operated as a sort of charm, like oil poured on troubled waters. At this moment all is still; a stranger would hardly believe that the country had been recently distracted by civil war. Expectation for the future is, I trust, taking the place of angry passions occasioned by the past. This was, at that time, a true description; I stated nothing but what correctly described the state of things in these provinces. I could not know that at that very hour events were passing at the other side of the Atlantic which would call into renewed and fearful activity the smothered embers of universal strife, and reverse the fair order of things which I had so diligently laboured to establish. MY LORD, HER MAJESTY'S SHIP INCONSTANT, I have the honour to inform your Lordship that I had, on the morning of my departure for Quebec, an interview with Mr. Sheriff M'Donnell, who had arrived the night before from Kingston, Upper Canada, for the purpose of communicating to the government the alarming intelligence of the existence of a great unwillingness on the part of the militia and volunteers of Upper Canada to tender their active services. Mr. M'Donnell informed me that the belief amongst them of the indifference of the British Government to their fate was so general, that they deemed it useless to make any exertions to maintain the connexion with the mother country. He also said that nothing but a declaration from me, of the intentions of the British Government having been misunderstood, would induce them to enrol themselves for the defence of the province this winter. I had no hesitation in assuring him that no trace of that indifference would be found in the measures adopted, or the precautions taken by the government over which I presided, and that I could not imagine the existence of a different feeling in the minds of the British Ministers. I trusted, therefore, that the same alacrity as was before manifested would be evinced by all classes in the Upper province, in coming forward for the maintenance of the public security. FEELING IN UPPER CANADA 173 Mr. M'Donnell stated himself to be perfectly satisfied with my declaration, and was to return to Kingston the same evening. I regret to state, with reference to this subject, that the feelings expressed by Mr. M'Donnell are also very generally entertained by the British population in Lower Canada. I have, &c. (signed) DURHAM. Lord Durham's Report on the affairs of British North America was published early in February, 1839.1 Much of it was naturally displeasing to the dominant party in the colonies, and both in Upper Canada and in Nova Scotia protests were made by the Legislative Council. In the former a select committee drew up a report on the Report, which was unanimously adopted by the Council, and in which their point of view is expressed with much force. REPORT. THE SELECT COMMITTEE to whom was referred the Report of the Right Honourable the EARL OF DURHAM, HER MAJESTY'S late GOVERNOR-IN-CHIEF of British North America, RESPECTFULLY SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING REPORT: In discussing the report of Her Majesty's late High Commissioner on the affairs of Upper Canada, your Committee are fully aware, that their observations cannot be understood by your Honourable House, as conveying any censure on Her Majesty's Commissioner; who commences by informing Her Majesty, that his information, respecting the state of Upper Canada, had not been acquired in 1 As originally presented to Her Majesty, the Report was in folio, with four extremely valuable volumes of appendices. In the same year unofficial octavo reprints appeared in London and in Canada, without the appendices, but containing copies of his lordship's despatches to Lord Glenelg from May 31 to November 10, 1838. In 1902 the Report was reprinted at London (Methuen and Co). the course of his actual administration of the government of that Province, a fact to which the report itself bears ample testimony.1 His Lordship observes that, “it is very difficult to make out from the avowals of parties, the real objects of their struggles, and still less easy is it to discover any cause of such importance, as would account for its uniting any large mass of the people in an attempt to overthrow, by forcible means, the existing form of government."-From the first part of this paragraph it appears, that the political parties into which the Province is said to be divided, have no very strong ground for complaint, otherwise some definite description thereof would doubtless have been given to his Lordship; who, in the latter part of the same paragraph, insinuates, that a large mass of the people of Upper Canada were desirous of overthrowing the government, a fact totally unknown in this Province, and already sufficiently refuted by the conduct of the people. His Lordship then informs Her Majesty, that Upper Canada " has long been entirely governed by a party commonly designated through the Province as the family compact,' that, there is in truth, very little of family connection among the persons thus united." Why then should his Lordship give his assistance in the dissemination of any such erroneous idea, as that title has been used to propagate? His Lordship does not appear to have understood, that the object of the Press in adopting the term of "family compact, as a name by which to designate "the Bench, the Magistracy, the holders of