Note 1. It was not long after the conquest, that another and larger cla.s.s of English settlers began to enter the province. English capital was attracted to Canada by the vast quant.i.ty and valuable nature of the exportable produce of the country, and the great facilities for commerce, presented 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 compet.i.tors 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 encroached 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 compet.i.tion; but all felt yet more acutely the gradual increase of a cla.s.s of strangers in whose hands the wealth of the country appeared to centre, and whose expenditure and influence eclipsed those of the cla.s.s which had previously occupied the first position in the country. Nor was the intrusion of the English limited to commercial enterprises. By degrees, large portions of land were occupied by them; nor did they confine themselves to the unsettled and distant country of the townships. The wealthy capitalist 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, without any consciousness or intention to injustice, in many instances exercised 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 complaint 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 compet.i.tion of the English with the French farmer. The English farmer carried with him the experience and habits of the most improved agriculture in the world. He settled himself in the townships bordering on the seignories, and brought a fresh soil and improved cultivation to compete 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 contributed to give to the English race in the government and the legal profession, their own superior energy, skill and capital secured to them in every branch of industry. They have developed the resources of the country; they 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.
Note 2. "Nor does there appear to be the slightest chance of putting an end to this animosity during the present generation. Pa.s.sions 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 cla.s.s of persons, or any organisation 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 circ.u.mstanced the salutary dread of the power of Great Britain, which the presence of a large military force in the province might be expected to produce. I have been informed, by witnesses so numerous and trustworthy that I cannot doubt the correctness of their statements, that the peasantry were generally ignorant 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 Britain had no troops to send out; that in order to produce an impression on the minds of the country-people, the same regiments were marched backwards and forwards in different directions, and represented as additional arrivals from home. This explanation was promulgated among the people by the agitators of each village; and I have no doubt that the ma.s.s of the inhabitants really believed that the government was endeavouring to impose on them by this species of fraud. It is a population with whom authority has no means of contact or explanation.
It is difficult even to ascertain what amount of influence the ancient leaders of the French party continue to possess. [The name of M.
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 policy; and whether they are not really under the guidance of separate petty agitators, who have no plan but that of a senseless and reckless determination to show in every way their hostility to the British Government and English race. Their ultimate designs and hopes are equally unintelligible. 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 Canadian Republic; the sounder information of others has led them to perceive that a separation from Great Britain must be followed by a junction 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 a.s.sociations and every conceivable difference of manners and opinions have implanted in the Canadian mind a more ancient and rooted national antipathy than that which they feel against the people of the United States. Their more discerning leaders feel that their chances of preserving their nationality would be 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 British party of a.s.sailing, would find little favour or respect from their neighbours. Yet none even of these considerations weigh against their present all-absorbing hatred of the English; and I am persuaded that they would purchase vengeance and a momentary triumph by the aid of any enemies, or submission to any yoke. This provisional but complete cessation of their ancient antipathy to the Americans, is now admitted even by those who most strongly denied it during the last spring, and who then a.s.serted that an American war would as completely unite the whole population against the common enemy, as it did in 1813. My subsequent experience leaves no doubt in my mind that the views which were contained in my despatch on 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."
Note 3. Colonel Prince is the gentleman who took with his own hands General Sutherland and his aide-de-camp, and who ordered the Yankee pirates to be shot. Mr Hume has thought proper to make a motion in the House of Commons, reprobating this act as one of murder. I believe there is little difference whether a man breaks into your house, and steals your money; or burns your house, and robs you of your cattle and other property. One is as much a case of burglary as the other. In the first instance you are justified in taking the robber"s life, and why not in the second? Those people who attacked the inhabitants of a country with whom they were in profound peace, were disowned by their own government, consequently they were outlaws and pirates, and it is a pity that Sutherland and every other prisoner taken had not been immediately shot. Mr Hume may flare up in the House of Commons, but I should like to know what Mr Hume"s opinion would be if he was the party who had all his property stolen and his house burnt over his head, in the depth of a Canadian winter. I suspect he would say a very different say, as he has no small respect for the _meum_; indeed, I should be sorry to be the party to be sentenced by Mr Hume, if I had stolen a few ducks out of the honourable gentleman"s duck decoys near Yarmouth.
VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.
THE CANADAS, CONTINUED.
In the last chapter I pointed out that in our future legislation for these provinces, we had to decide between the English and French inhabitants; up to the present the French have been in power, and have been invariably favoured by the Government, much to the injury of the English population. Before I offer any opinion on this question, let us inquire what has been the conduct of the French in their exercise of their rights as a Legislative a.s.sembly, and what security they offer us, to incline us again to put confidence in them. In examining into this question, I prefer, as a basis, the Report of Lord Durham, made to the English Parliament. His lordship, adverting to the state of hostility between the representative and executive powers in our colonies, prefaces with a remark relative to our own country, which I think late events do not fully bear out; he says:--
"However partial the monarch might be to particular ministers, or however he might have personally committed himself to their policy, he has been _invariably_ constrained to abandon both, as soon as the opinion of the people has been irrevocably p.r.o.nounced against them, through the medium of the House of Commons."
This he repeats in an after part of the Report:--
"When a ministry ceases to command a majority in Parliament on great questions 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 pa.s.s laws with a majority of votes against them."
If such be an essential part of our const.i.tution, as his lordship a.s.serts, surely we have suffered an inroad into it lately.
That the system of Colonial Government is defective, I grant, but it is not so much from the check which the Legislative Council puts upon the Representative a.s.sembly, as from the secrecy of the acts and decisions of that council. This, indeed, his lordship admits in some cases, and I think that I can fully establish that, without this salutary check, the Legislative a.s.sembly of Lower Canada would have soon voted themselves Free and Independent States. Lord Durham observes:--
"I am far from concurring in the censure which the a.s.sembly and its advocates have attempted to cast on the acts of the Legislative 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 pa.s.sed without a dereliction of its duty to the const.i.tution, the connexion with Great Britain, and the whole English population of the colony. If there is any censure to be pa.s.sed 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, without completing its duty by proposing measures, which would have achieved the good in view without the mixture of evil. The national animosities which pervaded the legislation of the a.s.sembly, and its thorough want of legislative skill or respect for const.i.tutional principles, rendered almost all its bills obnoxious to the objections made by the Legislative Council; and the serious evil which their enactment would have occasioned, convinces me that the colony has reason to congratulate itself on the existence of an inst.i.tution 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 national liberty_."
Again:--
"One glaring attempt which was made directly and openly to _subvert the const.i.tution of the country, was_, by pa.s.sing a bill for the formal repeal of those parts of the 31 Geo. 3, c. 31, commonly called the Const.i.tutional Act, by which the const.i.tution and powers of the Legislative Council were established. It can hardly be supposed that the framers of this bill were unaware, or hoped to make any concealment of the obvious illegality of a measure, which, commencing as all Canadian Acts do, by a recital of the 31 Geo. 3, as the foundation of the legislative authority of the a.s.sembly, proceeded immediately to infringe some of the most important provisions of that very statute; nor can it be supposed that the a.s.sembly hoped really to carry into effect, this extraordinary a.s.sumption of power, inasmuch as the bill could derive no legal effect from pa.s.sing the Lower House, unless it should subsequently receive the a.s.sent of the very body which it purported to annihilate."
Take again the following observations of his lordship:--
"But the evils resulting from such open attempts to dispense with the const.i.tution were small, in comparison with the disturbance of the regular course of legislation by systematic abuse of const.i.tutional forms, for the purpose of depriving the other branches of the legislature of all real legislative authority.
