On the afternoon of the 19th of June, a man in the watch-house called out that the Half-breeds were coming. The governor, some other gentlemen and myself, looked through spy-glasses, and I distinctly saw some armed people on horseback passing along the plains. A man then called out, "They (meaning the Half-breeds), are making for the settlers"; on which the governor said, "We must go out and meet these people; let twenty men follow me." We proceeded by the old road leading down the settlement. As we were going along, we met many of the settlers running to the fort, crying, "The Half-breeds, the Half-breeds." ... We had not proceeded far, before the Half-breeds on horseback, with their faces painted in the most hideous manner and in the dresses of Indian warriors, came forward and surrounded us in the form of a half-moon. We then extended our line and moved more into the open plain; and, as they advanced, we retreated a few steps backwards, and then saw a Canadian named Boucher ride up to us waving his hand and calling out, "What do you want?" The governor replied, "What do you want?" To which Boucher answered, "We want our fort." The governor said, "Go to your fort." They were by this time near each other, and consequently spoke too low for me to hear. Being at some little distance to the right of the governor, I saw him take hold of Boucher's gun, and almost immediately a general discharge of fire-arms took place; but whether it began on our side or that of the enemy it was impossible to distinguish: my attention was then directed towards my personal defence. In a few minutes almost all our people were either killed or wounded.... I was rescued from death in the most providential manner no less than six different times on my road to, and at, the Frog Plain (the headquarters of those cruel murderers).... With the exception of myself, no quarter was given to any of us.... The amiable and mild Mr. Semple, lying on his side (his thigh having been broken) and supporting his head upon his hand, addressed the chief commander of our enemies, by inquiring if he was Mr. Grant; and, being answered in the affirmative, "I am not mortally wounded," said Mr. Semple, "and, if you could get me conveyed to the fort, I think I should live." Grant promised he would do so; and immediately left him in the care of a Canadian, who afterwards told that an Indian of their party came up and shot Mr. Semple in the breast. I entreated Grant to procure me the watch or even the seals of Mr. Semple for the purpose of transmitting them to his friends, but I did not succeed. Our force amounted to twenty-eight persons, of whom twenty-one were killed and one wounded.... The enemy, I am told, were sixty-two persons, the greater part of whom were the contracted servants and clerks of the North-West Company. They had one man killed and one wounded.
[ 29. PROPOSED UNION OF THE CANADAS (1822).]
Source.—A Petition from the British Inhabitants of Montreal, December, 1822: printed in the Report on the Canadian Archives for 1897.
It is a consequence of the relative geographical situation of the Provinces, that Upper Canada is entirely dependent on Lower Canada for the means of communicating with the parent state and other countries; it is only through Lower Canada that the Upper Province can receive its supplies or export its surplus commodities.
The port of Quebec is the entrance common to both. This being situated in Lower Canada, the inhabitants of Upper Canada can have neither free ingress into, nor egress from, their country, except in so far as it may be permitted by the Government of Lower Canada. This, your Majesty's petitioners humbly represent, is a cause for the union of the Provinces perpetual in its operation, and which cannot be counteracted without a long series of inconveniences and disasters to both. If, while it may still be done, the population of the two Provinces be not gradually assimilated and identified in their interests by a union, the differences between them from the causes now in operation and the collisions to which they will give rise, must have the effect of rendering the inhabitants of each a separate and distinct people, with the most hostile feelings towards each other, requiring only a fit occasion to urge them into measures of actual violence. In the progress of things towards this conclusion, the inhabitants of Upper Canada would imperceptibly be induced to form connections with their American neighbours, and, being unnaturally disjoined from Lower Canada, would seek to diminish the inconveniences arising by a more intimate intercourse with the adjoining states, leading inevitably to a union with that country. The actual tendency of things to this result, while the Provinces continue under separate Legislatures, it is to be observed, is likely to be much promoted by the artificial means of communication by canals which have been lately formed at immense expense in the state of New York, affording to Upper Canada, if the outlet at the port of Quebec should be rendered inconvenient to her, an easy communication to American seaports; and her disposition to avail herself of this communication will obviously be increased while the Lower Province continues in its character to be French.
Some of the circumstances arising from the division of countries thus united by nature ... have been practically exhibited in the disputes respecting revenue between the two Provinces. Upper Canada relies on the revenue to be derived from import duties for the payment of her civil expenditure. The nature of her local situation precludes her from conveniently or effectually levying these duties within her own limits; it is at the port of Quebec only that she can levy them: but this is in another Province, and, while she has a separate Legislature, beyond the authority of her Government....
In adverting to the injurious consequences arising from the division of the late Province of Quebec, your Majesty's petitioners cannot omit to notice more particularly the effect that measure has had in preventing the increase of the British population in Lower Canada and the development of its resources. The preponderance of the French population in the Legislature has occasioned obstacles to the settlement of British emigrants that have not been surmounted; so that the vast increase of British population to have been expected from this cause has been, in a general degree, prevented. The injury sustained in this particular may be easily appreciated when it is observed that, since the late American War, upwards of eighty thousand souls (that is, a number equal to one-fourth of the actual French population) have found their way to this Province from Great Britain and Ireland, and of these scarcely one-twentieth part remains within its limits, the rest, with the exception of a small number who have settled in Upper Canada, having been induced by the foreign character of the country in which they had sought an asylum, and the discouragements they experienced, to try their fortunes in the United States. The loss thus sustained is not confined to those who left the country, but comprises their connections and friends who would have followed them. In the same proportion as the increase of British population has been prevented, has the agricultural and commercial prosperity of the country been retarded and obstructed; as it is to the enterprise, intelligence and persevering industry of that population that both agriculture and commerce must be principally indebted for their advancement. On this head it may be fairly advanced that, had not the impolitic division of the late Province of Quebec taken place, and had a fit plan of representation been adopted, the British population would now exceed the French, and the imports and exports of the country be greatly beyond their present amount.