the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, the possessors of nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province, the people all powerful in the chartered Banks, and sharing among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit "; intended to impress their readers with the idea, that a close family connection did exist among all the persons in authority throughout the Province, and that if it were not so understood the force of the epithet would be altogether lost; for throughout his Lordship's report "the family compact" is blazoned forth with studious perti 66 66 and 1 That part of the Report dealing with Upper Canada is its least valuable portion. In its preparation Durham seems to have relied mainly on Charles Buller. (See Bradshaw, Self-government in Canada, p. 247.) ERRORS OF DURHAM 175 nacity, although the inaptness of the title had been previously admitted. The High Commissioner next endeavours to show, that all persons of education, and more especially members of the learned professions, ought rather to settle in the United States than in Canada, a Surgeon, for instance, because he must show that he is duly qualified before he can be permitted to practise within this Province; an Attorney, because he is not permitted to practise therein as a Barrister; and a Barrister, because he is not allowed to act as an Attorney. Your Committee are of opinion, that in all these regulations the legislature has shown a proper and praiseworthy desire to prevent ignorant pretenders to medical and legal knowledge, disturbing the animal economy or social condition of Her Majesty's subjects. Then comes his Lordship's list of British grievances, which is altogether remarkable; he complains of the Banking system, in which he says the Canadian party are supreme, (a large portion of the stock in the most ancient of the chartered Banks is, however, owned by persons residing in England,) and further asserts, that the influence of the Banks "is said to be employed directly as an instrument for upholding the political supremacy of the party (Canadian)-Your Committee happen to have the means of personally knowing, that the chartered Banks have most studiously avoided political connection with all parties.1 Your Committee find introduced as one of the grievances, "that under the system of selling land pursued by the government, an individual does not receive a patent for his land, until he has paid the whole of his purchase money."-Why should a contrary course be pursued ?-That is not shown! The High Commissioner then wanders into Illinois, and gives a vivid description of the peculiar advantages to be derived by English folk, who may become domiciled in the republic. If indeed his Lordship had not qualified his opinions with the assertion that, "but few cases in which the departure of an Englishman from Upper Canada to the States, can be traced directly to any of these circumstances in particular." alluding to the British grievances before mentioned, your Committee would have supposed that the 1 Consult thereon Shortt, Early History of Canadian Banking. peculiar functions of Her Majesty's High Commissioner were not those detailed in his commission, the more especially, as these hitherto unheard of grievances are quoted as the cause of the decreased immigration from the Parent State; and throughout the report comparisons are constantly drawn unfavourable to Her Majesty's possessions in North America. Your Committee having exposed a few of the inconsistencies in the first pages of his Lordship's report, deem it unnecessary to enter more fully into its details, the conflicting character of which, as compared with his Lordship's other productions, is sufficiently set forth in the report of the Committee on the state of the Province, appointed by the House of Assembly: observing, however, that his Lordship sums up the Upper Canadian grievances, in the great practical question of the Clergy Reserves. Your Honourable House has, so recently, had this question under discussion, that your Committee refrain from any commentary on his Lordship's statements regarding it, but your Committee cannot avoid observing, that however unintentional, his Lordship's remarks are evidently calculated to cast odium on the Established Church of England, which, like every other respectable body throughout the colony, has been constantly assailed by the party mis-named Reformers. Adverting, now, to his Lordship's great panacea for all political disorders, "Responsible Government, your Committee beg to observe, that a liberal minded Englishman, sincerely admiring the great principles of the British Constitution, would naturally be desirous of extending them, theoretically and practically, to all people living under the dominion of the Crown; and at the first view, would be apt to ascribe any evils which were found to exist in any portion of the Empire, to the absence of those political institutions, which he is bound to uphold in the administration of public affairs, in the metropolitan and supreme government. It is in this manner we must account for the adoption, at first sight, by many statesmen, of the principle, that the officers administering the government should be under the same popular control in colonies, as the like persons necessarily are in those societies, where powers of supreme legislation, by means of popular administration, are found to exist; but it is to the practical |