These words imply not so much distrust of the colonists as a sense of the need of proceeding tentatively with what was a novel departure. It is clear that Ministers looked on the proposed arrangements as more or less provisional, and in the last phrases we seem to catch a glimpse of a more peaceful future when reunion would be the natural step. For the present, Grenville continued, it would be well to strengthen the Governor’s Legislative Council by according to its members some title of honour (a baronetage was first hinted at) which would attach them to the new institutions. Another desirable step was the reservation of Crown Lands in the new districts, in order to provide the Government with a fixed and improving revenue. Grenville even suggested that, had this been done in the original thirteen colonies, a cause of friction and revolt would have been removed.
Ministers must have had a deep sense of the advantages of their proposal when they disregarded the advice of the Governor-General and the firm opposition of the British settlers in Lower Canada and of their connections in London. The measure was pushed on, despite a long speech against it by Lymburner at the bar of the House, in which he asserted that the division of the provinces, when once accomplished, could never be reversed—an assertion falsified by facts in 1841. The debates on the subject were rendered memorable by an incident which will be described later (Chapter XXIV). Burke had persisted in dragging the French Revolution into the discussion, and, when interrupted by Fox, passionately declared that the friendship between them was at an end. As for the question before the House, Fox opposed, while Burke defended, the proposed division of Canada. The Whig leader further objected to the proposal to make a legislative councillorship an hereditary honour; and he urged Ministers to increase the size of the Houses of Assembly. Pitt carried his proposal that they should number sixteen for the Upper Province and fifty for the Lower. Finally the House agreed to leave open the question of the hereditary tenure of councillorships; and it is noteworthy that no hereditary title was conferred. The Bill became law on 14th May 1791.
To discuss the suitability of this measure to Canada would involve a recital of events in that colony down to the time of Lord Durham’s famous Report of 1839. All that concerns us here is the question of Pitt’s attitude towards those complex problems. His conduct cannot be pronounced hasty or doctrinaire. Not until official evidence and advice were forthcoming did he and his colleagues sketch the first outlines of the scheme. But when he had made up his mind, he held on his way with resolute purpose. This will appear if we remember that three Ministers were successively responsible for the Bill. Sydney drafted it. Grenville revised the evidence and recast the Bill;[728] but it fell to Henry Dundas to amend it and carry it into execution. As the Bill was but little changed, we may infer that one mind was at all times paramount.
Canadian historians have generally allowed that the motives of Pitt were enlightened; and, the assertion sometimes made, that they were based on a resolve to make use of the hostility of French and British settlers so as to prevent revolt, is contradicted by all that is known of his manly and hopeful nature. His speeches ring with a feeling of confidence in the healing effect of representative institutions; and it should be remembered that, if in 1837 they were found inadequate to the needs of the progressive Upper Province, they yet nursed that little community into youth. This is all that can be expected from a measure which was necessarily tentative.[729] The chief objections against his division of the provinces were that it tended to weaken the British community in the Lower Province, while it also cut off the Upper Province from the sea and placed it at the mercy of the Customs’ laws framed at Quebec.
To this it may be replied that, even if the infant settlements of the Upper St. Lawrence had remained bound up with the French districts, the English-speaking population would still have been in a decided minority, and that it was better to allow the United Empire Loyalists to carve out their own destiny, as they were doing in New Brunswick, in the hope that time would bring about an equipoise between the two peoples. The erection of a new Customs’ barrier was truly a serious matter; but it resulted from geographical and racial conditions which were irreversible, save by the Act of Union, which, under happier auspices, came exactly half a century later. In the period 1791–1841 Upper Canada grew from a population of about 10,000 to 465,000; and in that fact may be found the best justification for Pitt’s Canadian policy. When looked at from the point of view of 1791, it seems to deserve higher praise than has generally been its meed.
CHAPTER XX
THE SLAVE TRADE
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall;
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud