to be very narrow. Both parties look with confi- dence to the coming general election ; and all feel the greatest reliance on the good sense and good intentions ©f the present lieutenant-governor, Sir Colin Campbell. I must, however, direct particular attention to the following temperate remarks of Mr. Young on the constitution of the Executive and Legisla- tive Councils : — " The Majority of the House of Assembly is dissatisfied with the composition of the Executive and Legislative Councils, and the preponderance in both of inte- rests which they conceive to be unfavourable to reform ; this is the true ground., as I take it, of the discontent that is felt. The respectability and private virtues of the gentlemen who sit at the two councils are admitted by all ; it is of their politi- cal and personal predilections that the people complain ; they desire reforming and liberal principles to be more fully represented and advocated there as they are in the Asssembly. " The Majority of the House, while they appreciate and have acknowledged the anxiety of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor to gratify their just expecta- tions, have also expressed their dissatisfaction that the Church of England should have been suffered to retain a majority in both councils notwithstanding the re- monstrances of the House and the precise and explicit directions of the Colonial Secretary. Religious dissensions are happily unknown among us, and the true way to prevent their growth and increase is to avoid conferring an inordinate pow- er on any one sect, however worthy it may be of respect and favour." The political history of Prince Edward's Island is contained in the system pursued with regard to its settlement, and the appropriation ot its lands, which is fully detailed in the subsequent view of that depart- ment of government in the North American colonies; and its past and present disorders are but the sad result of that fatal error which stifled its prosperity in the very cradle of its existence,by giving up the whole island to ahandful of distant proprietors Against this system, this small and pow- erless community has in vain been struggling for some years: a few ac tive and influential proprietors in London have been able to drown the remonstrances and defeat the efforts of a distant and petty province : for ordinary evils of distance are, in the instance of Prince Edward's Island, aggravated by the scantiness of its population, and the confined extent of its territory. This. island, most advantageously situated for the supply of the surrounding colonies, and of all the fisheries, possesses a soil peculiarly adapted to the production of grain ; and from its insular position is blessed with a climate far more genial than a great part of the continent which lies to*the southward. Had its natural advantages been turned to proper account, it might at this time have been the granary Of the British Colonies, and instead of barely supporting a poor and unen terprising population of 40,000, its mere agricultural resources would" according to Major Head, have maintained in abundance a population of at least ten times that number. Of nearly 1,400,000 acres contained in the island, only 10,000 nre said to be unfit for the plough. Only 100,000 are now under cultivation. No one can mistake the cause of this Iamen. table waste of the means of na'ional wealth. It is the possession of almost the whole soil of the island by absentee proprietors, who would neither promote nor permit its cultivation, combined with the defective government which first caused and has since perpetuated the evil. The simple legislative remedy for all this mischief having been suggested by three successive Secretaries of State, has been embodied in an act of the Local legislature, which was reserved for the Royal assent ; and 76 the influence of the proprietors in London was such, that that assent was for a long time withheld. The question was referred to me during my stay in Canada ; and I believe I may have the satisfaction of attributing to the recommendation which I gave, in accordance with the earnest representations of the lieutenant-governor, Sir Charles Fitzroy, the adoption at last of a measure intended to remove the abuse that has so long retarded the prosperity of this colony. The present condition of these colonies presents none of those alarming features which mark the state of the two Canadas. The loyalty and attachment to the mother country which animate their inhabitants is warm and general. But their varied ample resources are turned to little ac- count. Their scanty population exhibits, in most portions of them an as- pect of poverty, backwardness, and stagnation ; and wherever a better state of things is visible, the improvement is generally to be ascribed to the influx of American settlers or capitalists. Major Head describes bis journey through a great part of Nova Scotia as exhibiting the melancholy spectacle of " half the tenements abandoned, and lands everywhere falling into decay ;'♦ *' and the lands," he tells us, «• that were purchased thirty and forty years ago, at 5s. an acre, are now offered for sale at 3s." •• The people of Prince Edward's Island are," he says, »• permitting Ameri- cans to take out of their hands all their valuable fisheries, from sheer want of capital to employ their own population in them." " The country on the noble river, St. John's," he states, " possesses all that is requisite, except ' that animation of business which constitutes the value of a new settle- ment.' " But the most striking indication of the backward state of these provinces is afforded by the amount of the population. These provinces among the longest settled on the North American Continent, contain nearly 30,000,000 of acres, and a population estimated at the highest, at no more than 365,000 souls, giving only one inhabitant for every 80 acres. In New Brunswick, out of 16,500,000 acres, it is estimated that at least 15,000,000, are fit for cultivation; and the population being estimated at no more than 140,000, there is not one inhabitant for 100 acres of cultivated land. It is a singular and melancholy feature in the condition of these pro- vinces, that the resources rendered of so little avail to the population of Great Britain, are turned to better account by the enterprising inhabi- tants of the United States. While the emigration from the province is large and constant, the adventurous farmers of New England cross the frontier, and occupy the best farming lands. Their fishermen enter our bays and rivers, and in some cases monopolize the occupations of our own unemployed countrymen ; and a great portion of the trade of the St. John's is in their hands. Not only do the citizens of a foreign na. tion do this, but they do it, with British capital. Major Head states, " that an American merchant acknowledged to him that the capital with which his countrymen carried on their enterprises in the neighbor- hood of St John's was chiefly supplied by Great Britain ; and," be adds, as a fact, within his own knowledge, " that wealthy capitalists at Hali- fax, desirous of an investment of thoir money, preferred lending it in the United States to applying it to speculation in New Brunswick, or to lending it to their own countrymen in that Province." I regret to say that Major Head also gives the same account respecting the difference between the aspect of things in these provinces and the bor- dering state of Maine. On the other side of the line, good roads, good schools, and thriving farms afford a mortifying contrast to the condition in which a British subject finds the neighbouring possessions of the British Crown. With respect to the colony of Newfoundland, I have been able to ob- tain no information whatever, except from sources open to the public at large. The Assembly ef that island signified their intention of making an appeal to me respecting some differences with the governor, which had their immediate origin in a dispute with a judge. Owing probably to the uncertain and tardy means of communication between Quebec and that island, I received no further communication on this or any other 77 subject until after my arrival in England, when I received an address ex- pressive of regret at my departure. I know nothing, therefore, of the state of things in Newfoundland, except that there is and long has been the ordinary colonial collision be- tween the representative body on one side and the executive on the other ; that the representatives have no influence on the composition or the pro- ceedings of the executive government and that the dispute is now car. ried on, as in Canada, by impeachments of various public officers on one hand and prorogations on the other. I am inclined to think that the cause of these disorders it to be found in the same constitutional defects as those which I have signalised in the rest ofthe North American colonies. If it be true that there exists in this island a state of society which renders it unadvisable that the whole of the local government should be entirely left to thejinhabitants, I