"It remained, however, for the a.s.sembly of Lower Canada to reduce the practice to a regular system, in order that it might have the most important inst.i.tutions of the province periodically at its mercy, and use the necessities of the government and the community for the purpose of extorting the concession of whatever demands it might choose to make.
Objectionable 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 the practice of "tacking" together various legislative measures.
"A singular instance of this occurred in 1836, with respect to the renewal of the jury law, to which the a.s.sembly attached great importance, and to which the Legislative Council 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 a.s.sembly coupled it in the same bill by which it renewed the tolls of the Lachine Ca.n.a.l, calculating on the Council not venturing to defeat a measure of so much importance to the revenue as the latter by resisting the former. The council, however, rejected the bill; and thus the ca.n.a.l remained toll-free for a whole season, because the two Houses differed about a jury law."
So much for their attempts to subvert the const.i.tution. Now let us inquire how far these patriots were disinterested in their enactments.
First, as to grants for local improvements, how were they applied? His lordship observes:--
The great business of the a.s.semblies is, literally, parish business; the making parish roads and parish bridges. There are in none of these provinces any local bodies possessing authority to impose local a.s.sessments, for the management of local affairs. To do these things is the business of the a.s.sembly; and to induce the a.s.sembly to attend to the particular interests of each county, is the especial business of its county member. The surplus revenue of the province is swelled to as large an amount as possible, 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 const.i.tuent 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 legislature described the tendency to retrench, in the most necessary departments of the public service, in order to satisfy the demands for local works. This fund is voted by the a.s.sembly on the motion of its members; 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 const.i.tuents; cabals are formed, by which the different members mutually play into each other"s hands; general politics are made to bear on private business, and private business on general politics; and at the close of the Parliament, the member who has succeeded in securing the largest portion of the prize for his const.i.tuents, renders an easy account of his stewardship, with confident a.s.surance of his re-election.
"Not only did the leaders of the Lower Canadian a.s.sembly avail themselves 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 const.i.tuencies_.
"The majority of the a.s.sembly of Lower Canada is accused by its opponents of having, in the most systematic and persevering manner, employed this means of corrupting the electoral bodies. The adherents of M. Papineau are said to have been lavish in their promises of the benefits which they could obtain from the a.s.sembly for the county, whose suffrages they solicited. By such representations, the return of members of opposition politics is a.s.serted, in many instances, to have been secured; and obstinate counties are alleged to have been sometimes starved into submission, by an entire withdrawal of grants, until they returned members favourable to the majority. Some of the English members who voted with M. Papineau, excused themselves to their countrymen by alleging that they were compelled to do so, in order to get a road or a bridge, which their const.i.tuents 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 M. Papineau"s influence in the a.s.sembly."
Next for the grants for public education.
"But the most bold and extensive attempt for erecting a system of patronage, wholly independent of the Government, was that which was, for some time, carried into effect by the grants for education made by the a.s.sembly, and regulated by the Act, which the Legislative Council has been most bitterly reproached with refusing to renew. It has been stated, as a proof of the deliberate intention of the Legislative Council to crush every attempt to civilise and elevate the great ma.s.s of the people, that it thus stopped at once the working of about 1,000 schools, and deprived of education no less than 40,000 scholars, who were actually profiting 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 pursued. 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 they had been allowed to manage the funds, without even the semblance of sufficient accountability. The Members of the a.s.sembly had thus a patronage, in this single department, of about 25,000 pounds per annum, an amount equal to half of the whole ordinary civil expenditure of the Province.
They were not slow in profiting by the occasion thus placed in their hands; and as there existed in the Province 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 gentleman whom I directed to inquire into the state of education in the Province, showed me a pet.i.tion from certain schoolmasters, which had come into his hands; and the majority of the signatures were those of _marks-men_. 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 unqualified. These appointments were, as might have been expected, jobbed by the members among the political partisans; nor were the funds _very honestly_ managed. In many cases the members were suspected, or accused, of misapplying them to their own use; and in the case of Beauharnois, where the seigneur, Mr Ellice, has, in the same spirit of judicious liberality by which his whole management of that extensive property has been marked, contributed most largely towards the education of his tenants, the school funds were proved to have been misappropriated by the county member. The whole system was a gross political 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 sacrificed this n.o.ble end, and perverted ample means to serve the purposes of party."
