Diary in America, Series Two

by Frederick Marryat

The Americans will tell you that the sympathy, as they term it, only exists on the borders of the lakes; that it extends no further, and that they are all opposed to it, etcetera. Such is not the case. The greatest excitement which was shown any where was perhaps at Albany, the capital of the State of New York, on the Hudson river, and two hundred miles at least from the boundary; but not only there, but even on the Mississippi the feeling was the same; in fact, it was the feeling of the majority. In a letter I received the other day from a friend in New York, there is the following remark:—

“Bill Johnson (the pirate on lake Ontario) held his levées here during the winter. They were thronged with all the best people of the city.”

Now, the quarter from whence I received this intelligence is to be relied upon; and that it was the case I have no doubt. And why should they feel such interest about a pirate like Bill Johnson? Simply because he had assailed the English. This may appear a trifle; but a straw thrown up shows in what direction the wind blows.

At present there is no want of troops to defend the Canadas against a foreign attack, and little inclination to rebel in the provinces themselves. That now required is, that the legislature should be improved so as to do justice to all parties, and such an encouragement given to enterprise and industry as to induce a more extended emigration.

Lord Durham has very correctly observed, that it is not now a conflict of principles between the English and French, but a conflict of the two races. He says:—

“I expected to find a contest between 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 a deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English.”

But why should this conflict between the two races have taken place? Firstly, because the French, by the injudicious generosity of our Government in allowing them to retain their language in public affairs, with all their customs and usages, were allowed to remain a French colony, instead of amalgamating them with the English, as might have been done. Subsequently, because the interests of the English colonists have been sacrificed to the French, who, nevertheless, became disaffected, and would have thrown off the English dominion. Lord Durham very correctly adds:—

“Such is the lamentable and hazardous state of things produced by the conflict of races which has so long divided the province of Lower Canada, 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 mentioned the conduct and constitution of the colonial government, as modifying the character of the struggle, I have not attributed to political causes a state of things which would, I believe, tinder any political institutions have resulted from the very composition of society. A jealousy between two races, so long habituated to regard each other with hereditary enmity, and so differing in habits, in language, and in laws, would have been inevitable under any form of government. That liberal institutions and 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 more 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 has aggravated the evil, and the origin of the present extreme disorder may be found in the institutions by which the character of the colony was determined.”

We have, therefore, to legislate between the two parties, and let us, previous to entering upon the question, examine into their respective merits. On the one hand we have a French population who, after having received every favour which could be granted with a due regard to freedom, have insisted upon, and have obtained much more, and who in return for all the kindness heaped upon them, excited by envy and jealousy of an energy and enterprise of which they were incapable, have risen in rebellion, with the hopes of making themselves an independent nation.

On the other hand we have a generous, high-spirited race of our own blood, and migrating from our own soil, who having been unfairly treated, and having just grounds of complaint against the mother-country, have nevertheless forgotten their own wrongs, and, to a mail, flown to arms, willing to shed their blood in defence of the mother-country.