believe that it would be much better to incorporate this colony with a larger community, than to attempt to continue the present experiment of governing it by a constant collision of constitu- tional powers. Disposal of the Public Lands— Emigration. I have mentioned the peculiar importance which, in newly settled so- cieties, is attached to works for creating and improving the means of communication. But in such communities, and especially when only a small proportion of the land has been occupied by settlers, there is a still more momentous subject of public concern. I allude to an operation of Government, which has a paramount influence over the happiness of individuals and the progress of society towards wealth and greatness. — I am speaking of the disposal, by the government, of the lands of the new country. In old countries no such matter ever occupies public at. tention ; in new colonies, planted on a fertile and extensive territory, this is the object of the deepest moment to all, and the first business of the government. Upon the manner in which this business is conduct, ed it may almost be said that every thing else depends. If lands are not bestowed on the inhabitants and new comers with a generous hand, the society endure the evils of an old and over.peopled state, with the super, added inconveniences that belong to a wild country. They are pinched for room even in the wilderness, are prevented from choosing the most fertile soils and favourable situations, and are debarred from cultivating that large extent of soil, in proportion to the hands at work, which can alone compensate , in quantity of produce, for the rude nature of hus. bandry in the wilderness. If, on the other hand, the land is bestowed with careless profusion, great evils of another kind are produced. Large tracts become the property of individuals, who leave their lands unset, tied and untouched. Deserts are thus interposed between the industri- ous settlers; the natural difficulties of communication are greatly enhan. ced : the inhabitants are not merely scattered over a wide space of coun- try, but are separated from each other by impassable wastes ; the culti- vator is cut off or far more removed from a market in which to dispose of his surplus produce and procure other commodities ; and the greatest obstacles exist to co-operation in labour, to exchange, to the division of employments, to combination for municipal or other public purposes, to the growth of towns, to public worship, to regular education, to the spread of news, to the acquisition of common knowledge, and even to the civilizing influences of mere intercourse for amusement. Monoton. ous and stagnant indeed must ever be the state of a people who are per- manently condemned to such a separation from each other. If, more, over, the land of a new country is so carelessly surveyed that the boun. daries of property are incorrectly or inadequately defined, the govern- ment lays up a store of mischievous litigation for the people. Whatever delay takes place in perfecting the titles of individuals to lands alienated by the government, oceasions equal uncertainty and insecurity of pro- 78 perly. If the acquisition of land, in whatever quantities, is made diffi- cult or troublesome, or is subjected to any needless uncertainty or delay, applicants are irritated, settlement is hindered, and immigration to the colony is discouraged, as emigration from it is promoted. Jf very differ- ent methods of proceeding have effect in the same colony, or in differ- ent parts of the same group of colonies, the operation of some can scarcely fail to interfere with or counteract the operation of others ; so that the object of the government must somewhere, or at some time, be defeated. And frequent changes of system are sure to be very injurious, not only by probably displeasing those who either obtain land just be- fore, or desire to obtain some just alter, each change, but also by giving a character of irregularity, uncertainty, and even mystery, to the most important proceeding of government. In this way settlement and emi- gration are discouraged, inasmuch as the people, both of the colony and of the mother country, are deprived of all confidence in the permanency of any system, and of any familiar acquaintance with any of the tempo- rary methods. It would be easy to cite many other examples of the in- fluence of government in this matter. I will mention but one more here. If the disposal of public lands is administered partially — with fa- vour to particular persons or classes — a sure result is, the anger of all who do not benefit by such favouritism (the far greater number, of course,) and consequently, the general unpopularity of the Government. Under suppositions the reverse of these, the best, instead of the worst, effects would be produced ; a constant and regular supply of new land in due proportion to the wants of a population increasing by births and im- migration ; all the advantages to which facilities of transport and com- munication are essential ; certainty of limits and security of title to pro- perty in land ; the greatest facilities in acquiring the due quantity ; the greatest encouragements to immigration and settlement; the most rapid progress of the people in material comfort and social improvement, and a general sense of obligation to the government. What a contrast do the two pictures present ! Neither of them is over coloured ; and a mere glance at both suffices to show that in the North American Colonies of England, as in the United States, the function of authority most full of good or evil consequences has been the disposal of public land. Impressed, before my departure from England, with a sense of the great importance of this subject, and indulging a hope, founded on the very remarkable success of a new method of disposing of public lands in your Majesty's Australian Colonies, that I might be able to recom- mend beneficial reforms in the North American Provinces, I took pre- cautions for instituting a thoroughly efficient inquiry into the whole sub- ject generally and in detail. And I was the more disposed to do this, because while an inquiry by a select-committee of the House of Commons in 1836 furnished abundant information on the subject, as respects most parts of your Majesty's colonial empire, the North American Provinces had been specifically excluded from that inquiry ; and I could not obtain in England any authentic, or at least sufficient, information as to the dis- posal of public lands in any of them. Within a very short time after my arrival in Canada the expediency of a searching inquiry into the subject became more than ever apparent to me. A common belief in the great extent of my powers revived innumerable complaints of abuse, and ap- plications for justice or favour, which had slumbered during previous years. During my residence in the Canadas, scarcely a day passed with- out my receiving some petition or representation relating to the Crown Lands Department ; and matters belonging to this branch of government necessarily occupied a far larger proportion than any other of my cor- respondence with the Secretary of State. The information which I now possess was chiefly obtained by means of a commission of inquiry, which, having regard to the probable advantages of an uniform system for the whole of- British North America, and to the deep and universal interest taken in this subject by the colonists, 1 issued in your Majesty's name, and made applicable to all the provinces. Minutes of the evidence given before the commissioners are appended to the present report, together 79 wilh a separate report, containing the outline of a plan for the future administration of this all-influential department of government. If that plan or any other founded on similar principles, should be adopted by your Majesty and the Imperial Legislature, I do firmly believe that an impulse will be given to the prosperity of your Majesty's N. A. posses, sions surpassing what their most sanguine well-wisher, if unacquainted with the facts, would be capable of imagining ; and more calculated than any other reform whatever to attach the people of British North Ameri- ca to your Majesty's throne, and to cement and perpetuate an intimate connection between the colonies and the mother country. I shall have to return to this point hereafter. I have mentioned it here for the pur- pose of inviting your Majesty's attention, and awakening that of your ministers and of Parliament to a theme which, however, little it has hitherto interested the imperial government, is the object of constant and earnest discussion in the colonies. In the United States, ever since the year 1796, the disposal of public land not already appropriated to particular states, has been strictly regu- lated by a law of Congress ; not by different laws for the various parts of the country, but by one law for the whole of the public lands, and a law which we may judge to have been conducive to the prosperity of the people, both from its obvious good effects, and from its almost unques- tioned continuance for so many years. In the British North American colonies, with one partial exception, there never has been, until quite recently, any law upon the subject. The whole of the public lands have been deemed the property of the Crown, and the whole of the adminis. tration for disposing of them to individuals, with a view to settlement has been cenducted by officers of the Crown, under instructions from the Treasury or the Colonial Department in England. The provincial assemblies, except quite recently in New Brunswick and Upper Canada, have never had any voice in this matter ; nor is the popular controul in those two cases much more than nominal. The imperial parliament has never interfered but once, when, leaving all other things untouched it enacted the unhappy system of " Clergy Reserves." With these very slight exceptions, the Lords of the Treasury and Colonial Secretary of State for the time being have been the only legislators ; and the provin- cial agents of the Colonial Secretary, responsible to him alone, have been the sole executors. The system of the United States appears to combine all the chief re quisites of the greatest efficiency. It is uniform throughout the vast fe- deration ; it is unchangeable, save by Congress, and has never been ma- terially altered ; it renders the acquisition of new land easy, and yet, by means of a price, restricts appropriation to the actual wants of the set- tler ; it is so simple as to be readily understood ; it provides for accurate surveys and against needless delays ; it gives an instant and secure title ; and it admits of no favouritism, but distributes the public property amongst all classes and persons upon precisely equal terms. That sys- tem has promoted an amount of immigration and settlement of which the history of the world affords no other example ; and it has produced to the United States a revenue which has averaged about half a million sterling per annum, and has amounted in one twelvemonth to about four millions sterling, or more than the whole expenditure of the federal government. In the North American colonies there never has been any system. Many different methods have been practised, and this not "only in the different colonies, but in every colony at different times, and within the same colony at the same time. The greatest diversity and most frequent alteration would almost seem to have been the objects in view. In only one respect has there been uniformity. Every where the greatest pro- fusion has taken place, so that in all the colonies, and nearly in every part of each colony, more, and very much more land has been alienated by the government than the grantees had at the time, or now have the means of reclaiming from a state of wilderness ; and yet, in all the colo- nies until lately, and in some of them still, it is either very difficult or 80 next to impossible for a person of no influence to obtain any of the pub* lie land. More or less in all the colonies, and in some of them to an extent which would not be credited it the fact were not established by unquestionable testimony, the surveys have been inaccurate, and the boundaries, or even the situation of estates, are proportionably uncer- tain. Everywhere needless delays have harassed and exasperated appli- cants ; and everywhere, more or less, I am sorry but compelled to add, gross favouritism has prevailed in the disposal of public lands. I have mentioned but a part of the evils, grievances, and abuses of which your Majesty's subjects in the colonies justly complain, as having arisen from maladministration in this department. Those evils remain wholly un- remedied, most of those grievances are unredressed, and not a few of those abuses are unreformed at this hour. Their present existence has been forced on my conviction by indisputable evidence. If they had passed away, I should scarcely have alluded to them. If I had any hope of seeing them removed, otherwise than by means of giving them au- thentic publicity, I should have hesitated to speak of them as I have done. As it is, I should ill perform the duty which your Majesty was pleased to confide to me, if I failed to describe them in the plainest terms. The results of long misgovernment in this department are such as might have been anticipated by any person understanding the subject. — The administration of the public lands, instead of always yielding a re- revenue, cost for a long while more than it produced. But this is, I venture to think, a trifling consideration when compared with others. — There is one in particular which has occurred to every observant travel- ler in these regions, which is a constant theme of boast in the states bordering upon our colonies, and a subject of loud complaint within the colonies. I allude to the striking contrast which is presented between the American and the British sides of the frontier line in respect to eve. ry sign of productive industry, increasing wealth, and progressive civil- ization. By describing one side, and reversing the picture, the other would be also described. On the American side all is activity and bustle. The forest has been widely cleared ; every year numerous settlements are formed, and thousands of farms are created out of the waste ; the coun- try is intersected by common roads ; canals and railroads are finished, or in the course of formation ; the ways of communication and trans, port are crowded with people, and enlivened by numerous carriages and large steamboats. The observer is surprised at the number of harbours on the lakes, and the number of vessels they contain ; while bridges, artificial landing-places, and commodious wharves are formed in all di- rections as soon as required. Good houses, warehouses, mills, inns, villages, towns, and even great cities, are almost seen to spring up out of the desert. Every village has its school-house and place of public worship. Every town has many of both, with its township buildings, its book stores, and probably one or two banks and newspapers ; and the cities, with their fine churches, their great hotels, their exchanges, court-houses and municipal halls, of stone or marble, so new and fresh as to mark the recent existence of the forest where they now stand, would be admired in any part of the old world. On the British side of the line, with the exception of a few favoured spots, where some ap- proach to American prosperity is apparent, all seems waste and deso. late. There is but one railroad in all British America, and that, running between the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, is only fifteen miles long. The ancient city of Montreal, which is naturally the commercial capital of the Canadas, will not bear the least comparison, in any res- pect, with Buffalo, which is a creation of yesterday. But it is not in the difference between the larger towns on the two sides that we shall find the best evidence of our own inferiority. That painful but unde - niable truth is most manifest in the country districts through which the line of national separation passes for 1,000 miles. There, on the side of both the Canadas, and also of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unenterprising, though; hardy and industrious, separated from each other by tracts of interven- ing forest, without towns and markets, almost without loads, living in mean houses, drawing little more than a rude subsistence from ill-culti- vated land, and seomingly incapable of improving their condition, pre- sent the most instructive contrast to their enterprising and thriving neighbours on the American side. I was assured that in the eastern townships of Lower Canada, bordering upon the line, it is a common practice for settlers when they wish to meet, to enter the state of Ver- mont, and making use of the roads there for the purpose of reaching their destination in the British province. Major Head, the assistant commissioner of crown lands' inquiry, whom I sent to New Brunswick, states, that when travelling near the frontier line of that province and the state of Maine, now on one side and then on the other, he could always tell on which side he was by the obvious superiority of the American- settlements in every respect. Where the two countries are separated by the St. Lawrence and the lakes, the difference is less perceptible; but not less in fact, if I may believe the concurrent statements of numerous eye-witnesses, who had no motive for deceiving me. For further cor- roboration, I might refer indeed to numerous and uncontradicted publi- cations ; and there is one proof of this sort so remarkable, that I am in- duced to notice it specially. A highly popular work, which is known to be from the pen of one of your Majesty's chief functionaries in Nova Scotia, abounds in assertions and illustrations of the backward and stag- nant condition of that province, and the great superiority of neighbour- ing American settlements. Although the author, with a natural disin- clination to question the excellence of government, attributes this mor- tifying circumstance entirely to the folly of the people, in neglecting their farms to occupy themselves with complaining of grievances and abuses^ he leaves no doubt of the fact. This view is confirmed by another fact equally indisputable. Through out the frontier, from Amherstburgh to the ocean, the market value of land is much greater on the American than on the British side. In not a few parts ofthefronlier this difference amounts to as much as a thousand per cent., and in some cases even more. The average difference, as be- tween Upper Canada and the States of New York and Michigan, is noto- riously several hundred per cent. Mr. Hastings Kerr, of Quebec, whose knowledge of the value of land in Lower Canada is generally supposed to be more extensive and accurate than that of any other person, states that the price of wild land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close to the line, is five dollars per acre, and in the adjoining British townships only one dollar. On this side the line a very large extent of land is wholly un- saleable, even at such low prices ; while on the other side property is con. tinually changing hands. The price of two or three shillings per acre would purchase immense tracts in Lower Canada and New Brunswick. In the adjoining states it would be difficult to obtain a single lot for less : than as many dollars. In and near Stanstead, a border township of Lower Canada, and one of the most improved, forty-eight thousand acres of fine land, of which Governor Sir R. S. Milne obtained a grant to himself in 1810, was recently sold at the price of two shillings per acre. Mr. Stay- ner, the Deputy Postmaster-General, one of the largest proprietors of wild land in Lower Canada says: — " Twenty years ago, or thereabout, I purchased wild land at what was then considered alow price, in the natural hope that it would be gradually increasing in value, and that, whenever I might choose to sell, it would be at such a profit as would afford me a fair return for the use of the money employed. So far, however, from realising this expectation, I now find, that after the lapse of so many years, when the accumulated interest upon the money invested has in- creased the cost of the land 150 per cent. — I say I find that I could not if compelled to sell this land obtain more for it than it originally cost me." I learn from others besides Mr. Kerr, but quote his words, that " the system pursued in grantiing Crown Lands in L ower Canada has been such; as to render itirapossible to obtain money on mortgage of land,because there L 82 . J8 no certainty as to the value : when a sale ia furced, there may be a par feci glut in the market, and no purchasers." Similar statements might be cit- ed in abundance. It might bo supposed by persons unacquainted with the frontier country, that the soil on the American side is of very supe- rior natural fertility. I am positively assured that this is by no means the case ; but that on the whole, superior natural fertility belongs to the British territory. In Upper Canada the whole of the great peninsula between Lakes Erie and Huron, comprising nearly half the available land of the province, consists of gently undulating alluvial soil, and with a smaller proportion of inferior land than probably any other tract of sim- ilar extent in that part of North Ameriea, is generally considered the bes t grain country on that continent. The soil of the border townships of Lower Canada is allowed, on all hands, to be superior to that of the bor- der townships of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire ; while the lands of New Brunswick, equal in natural fertility to those of Maine, enjoy superior natural means of communication. I do not believe that the" universal difference in the value of land can any where be fairly at- tributed to natural causes. Still less can we attribute to such causes another circumstance, which in some measure accounts for the different values of property, and which has a close relation to the subject of the public lands — I mean the great amount of re-emigration from the British colonies to the border states. This is a notorious fact. Nobody denies it ; almost every colonist speaks of it with regret. What the proportion may be of those emigrants from the United Kingdom who, soon after their arrival, remove to the United States, it would be very difficult to ascertain precisely. Mr. Bell For- syth, of Quebec, who has paid much attention to the subject, and with the best opportunities of observing correctly in both the Cana- das, estimates that proportion at sixty per cent, of the whole. Mr. Hawke, the chief agent for emigrants in Upper Canada, calculates that out of two thirds of the emigrants by the St. Lawrence who reach that, province, one-fourth re-emigrate chiefly to nettle in the States. It would appear, however, that the amount of emigration from Upper Canada, Whether of new comers or others, must be nearer Mr. Forsyth's estimate. The population was reckoned at 200,000 in January 1830. The increase by births since then should have been at least three percent, per annum, or 54,000. Mr. Hawke states the number of immigrants from Lower Ca- nada, since 1829, to have been 165,000; allowing that these also would have increased at the rate of three per cent, per annum, the whole in- crease by immigration and births should have been nearly 200,000. But Mr. Hawke's estimate of emigrants takes no account of the very conside- rable number who enter the province by way of New York and the Erie Canal. Reckoning these at only 50,000, which is probably under the truth, and making no allowance for their increase by births, the entire population of Upper Canada should now have been 500,000, whereas it is, according to the most reliable estimates, not over 400,000. It would therefore appear, making all allowance for errors in this calculation, that the number of people who have emigrated from Upper Canada to the United States, since 1829, must be equal to more than half of the num- ber who have entered the province during the eight years. Mr. Baillie, the present Commissioner of Crown lands in New Brunswick, says, " a great many emigrants arrive in the province, but they generally proceed to the United States, as there is not sufficient encouragement for them in this province." Mr, Morris, the present commissioner of Crown lands, and surveyor.general of Nova Scotia, speaks in almost similar terms of the emigrants who reach that province by way of Halifax. I am far from asserting that the very inferior value of land in the Bri- tish colonies, and the re-emigration of immigrants, are altogether occa- sioned by mismanagement in the disposal of public lands. Other defects and errors of government must have had a share in producing these la- mentable results ; but I may speak the opinion of all the more intelligent and, let me add, some of the most loyal of your Majesty's subject's in North America, when t say that this has been the principal cause of 83. these great evils. This opinion rests upon their personal acquaintance with numerous facts. Some ot these facts I will now state. They have been selected from a much greater number, an being peculiarly calculated to illustrate the faults ot the system, its influence on the condition of the people, and the necessity ot thorough reform.. I may add, that many of tbem form the subject of dispatches which I have addressed to your Ma- jesty's Secretary of State. I have observed before that nearly all of the different methods pursued by the government have had one mischievous tendency in particular ; they have tended to place a vast extent of land out of the control of go. vernment, and yet to retain it in a state of wilderness. This evil has been produced in all the colonies alike, to what extent, and with what injurious consequences, will be made apparent by the following illustra- tive statements. By official returns which accompany this report, it appears that out of about 17,000,000 of acres comprised within the surveyed districts of Upper Canada, less than 1,600,000 are yet unappropriated, and this amount includes 450,000 acres the reserve for roads, leaving less than 1,200,000 acres open to grant; and of this remnant 500,000 acres are re- quired to satisfy claims for grants founded on pledges by the govern- ment. In the opinion of Mr. Radenhurst, the really acting surveyor-ge- nerai, the remaining 700,000 consist for the most part of land inferior in position or quality. It may almost be said» therefore, that the whole of the public lands in Upper Canada have been alienated by the govern- ment. In Lower Canada, out of 6,169,963 acres in the surveyed town, ships, nearly 4,000,000 acres have been granted or sold ; and there are, unsatisfied but indisputable claims for grants to the amount of about 500,- 000. In Nova Scotia nearly 6,000,000 of acres have been granted, and in the opinion of theSurveyor-General only about one-eighth of the landwhich remains to the Crown, or 300,000 acres, is available for the purpose of settlement. The whole of Prince Edward's Island, about 1,400,000 acres, was alienated in one day. In New Brunswick 4,400,000 