Previous to my entering into a further examination of the Canada question, it will perhaps be better to recapitulate, in as few words as possible, what has already occurred, and the principal causes of the late insurrection.
When the Canadian provinces were reduced by the British arms, the inhabitants, being entirely French, were permitted to retain their own laws, their own language in Courts and public offices, and all their vested rights which had been granted to them by the French government. It was a generous, but, as it has been proved, an unwise policy. The form of government, as an English colony, was proposed, and acceded to by the French population, who, gratified by the liberality of their new rulers, cheerfully took the oath of allegiance. For many years, indeed it may be said until the close of the war of 1814, the population remained almost entirely French. England had been so long engaged in war, and the annual expenditure of life in her armies and her navies was so great, that she could not permit, much less encourage, emigration.
At the close of the war of 1814, the census of the population in the two Canadian provinces was as follows:— In Lower Canada, between three and four hundred thousand; in Upper Canada, from thirty to forty thousand, of which nineteen-twentieths were of French extraction. But the emigration during the last twenty-five years of peace has made a considerable change. The population of Lower Canada has increased to six hundred thousand, and that of Upper Canada now amounts to upwards of four hundred thousand. As the emigration has been almost wholly from the British dominions, it may be now fairly assumed that, taking the two provinces together, the English and French population are now on a par as to numbers; the English preponderate in the Upper province as much as the French do in the Lower. But if we are to consider the two nations of settlers as to their respective value as emigrants to the provinces, on the point of capital, industry, and enterprise, the scale will descend immediately in favour of the English population. The French are inactive, adverse to speculation, or even improvement. Every habitant is content with his farm as handed down to him by his progenitor, and the higher classes who hold the seigneuries are satisfied with their seignorial rights and the means of exaction which they afford to them. The privileges of these seigneurs, or lords of the manor, in Lower Canada, are very extensive, and a bar to all improvement or advance. They hold the exclusive right of hunting and fishing; all the water privileges, such as the erection of saw-mills, etcetera, are insured to them. The habitant is even compelled to send his flour to be ground at the mill of the lord of the manor. At the sale of every property, the lord of the manor receives one-twelfth of the proceeds. Thus, if a farm worth a few hundred pounds was to fall into the hands of an enterprising man, and he was to raise it to the value of thousands, more than the prime-cost would be deducted for the lord of the manor if he were compelled to part with it. This, with the other impediments to enterprise, has left Lower Canada in a state of quiescence, and the emigrants who have gone over have passed it by that they might settle on the more fertile and free province of Upper Canada. One of the writers in the daily press of New York has very truly remarked:—
“When the British first obtained the Canadas, its commerce consisted of a few peltries, conveyed to France by the vessels which brought out the troops and carried back the disbanded regiments. The lumber trade was unknown. The importations were a nonentity. While at present many hundreds of vessels are engaged in the direct timber trade, and more than one hundred and fifty vessels have been frequently counted on the river St. Lawrence. These, it must be remembered, are almost exclusively owned by British merchants; while the French Canadians own the land in the same proportion as the English do the trade.”
It was the knowledge of these facts, and that the English were every year rising in importance, (for they had not only secured the whole trade, but were gradually occupying the more fertile land of the Upper province,) which has created the jealousy and ill-will, and has been such a source of irritation to the French inhabitants of the Lower province. I have dwelt upon these facts because there is a very general opinion (which has most unfortunately been acted upon by our Government), that the legislature of the province should be guided by the interests of the majority, and this they have considered to be in favour of the French population; whereas in numbers they are about equal, and in point of wealth and importance, the English population are most decidedly in the advance; besides that, the former population would willingly separate themselves from the mother-country, and therefore deserve but little favour, while the latter are loyal and attached to it. The French having the ascendancy of five to one in the Lower province, have done all they can to check improvement. Public works which have cost large sums, have remained uncompleted, because the House of Assembly in the Lower province has refused to allow them to be carried on. Indeed, had the Lower province been allowed to continue in her career of opposition, she would have eventually rendered difficult all communication between the Upper province and the mother-country.
This is acknowledged in Lord Durham’s report, which says:—
“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 increase 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 newcomers as subordinate; they refused to increase the burthens of the country by imposing taxes to meet the expenditure required for improvement, and they also refused to direct to that object any of the funds previously devoted to other purposes. The improvement of the harbour of 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 authorised and encouraged, were undertaken on a scale of due moderation, and satisfactorily 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 Legislature 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 pretext for doing nothing. The applications for banks, railroads, and canals were laid on one side until some general measures could be adopted with regard to such undertakings; but the general measures thus promised were never passed, and the particular enterprises in question were prevented. The adoption of a registry was refused, on the alleged ground of its inconsistency with the French institutions of the province, and no measure 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 assurance 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 conduct, 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 warranted by the policy of those neighbouring States which give the greatest encouragement to emigration, was argued on such grounds in the Assembly, that it was not unjustly regarded as indicative of an intention to exclude any further accession to the English population; and the industry of the English was thus retarded by this conduct of the Assembly. Some districts, particularly that of the Eastern Townships, where the French race have no footing, were seriously injured by the refusal of necessary improvements; and the English inhabitants generally regarded the policy of; the Assembly as a plan for preventing any further emigration to the province, of stopping the growth of English wealth, and of rendering precarious the English property already invested or acquired in Lower Canada.”
It may be said, that latterly the French party, by the inconsiderate yielding of the Government at home, legislate for both provinces; and finding that they never could compete with the English in other points, their object has been to crush them as much as possible. (See Note 1.) The policy pursued by M. Papineau and his adherents, has therefore been to keep the Lower Province entirely in the hands of the French, and with this view they have as much as possible, prevented British settlers from obtaining land in Lower Canada; and that their rule might be absolute, over the French population, they have prevented their education, so that they might blindly follow those who guided them. These two assertions will be fully borne out by an examination into the public records.
The land being almost wholly in the possession of the French, M. Papineau’s first object was, to make the possession of landed property the tenure by which any employment of the trust under government could be held; and in this great object he succeeded. It must at once be perceived that, by this regulation alone, all British residents were excluded, and that if possessed of capital to any amount, whatever their stake in the colony might be, they were ruled and dictated to by the French party. No person could be an officer in the militia unless he was a landowner. The wealthy English merchant had to fall into the ranks, and be ordered about by an ignorant French farmer, a man who could not write or read, but made his cross to any paper presented to him for his signature.
By another enactment the grand juries were to be selected from those who were land-owners, and the consequence was, that in two grand juries selected in two succeeding years, there was only one man who could write or read out of the whole number, and the others fixed their cross to the bills found.