We will now claim the support of his lordship upon another question, which is, how far is it likely that the law will be duly administered if the power is to remain in the hands of the French Canadian population?
Speaking of the Commissioners of Small Causes, his lordship observes:--
"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 hara.s.sing 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 the discharge of their duty, and judgments 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."
Relative to the greatest prerogative of an Englishman, the trial by jury, his lordship observes:--
"But the most serious mischief in the administration of criminal justice, arises from the entire perversion of the inst.i.tution of juries, by the political and national prejudices of the people. The trial by jury was introduced with the rest of the English criminal law. For a long time the composition of both grand and pet.i.t juries was 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 preponderance 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 the 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sembly, and, having expired in 1836, the Legislative Council refused 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 supposed, 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 Government. When I arrived in the Province, the public were expecting the trials of the persons accused of partic.i.p.ation 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 slightest 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, I was given to understand, that the prisoners and their friends supposed 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 complaints, or the apparent grounds for them, confined to one party.
"The trial by jury is, therefore, at the present moment, not only productive in Lower Canada of no confidence in the honest administration of the laws, but also provides impunity for every political offence."
I have made these long quotations from Lord Durham"s Report as his lordship"s authority, he having been sent out as Lord High Commissioner to the Province, to make the necessary inquiries, must carry more weight with the public than any observations of mine. All I can do is to a.s.sert that his lordship is very accurate; and, having made this a.s.sertion, I ask, what chance, therefore, is there of good government, if the power, or any portion of the power, be left in the hands of those who have in every way proved themselves so adverse to good government, and who have wound up such conduct by open rebellion.
The position of the Executive in Canada has, for a long while, been just what our position in this country would be if the House of Commons were composed of Chartist leaders. Every act brought forward by them would tend to revolution, and be an infringement of the Const.i.tution, and all that the House of Lords would have to do, would be firmly to reject every bill carried to the Upper House. If our House of Commons were filled with rebels and traitors, the Government must stand still, and such has been for these ten years the situation of the Canadian government; and, fortunate it is, that the outbreak has now put us in a position that will enable us to retrieve our error, and re-model the const.i.tution of these Provinces. The questions which must therefore be settled previous to any fresh attempts at legislation for these Canadians, are,--are, or are not, the French population to have any share in it? Can they be trusted? Are they in any way deserving of it?
In few words, are the Canadas to be hereafter considered as a French or an English colony?
When we legislate, unless we intend to change, we must look to futurity.
The question, then, is not, who are the majority of to-day, but who will hereafter be the majority in the Canadian Provinces; for all agree upon one point, which is, that we must legislate for the majority. At present, the population is nearly equal, but every year increases the preponderance of the English; and it is to be trusted that, by good management, and the encouragement of emigration, in half a century the French population will be so swallowed up by the English, as to be remembered but on record. If, again, we put the claims of British loyalty against the treason of the French--the English energy, activity, and capital, in opposition to the supineness, ignorance, and incapacity of the French population,--it is evident, that not only in justice and grat.i.tude, but with a due regard to our own interests, the French Canadians must now be _wholly deprived_ of any share of that power which they have abused, and that confidence of which they have proved themselves so unworthy. I am much pleased to find that Lord Durham has expressed the same opinion, in the following remarks; and I trust their importance will excuse to the reader the length of the quotation.