acres have been granted or sold, leaving to the Crown about 11,000,000 of which 5,500,000 acres are considered fit for immediate settlement. Of the land- granted in Upper and Lower Canada, upwards of 3,000,- 000 acres consist of " clergy reserves," being for the most part lots of 200 acres each, scattered at regular interval over the whole face of the townships, and remaining, with few exceptions, entirely wild to this day. The evils produced by the system of reserving land for the clergy have become notorious, even in this country ; and a common opinion I believe prevails here, not only that the system has been abandoned, but that measures of remedy have been adopted. This opinion is incorrect in both points. In respect of every new township in both provinces reserves are still made for the clergy, just as before ; and the act of the Imperial Par liament, which permits the sale of clergy reserves, applies to only one- fourth of the quantity. The select committee of the House of Commons on the civil government of Canada reported, in 1828, that •• these reserved lands, as they are at present distributed over the country, retard more than any other circumstance the improvement of the colony, lying ag they do in detached portions of each township, and intervening between the occupations of actual settlers, who have no means of cutting roads through the woods and morasses, which thus separate them from their neighbours." This description is perfectly applicable to the presentstate of things. In no perceptible degree has the evil been remedied. The system of clergy reserves was established by the act of 1791, com- monly called the Constitutional Act, which directed that, in respect of all grants made by the Crown, a quantity equal to one-seventh of the land so granted should be reserved for the clergy. A quantity equal to one-seventh of all grants would be one-eighth of each township, or of all the public land. Instead of this proportion, the practice has been, ever since the act passed, and in the clearest violation of its provisions, to set apart for the clergy in Upper Canada a seventh of all the land, which is a quantity equal to a sixth of the land granted. There have been appro^ 84 printed for this purpose 300,000 acres, which legally, it is manifest, be- long to the public. And of the amount for which clergy reserves have been sold in that province, namely, £317,000 (of which about £100,000 have been already received and invested in the English funds) the sum of about £45,000 should belong to the public. In Lower Cariada, the same violation of the law has taken place, with this difference — that upon every sale of Crown and clergy reserves, a fresh reserve for the clergy has been made, equal to a fifth of such reserves. The result has been the appropriation (or the clergy of 673,- .567 acres, instead of 446,000, being an excess of 227,559 acres, or half as much again as they ought to have received. The Lower Canada fund already produced by sales amounts to £50,000, of which therefore, a third, or about £16,000, belong to the public. If, without any reform of this abuse, the whole of the unsold clergy reserves in both provinces should fetch the average price at which such lands have hitherto sold, the public would be wronged to the amount of about £280,000 ; and the reform of this abuse will produce a certain and almost immediate gain to the public of £60,000. In referring, for further explanation of this subjeet, to a paper in the appendix which has been drawn up by Mr. Hanson, a member of the commission of inquiry which I appointed for all the colonies, I am desirous of stating my own conviction that the clergy have had no part in this great misappropriation of the public property, but that it has arisen entirely from heedless misconception, or some error, of the civil government of both provinces. The great objection to reserves for the clergy is, that those for whom the land is set apart never have attempted, and never could successfully attempt, to cultivate or settle the property, and that, by that special appropriation, so much land is withheld from settlers, and kept in a state of waste, to the serious injury of ali settlers in its neigh- bourhood. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this is the only practice by which such injury has been, and still is, inflicted on actual settlers. In the two Canadas, especially, the practice of re- warding, or attempting to reward, public services by grants of public land, has produced, and is still producing, a degree of injury to actual settlers which it is|difflcult to conceive without having witnessed it. The very principle of such grants is bad, inasmuch as, under any circumstances, they must lead to an amount of appropriation beyond the wants of the community, and greatly beyond the proprietors means of cultivation and settlement. In both the Canadas, not only has this princi- ple been pursued with reckless profusion, but the local executive govern-* ments have managed, by violating or evading the instructions which they received from the Secretary of State, to add incalculably to the mischiefs that would have arisen at all events. In Upper Canada, 3,200,000 acres have been granted to " U. E. Loy- alists," being refugees from the United States who settled in the province before 1787, and their children ; 730,000 acres to militia men, 450,000 acres to discharged soldiers and sailors, 255,000 acres to magistrates and barristers, 136,000 acres to executive councilors and their families, 50,000 acres to five legislative councillors and their families, 36,900 acres to clergymen as private property, 264,000 acres to persons contract- ing to make surveys, 92,526 acres to officers of the army and navy, 500,- 000 acres for the endowment of schools, 48,520 acres to Colonel Talbot, 12,000 acres to the heirs of General Brock, and 12,000 acres to Doctor Mountain, a former Bishop of Quebec ; making altogether, with the clergy reserves, nearly half of all the surveyed land in the province. In Lower Canada.exclusively of grants to refugee loyalists,as to the amount of which the Crown Lands'Department could furnish me with no information, 450,- 000 acres have been granted to militiamen, to executive councillors 72,000 acres, to Governor Milne abou', 48,000 acres, to Mr.Cushing and another upwards of 100,000 acres (as a reward for giving inlormation in a case of high treason), to officers and soldiers 200,000 acres, and to " leaders of townships" 1,457,209 acres, making -altogether, with the clergy resorves, rather more than half of the surveyed lands originally at the dis- posal of tho Crown. In Upper Canada, a very small proportion (perhaps less than a tenth) of the land thus granted has been even oceupied by settlers, much less reclaimed and cultivated. In Lower Canada, with the exception of a few townships bordering on the American frontier, which have been comparatively weil settled, in despite of the proprietors, by American squatters, it may be said that nineteen-twentieths of these grants are still unsettled, and in a perfectly wild state. No other result could have been expected in the case of those classes of grantees whose station would preclude them from settling in the wil- derness, and whose means would enable them to avoid exertion for giv- ing immediate value to th«ir grants ; and unfortunately, the land which was intended for persons of a poorer order, who might be expected to improve it by their labour, has, for the most part, fallen into the hands of land-jobbers of the class just mentioned, who have never thought of set- tling in person, and who retain the land in its present wild state, specu- lating upon its acquiring a value at some distant day. when the demand for land shall have increased through the increase of population. In Upper Canada, says Mr. Bouiton, himself a great speculator and holder of wild land : — " The plan of granting large tracts of land to gentlemen who have neither the muscular strength to go into the wilderness, nor, perhaps, the pecumarj means to improve their grants, has been the means of a large part of the country remaining in a state of wilderness. The system of granting land to the children of U. E. Loyalists has not been productive of the benefits expected from it. A very small proportion of the land granted to them has been occupied or improved. A great proportion of such grants were to unmarried females, who very readily disposed of them for a small consideration, frequently from £2 to £5 for a grantof 200 acres. The gratis made to young men were also frequently sold for a very small consideration; they generally had parents with whom they lived, and were there- fore not disposed to move to their grants of lands, but preferred remaining with their families. I do not think one- tenth of the lands granted to U. E Loyalists has been occupied by the persons to whom they were granted, and in a great pro- portion of cases not occupied at all." Mr. Radenhurst says : — " The general price of these grants was from a gallon of rum up to perhaps £6, so that wliile millions of acres were granted in this way, the settlement of the Province was not advanced, nor the advantage of the grantee secured in the man- ner that we may suppose to have been contemplated by government." He also mentions, amongst extensive purchasers of these grants, Mr. Hamilton, a Member of the Legislative Council, who bought about 100,- 000 acres ; Chief Justices Emslie and Powell, and Solicitor-General Grey, who purchased 20,000 to 50,000 acres ; and states that several members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, as well as of the House of Assembly, were " very large purchasers." In Lower Canada, the grants to " Leaders and Associates" were made by an evasion of instructions which deserve a particular description. By instructions to the Local Executive immediately after the passing of the Constitutional Act, it was directed that — "Because great inconveniences had theretofore arisen in many of the colonies in America from the granting excessive quantities of land to particular persons e British institutions which link the utmost developement of freedom and civilization with the stable authority of an hereditary Monarchy, and which, if rightly organized and fairly adminis- tered in the Colonies, as in Great Britain, would render a change of insti- tutions only an additional evil to the loss of the protection and commerce of the British Empire. But while I count thus confidently on the possibility of a permanent and advantageous retention of our connection with these important Colonies, I must not disguise the mischief and danger of holding them in their present state of disorder. 1 rate the chances of successful rebellion as the least dan- ger in prospect. I do not doubt that the British Government can, if it choose to retain these dependencies at any cost, accomplish its purpose ; I believe that it has the means of enlisting, one part of the population against the other, and of garrisoning the Canadas with regular troops sufficient to awe all internal enemies. But even this will not be done without great expense and hazard. The experience of the last two years furnishes only a foretaste of the cost to which such a system of Government will subject us. On the lowest calculation, the addition of a million a year to our annual Colonial expenditure will barely enable us to attain this end. Without a change in our system of Government, the discontent which now prevails will spread, and advance. As the cost of retaining these Colonies increases, their value will rapidly diminish ; and if by such means the British nation shall be con- tent to retain a barren and injurious sovereignty, it will but tempt the chances of foreign aggression, by keeping continually exposed to a powerful aDd ambitious neighbour a distant dependency, in which an invader would find no resistance, but might rather reckon on active co-operation from a portion of the resident population. I am far from presenting this risk in a manner calculated to irritate the just pride which would shrink from the thoughts of yielding to the menaces of a rival nation. Because, important as I consider the foreign relations of this question, I do not believe that there is now any veiy proximate danger of a colli- sion with the United States, in consequence of that power designing to take advantage of the disturbed state of the Canadas. In the despatch of the 9th of August, I have described my impression of the state of feeling with respect to the Lower Cauadian insurrection, which had existed, and was then in ex- istence, in the United States. Besides, the causes of hostile feeling which originate in the mere juxtaposition of that power to our North American Provinces, I described the influence Which had undoubtedly been exercised by that mistaken political sympathy with the insurgents of Lower Canada, which the inhabitants of the United States were induced to entertain. There is no people in the world so little likely as that of the United States to sym- 102 pathize with the real feelings and policy of the French Canadians ; no peo. pie so little likely to share in their anxiety to preserve ancient and barbar- ous laws, and to check the industry and improvement of their country, in order to gratify some idle and narrow notion of a petty and visionary nation- ality. The Americans who have visited Lower Canada, perfectly under- stand the real truth of the case ; they see that the quarrel is a quarrel of races ; and they certainly show very little inclination to take part with the French Canadians and their institutions. Of the great number of American travellers, coming from all parts of the Union, who visited Quebec during my residence there, and whose society I, together with the gentlemen at- tached to my mission, had the advantage of enjoying, not one ever expressed to any of us any approbation of what may be termed the national objects of the French Canadians, while many did not conceal a strong aversion to them. There is no people in the world to whom the French Canadian in- stitutions are more intolerable when circumstances compel submission to them. But the mass of the American people had judged of the quarrel from a distance ; they had been obliged to form theii judgment on the appa- rent grounds of the controversy ; and were thus deceived, as all those are apt to be who judge under such circumstances and on such grounds. The contest bore some resemblance to that great struggle of their own forefa- thers, which they regard with the highest pride. Like that, they believed it to be a contest of a Colony against the Empire whose misconduct alienated their own country ; they considered it to be a contest undertaken by a people professing to seek independence of distant control and extension of popular privileges ; and finally, a contest of which the first blow was struck in consequence of a violation of a Colonial Constitution, and the appropria- tion of the Colonial revenues without the consent of the Colonists. It need not surprise us that such apparently probable and sufficient causes were ge- nerally taken by the people of the United States as completely accounting for the whole dispute ; that the analogy between the Canadian insurrection and the war of independence was considered to be satisfactorily made out and that a free and high-spirited people eagerly demonstrated its sympathy with those whom it regarded as gallantly attempting, with unequal means, to assert that glorious cause which its own fathers had triumphantly upheld. In the case of Upper Canada, I believe the sympathy to have been much more strong and durable ; and, though the occasion of the contest was appa- rently less marked, I have no doubt that this was more than compensated by the similarity of language and manners, which enabled the rebels of the Upper Province to present their case much more easily and forcibly to those whose sympathy and aid they sought. The incidents of any struggle of a large portion of a people with its Government are sure, at some time or another, to elicit some sympathy with those who appear, to the careless view of a foreign nation, only as martyrs to the popular cause, and as victims of a Government conducted on principles differing from its own ; and I have no doubt that if the internal struggle be renewed, the sympathy from without will, at some time or another, resume its former strength. For it must be recollected that the natural ties of sympathy between the English population of the Canadas and the inhabitants of the frontier States of the Union are peculiarly strong. Not only do they speak the same lan- guage, live under laws having the same origin, and preserve the same cus- toms and habits, but there is a positive alternation, if 1 may so express it, of the populations of the two countries. While large tracts of the British ter- ritory are peopled by American citizens, who still keep up a constant con- nection with their kindred and friends, the neighbouring States are filled with emigrants from Great Britain, some of whom have quitted Canada after unavailing efforts to find there a profitable return for their capital and labour, and many of whom have settled in the United States, while other members of their families, and the companions of their youth, have taken up their abode on the other side of the frontier. I had no means of ascertaining the exact degree of truth in some statements which 1 have heard, respecting the number of Irish settled in the State of New York ; but it is commonly as- serted that there are no less than 40,000 Irish in the Militia of ihat State. The intercourse between these two divisions of what is, in fact, an iden- 103 tical population, is coustaut and universal. The border Townships of Lower Canada are separated from the United States by an imaginary line ; a great part of the frontier of Upper Canada by rivers which are crossed in ten inin. utes ; and the rest by lakes, which interpose hardly a six hours' passage be- tween the inhabitants of each side. Every man's daily occupations bring him in contact with his neighbours on the other side of the line ; the daily wants of one country are supplied by the produce of the other ; and the po- pulation of each is in some degree dependent on the state of trade and the demands of the other. Such common wants beget an interest in the politics of each country among the citizens of the other. The newspapers circulate in some places almost equally on the difl'eient sides of the line, and men dis- cover that their welfare is frequently as much involved in the political condition of their neighbours as of their own countrymen. The danger of any serious mischief from this cause appears to me to be less, at the present moment, than for some time past. The events of the last year, and the circulation of more correct information respecting the real causes of contention, have apparently operated very successfully against the progress or continuance of this species of sympathy ; and I have the satisfac- tion of believing that the policy which was pursued during my administration of the Government was very efficient in removing it. The almost complete unanimity of the press of the United States, as well as the assurances of in- dividuals well conversant with the state of public opinion in that country, convince me that the measures which I adopted met with a concurrence that completely turned the tide of feeling in favour of the British Government. Nor can I doubt from the unvarying evidence that I have received from all persons who have recently travelled through the frontier States of the Union, that there hardly exists, at the present moment, the slightest feeling which can properly be called sympathy. Whatever aid the insurgents have recently received from citizens of the United States, may either be attributed to those national animosities which are the too sure result of past wars, or to those undisguised projects of conquest and rapine, which since the invasion of Texas, find but too much favour among the daring population of the frontiers. Judging from the character and behaviour of the Americans most prominent in the recent aggressions on Upper Canada, they seem to have been produced mainly by the latter cause ; nor does any cause appear to have secured to the insurgents of Lower Canada any very extensive aid, ex- cept that in money and munitions of war, of which the source cannot very clearly be traced. Hardly any Americans took part in the recent distur- bances in Lower Canada. Last year the outbreak was the signal for nu- merous public meetings in all the great cities of the frontier States from Buffalo to New York. At these the most entire sympathy with the insur- gents was openly avowed ; large subscriptions were raised, and volunteers invited to join. Since the last outbreak no such manifestations have taken place. The meetings which the Nelsons and others have attempted in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and elsewhere, have ended in complete failure ; and, at the present moment, there does not exist the slightest indica- tion of any sympathy with the objects of the Lower Canadian insurgents, oti of any desire to eo-operate with tbem for political purposes. The danger, however, which may be apprehended from the mere desire to repeat the scenes of Texas in the Canadas, is a danger from which we cannot be secure, while the disaffection of any considerable portion of the population continues to give an appearance of weakness to our Government, it is in vain to ex- pect that such attempts can wholly be repressed by the Federal Govern- ment, or that they could even be effectually counteracted by the utmost ex- ertion of its authority, if any sudden turn of affairs should again revive a strong and general sympathy with insurrection in Canada. Without dwel- ling on the necessary weakness of a merely Federal Government — without adverting to the difficulty which authorities dependent for their very exist- ence on the popular will, find, in successfully resisting a general manifesta- tion of public feeling, the impossibility which any Government would find in restraining a population like that which dwells along the thousand miles of this frontier must be obvious to all who reflect on the difficulty of main- taining the police of a dispersed community. 104 Nor is tliis danger itself unproductive of feelings which are in their turn calculated to produce yet further mischief. The loyal people of Canada, indignant at the constant damage and terror occasioned by incursions from the opposite shore,' naturally turn their hostility against the nation and the Government which permit, and which they accuse even of conniving at the violation of international law and justice. Mutual recriminations are ban- died about from one side to the other ; and the very facilities of intercourse which keep alive the sympathy between portions of the two populations, afford at the same time occasions for the collision of angry passions and na- tional antipathies. The violent party papers on each side, and the various bodies whose pecuniary interests a war would promote, foment the strife. A large portion of each population endeavours to incite its own Government to war, and at the same time labours to produce the same result by irritating the national feelings of the rival community. Rumours are diligently circu- lated by the Canadian press, and every friendly act of the American people or Government appears to be systematically subjected to the most unfavour- able construction. It is not only to be apprehended that this state of mu- tual suspicion and dislike may be brought to a head by acts of mutual re- prisals, but that the officers of the respective Governments, in despair of pre- serving peace, may take little care to prevent the actual commencement of War. Though I do not believe that there ever was a time, in which the specific relations of the two countries rendered it less likely that the United States would imagine that a war with England could promote their own interests, yet it cannot be doubted that the disturbed state of the Cauadas, is a serious drawback on the prosperity of a great part of the Union. Instead of pre- senting an additional field for their commercial enterprise, these Provinces, in their present state of disorder, are rather a barrier to their industrial energies. The present state of things also occasions great expense to the Federal Government, which Ims been under the necessity of largely augment- ing its small army, on account chiefly of the troubles of Canada. Nor must we forget that whatever assurances and proofs of amicable feel- ing we may receive from the Government of the United States, however strong may be the ties of mutual pacific interests that bind the two nations, together, there are subjects of dispute which may produce less friendly feel- ings. National interests are now in question between us, of which the im- mediate adjustment is demanded by every motive of policy. These in- terests cannot be supported with the necessary vigour, while disaffection in a most important part of our North American possessions appears to give an enemy a certain means of inflicting injury and humiliation on the Empire. But the chances of rebellion or foreign invasion are not those which I re- gard as either the most probable or the most injurious. The experience of the last two years suggests the occurrence of a much more speedy and disas- trous resu't. I dread, in fact, the completion of the sad work of depopulation and impoverishment which is now rapidly going on. The present evil is not merely that improvement is stayed, and that the wealth and population of these Colonies do not increase according to the rapid scale of American pro- gress. No accession of population takes place by immigration, and no capi- tal is brought into the country. On the contrary, both the people and the capital seem to be quitting these distracted Provinces. From the French portion of lower Canada there has, for a long time, been a large annual emigration of joung men to the northern states of the American Union, in which they are highly valued as labourers, and gain good wages, with their savings from which they generally return to their homes in a few months or years. 1 do not believe that the usual amount of this emigration has been increased during the last year, except by a few persons prominently compro- mised in the insurrection, who have sold their property and made up their minds to a perpetual exile ; but I think there is some reason to believe that, among the class of habitual emigrants whom I have described, a great many now take up their permanent residence in the United States. But the sta- tionary habits and local attachments of the French Canadians render it little likely that they will quit their country in great numbers. I am not aware that there is any diminution of the British population from such a cause. 