"The English have already in their hands the majority of the larger ma.s.ses of property in the country; they have the decided superiority of intelligence on their side; they have the certainty that colonisation must swell their numbers to a majority; and they belong to the race which wields the Imperial Government, and predominates on the American continent. If we now leave them in a minority, they will never abandon the a.s.surance of being a majority hereafter, and never cease to continue the present contest with all the fierceness with which it now rages. In such a contest, they will rely on the sympathy of their countrymen at home; and if that is denied them, they feel very confident of being able to awaken the sympathy of their neighbours of kindred origin. They feel that if the British Government intends to maintain its hold of the Canadas, it can rely on the English population alone; that if it abandons its colonial possessions, they must become a portion of that great Union which will speedily send forth its swarms of settlers, and, by force of numbers and activity, quickly master every other race. The French Canadians, on the other hand, are but the remains of an ancient colonisation, and are and ever must be isolated in the midst of an Anglo-Saxon world. Whatever may happen, whatever government shall be established over them, British or American, they can see no hope for their nationality. They can only sever themselves from the British empire by waiting till some general cause of dissatisfaction alienates them, together with the surrounding colonies, and leaves them part of an English confederacy; or, if they are able, by effecting a separation singly, and so either merging in the American Union, or keeping up for a few years a wretched semblance of feeble independence, which would expose them more than ever to the intrusion of the surrounding population. I am far from wishing to encourage, indiscriminately, these pretensions to superiority on the part of any particular race; but while the greater part of every portion of the American continent is still uncleared and unoccupied, and while the English exhibit such constant and marked activity in colonisation, so long will it be idle to imagine that there is any portion of that continent into which that race will not penetrate, or in which, when it has penetrated, it will not predominate. It is but a question of time and mode; it is but to determine whether the small number of French who now inhabit Lower Canada shall be made English, under a government which can protect them, or whether the process shall be delayed until a much larger number shall have to undergo, at the rude hands of its uncontrolled rivals, the extinction of a nationality strengthened and embittered by continuance.
"And is this French Canadian nationality one which, for the good merely of that people, we ought to strive to perpetuate, even if it were possible? I know of no national distinctions marking and continuing a more hopeless inferiority. The language, the laws, the character of the North American Continent are English; and every race but the English (I apply this to all who speak the English language) appears there in a condition of inferiority. It is to elevate them from that inferiority that I desire to give to the Canadians our English character. I desire it for the sake of the educated cla.s.ses, whom the distinction of language and manners keeps apart from the great empire to which they belong. At the best, the fate of the educated and aspiring colonist is, at present, one of little hope, and little activity; but the French Canadian is cast still further into the shade, by a language and habits foreign to those of the Imperial Government. A spirit of exclusion has closed the higher professions on the educated cla.s.ses of the French Canadians, more, perhaps, than was absolutely necessary; but it is impossible for the utmost liberality on the part of the British Government to give an equal position in the general compet.i.tion of its vast population to those who speak a foreign language. I desire the amalgamation still more for the sake of the humbler cla.s.ses. Their present state of rude and equal plenty is fast deteriorating under the pressure of population in the narrow limits to which they are confined.
If they attempt to better their condition, by extending themselves over the neighbouring country, they will necessarily get more and more mingled with an English population; if they prefer remaining stationary, the greater part of them must be labourers in the employ of English capitalists. In either case it would appear, that the great ma.s.s of the French Canadians are doomed, in some measure, to occupy an inferior position, and to be dependent on the English for employment. The evils of poverty and dependence would merely be aggravated in a ten-fold degree, by a spirit of jealous and resentful nationality, which should separate the working cla.s.s of the community from the possessors of wealth and employers of labour.