105 The employment of British capital in the Province is not materially checked in the principal branch of trade, and the main evils are the with- drawal of enterprising British capitalists from the French portion of the country, the diminished employment of the capital now in the Province, and the entire stoppage of all increase of the population by means of immigration. But from Upper Canada, the withdrawal both of capital and of population has been very considerable. I have received accounts from most respectable sources of a very numerous emigration from the whole of the Western and London districts. It was said by persons who professed to have witnessed it, that considerable numbers had for a long time daily passed over from Amherst* burgh and Sandwich to Detroit ; and a most respectable informant stated that he had seen in one of the districts which I have mentioned, no less than fifteen vacant farms together on the roadside. A body of the reforming party have avowed, in the most open manner, their intention of emigrating from political motives, and publicly invited all who might be influenced by similar feelings to join in their enterprise. For this the Mississippi Emigra- tion Society has been formed, with the purpose of facilitating emigration from Upper Canada to the new territory of the union, called Iowa, on the west bank of the Upper Mississippi. The prospectus of the undertaking, and the report of the deputies who were sent to examine the country in ques- tion, were given in the public press, and the advantages of the new Colony strongly enforced by the reformers, and depreciatingly discussed by the friends of the Government. The number of persons who have thus emi- grated is not, however, I have reason to believe, as great as it has often been represented. Many who might be disposed to take such a step cannot sell their farms on fair terms ; and though some, relying on the ease with which land is obtained in the United States, have been content to remove merely their stock and their chattels, yet there are others, again, who cannot at the last make the sacrifices which a forced sale would necessitate, and who continue, even under their present state of alarm, to remain in hopes of better times. In the districts which border on the St. Lawrence, little has, in fact, come of the determination to emigrate which was loudly expressed at one time. And some, even of those who actually left the country, are said to have returned. But the instances which have come to my knowledge in- duce me to attach even more importance to the class than to the alleged number of the emigrants ; and I can by no means agree with some of the dominant party, that the persons who thus leave the country are disaffected subjects, whose removal is a great advantage to loyal and peaceable men. In a country like Upper Canada, where the introduction of population and capital is above all things needful for its prosperity, and almost for its con- tinued existence, it would be more prudent, as well as just ; more the inter- est as well as the duty of Government, to remove the causes of disaffection, than to drive out the disaffected. But there is no ground for asserting that all the reformers who have thus quitted the country are disloyal and turbu- lent men ; nor indeed is it very clear that all of them are reformers, and that the increasing insecurity of person and property have not, without dis- tinction of politics, driven out some of the most valuable settlers of the Pro- vince. A great impression has been lately made by the removal of one of the largest proprietors of the Proviuce, a gentleman who arrived there, not many years ago, from Trinidad ; who has taken no prominent, and certainly no violent, part in politics ; and who has now transferred himself and his property to the United States, simply because in Upper Canada he can find no secure investment for the latter, and no tranquil enjoyment of life.-. I heard of another English gentleman, who, having resided in the country for six or seven years, and invested large sums in bringing over a superior breed of cattle and sheep, was, while I was there, selling off his stock and imple- ments, with a view of settling in Illinois. I was informed of an individual who, thirty years ago, had gone into the forest with his axe on his shoulder, and ^with no capital at starting, had, by dint of patient labour,. ac- quired a farm and stock, which he had sold for £2,000, with which he went into the United States. This man, I was assured, was only a specimen of a numerous class, to whose unwearied industry the growth and prosperity of the Colony are mainly to be ascribed. They are now driven from it, on o IM ascount of the present insecurity of all, who having in former times htem identified in politics with some of those that subsequently appeared as promi- nent actor* in the revolt, are regarded and treated as rebels, though they bad held themselves completely aloof from all participation in schemes or acts of rebellion. Considerable alarm also exists as to the general disposition to quit the country, which was said to have been produced by some lata measure of the authorities among that mild and industrious, but peculiar race of descendants of the Dutch, who inhabit the back part of the Niagara District. Such are the lamentable results of the political and social evils which have so long agitated the Canadas ; and such is their condition, that at the pre. sent moment, we are called on to take immediate precautions against dan- gers bo alarming as those of rebellion, foreign invasion, and utter exhaustion and depopulation. When I look at the various and deep-rooted causes of mischief which the past inquiry has pointed out as existing in every institu- tion, in the constitution, and in the very composition of society, throughout a great part of these Provinces, I almost shrink from the apparent presumption of grappling with these gigantic difficulties. Nor shall I attempt to do so in detail. I rely on the efficacy of reform in the constitutional system by which these Colonies are governed, for the removal of every abuse in their adminis- tration which defective institutions have engendered. If a system can be devised which shall lay in these countries the foundation of an efficient and popular government, ensure harmony, in place of collision, between the va- rious powers of the State, and bring the influence of a vigorous public opi- nion to bear on every detail of public affairs, we may rely on sufficient reme- dies being found for the present vices of the administrative system. The preceding pages have sufficiently pointed out the nature of those evils, to the extensive operation of which I attribute the vaiious practical grievances, aud the present Unsatisfactory condition of the North American* Colonies. It is not by weakening, but strengthening the influence of the people on its Government j by confining within much narrower bouuds than those hitherto allotted to it, and not by extending the interference of the Imperial authorities in the details of Colonial affairs, that I believe that harmony is to be restored, where dissension has so long prevailed, and a re- gularity and vigour hitherto unknown introduced into the Administration of these Provinces. It needs no change in the principles of Government, no invention of a new constitutional theory, to supply the remedy which would, in my opinion, completely remove the existing political disorders. It needs but to follow out consistently the principles of the British Constitution, and introduce into the Government of these great Colonies those wise provisions, by which alone the working of the representative system can in any country be rendered harmonious and efficient. We are not now to consider the po- licy of establishing representative government in the North American Colo- nies. That has been irrevocably done ; and the experiment of depriving the people of their present constitutional power is not to be thought of. To Conduct their government harmoniously, in accordance with its established principles, is now the business of its rulers ; and I know not how it is possi- ble to secure that harmony, in any other way than by administering the gov- ernment on those principles which have been found perfectly efficacious in Great Britain. I would not impair a single prerogative of the Crown ; on the contrary, I believe that the interests of the people of these Colonies re- quire the protection of prerogatives, which have not hitherto been exercised. But the Crown must, on the other hand, submit to the necessary consequen- ces of representative institutions ; and if it has to carry on the government in unison with a representative body, it must consent to carry it on by means of those in whom that representative body has confidence. In England this principle has been so long considered an indisputable and essential part of our constitution, that it has really hardly ever been found necessary to inquire into the means by which its observance is enforced. When a ministry ceases to command a majority in parliament on great ques- tions of policy, its doom is immediately sealed ; and it would appear to us as strange to attempt, for any time, to carry on a government by means of ministers perpetually in a minority, as it would be to pass laws with a majority 107 ** B *^w'w*>'"""^*'W^*"»^- a *«www*«»ww*»':]i«»i'mfHM^MW^r^tiii«iii»i