"I will not here enter into the question of the effect of the mode of life and division of property among the French Canadians, on the happiness of the people. I will admit, for the moment, that it is as productive of well-being as its admirers a.s.sert. But, be it good or bad, the period in which it is practicable, is past; for there is not enough unoccupied land left in that portion of the country in which English are not already settled, to admit of the present French population possessing farms sufficient to supply them with their present means of comfort, under their present system of husbandry. No population has increased by mere births so rapidly as that of the French Canadians has since the conquest. At that period their number was estimated at 60,000: it is now supposed to amount to more than seven times as many. There has been no proportional increase of cultivation, or of produce from the land already under cultivation; and the increased population has been in a great measure provided for by mere continued subdivision of estates. In a Report from a Committee of the a.s.sembly in 1826, of which Mr Andrew Steuart was chairman, it is stated, that since 1784 the population of the seignories had quadrupled, while the number of cattle had only doubled, and the quant.i.ty of land in cultivation had only increased one-third. Complaints of distress are constant, and the deterioration of the condition of a great part of the population admitted on all hands. A people so circ.u.mstanced must alter their mode of life. If they wish to maintain the same kind of rude, but well-provided agricultural existence, it must be by removing into those parts of the country in which the English are settled; or if they cling to their present residence, they can only obtain a livelihood by deserting their present employment, and working for wages on farms, or on commercial occupations under English capitalists. But their present proprietary and inactive condition is one which no political arrangements can perpetuate. Were the French Canadians to be guarded from the influx of any other population, their condition in a few years would be similar to that of the poorest of the Irish peasantry.
"There can hardly be conceived a nationality more dest.i.tute of all that can invigorate and elevate a people, than that which is exhibited by the descendants of the French in Lower Canada, owing to their retaining their peculiar language and manners. They are a people with no history, and no literature. The literature of England is written in a language which is not theirs; and the only literature which their language renders familiar to them, is that of a nation from which they have been separated by eighty years of a foreign rule, and still more by those changes which the Revolution and its consequences have wrought in the whole political, moral, and social state of France. Yet it is on a people whom recent history, manners, and modes of thought, so entirely separate from them, that the French Canadians are wholly dependent for almost all the instruction and amus.e.m.e.nt derived from books: it is on this essentially foreign literature, which is conversant about events, opinions and habits of life, perfectly strange and unintelligible to them, that they are compelled to be dependent. Their newspapers are mostly written by natives of France, who have either come to try their fortunes in the province, or been brought into it by the party leaders, in order to supply the dearth of literary talent available for the political press. In the same way their nationality operates to deprive them of the enjoyments and civilising influence of the arts. Though descended from the people in the world that most generally love, and have most successfully cultivated the drama--though living on a continent, in which almost every town, great or small, has an English theatre, the French population of Lower Canada, cut off from every people that speak its own language, can support no national stage.
"In these circ.u.mstances, I should be indeed surprised if the more reflecting part of the French Canadians entertained at present any hope of continuing to preserve their nationality. Much as they struggle against it, it is obvious that the process of a.s.similation to English habits is already commencing. The English language is gaining ground, as the language of the rich and of the employers of labour naturally will. It appeared by some of the few returns, which had been received by the Commissioner of Inquiry into the state of education, that there are about ten times the number of French children in Quebec learning English, as compared with the English children who learn French. A considerable time must, of course, elapse before the change of a language can spread over a whole people; and justice and policy alike require, that while the people continue to use the French language, their government should take no such means to force the English language upon them as would, in fact, deprive the great ma.s.s of the community of the protection of the laws. But, I repeat, that the alteration of the character of the province ought to be immediately entered on, and firmly, though cautiously, followed up; that in any plan, which may be adopted for the future management of Lower Canada, the first object ought to be that of making it an English province; and that, with this end in view, the ascendancy should never again be placed in any hands but those of an English population. Indeed, at the present moment, this is obviously necessary: in the state of mind in which I have described the French Canadian population, as not only now being, but as likely for a long while to remain, the trusting them with an entire control over this province would be, in fact, only facilitating a rebellion. Lower Canada must be governed now, as it must be hereafter, by an English population; and thus the policy, which the necessities of the moment force on us, is in accordance with that suggested by a comprehensive view of the future and permanent improvement of the province."
VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SIX.
THE CANADAS, CONTINUED.