XCIII PETITION IN FAVOUR OF THE UNION OF THE PROVINCES [Trans. Brymner, op. cit.] TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY: The Petition of the Undersigned Seigniors, Magistrates, Members of the Clergy, Officers of Militia, Merchants, Landholders and others, Inhabitants of the City and District of Quebec, Province of Lower Canada: HUMBLY SHEWETH: That your Petitioners have learnt with the greatest satisfaction, that Your Majesty has taken into your Gracious Consideration the State of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, with a view to adjust certain differences relating to matters of Revenue complained of by the Province of Upper Canada; and as it appears that Your Majesty's Government in the course of its inquiry into the sources of these differences, has become satisfied of the necessity of some change being made in the Constitution of these Provinces, but has postponed the adoption of final measures in order to give time to the people thereof to express their sentiments, Your Petitioners beg leave humbly to approach Your Majesty with a statement of various Evils under which they have laboured for some years and from which they have no hope of relief except by the interposition of Your Majesty and the Imperial Parliament. The experience of thirty years has now demonstrated the impolicy of the Act of the British Parliament, 31, Geo. III, Cap. 31, by which the late Province of Quebec was divided into the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. To this Division Your Petitioners ascribe the present incffective state of the Legislature and the want of those necessary measures for diffusing throughout the whole population of the country feelings becoming their character as British subjects, and introducing that general spirit of improvement which encouraged by the commercial system, universally pervades and invigorates other British Colonies. This division has created a difference of interest between the Provinces in matter connected with Revenue highly injurious to both, inevitably producing a spirit of dissension and animosity, and infusing into the Legislatures principles of a narrow and selfish policy adverse to the general development of their resources, and in an especial manner to the improvement of the channels of intercourse between them, and it is essential here to notice that nearly the whole of the Revenue of the two Provinces arises from duties levied on Merchandize imported at the port of Quebec under Laws enacted by the Legislature of the Lower Province. It has also, from the control which the geographical situation of the Lower Province enables it to exercise over the trade of the Canadas placed the export trade of the Upper Province at its mercy being subject to such regulations and restrictions at the Shipping Port, as its Legislature may chose to impose. From this circumstance, and from the feeble attempts made to improve the grand natural channel of the Canadas strikingly contrasted with the enterprise and energy evinced by the neighbouring State of New York in the rapid formation of Canals, together with the indifference manifested on this subject by the Legislature of the Lower Province; Your Petitioners have just reason for alarm, that if a similar system be_persisted in, it may tend in a most injurious degree to increase the Commercial Intercourse of the Upper Province with the United States and divert the enterprise and trade of its inhabitants into a foreign channel and from these causes Your Petitioners not only apprehend the immediate loss of beneficial Trade, but that the gradual effect would be to interweave the interests of the Upper Canadians with those of the neighbouring States, thereby alienating their minds from the people of this province and weakening their affection for Your Majesty's Government, notwithstanding their present known and tried loyalty. The Legislature of this Province has for a long time past been agitated by dissensions and their deliberations so much interrupted thereby, that Trade, Agriculture, Education and other objects of general interest have been neglected. There exists no Law for the Registry of Lands and Mortgages, so necessary for security in commercial transactions, no Insolvent Debtor's Act, and your Petitioners have looked in vain for a Law to provide for the unrepresented state of the Townships, a fertile and valuable portion of this Province settled by Inhabitants of British origin; of these Legislative Enactments and many others necessary to quicken the enterprise and industry of a commercial country, your Petitioners entertain little hope, until a Reunion of the Provinces shall have weakened the influence which has hitherto prevented their adoption in our statute book, The existence of this influence, your petitioners chiefly attribute to the impolitic division of these Provinces which instead of rendering it the interest, as it is the duty of every Individual of the community to concur in measures to assimilate the whole population and to allay the jealousies naturally existing between the several classes, has unavoidably presented to the individuals, who first attained a majority in the Legislature, a temptation to perpetuate their own power by adopting a course directly opposite. To the same influence, may be traced the small encouragement which has been held out to the settlement of the vacant lands of this Lower Province by British population, and consequently that upwards of eighty thousand souls (a number equal to one-fourth of the actual French population), who since the last American war have emigrated to this Province from Great Britain and Ireland, scarcely one-twentieth part remain within its limits. Your petitioners have observed with gratitude, the disposition which your Majesty's Government has evinced by the Act of the present year of your Majesty's, cap. 119,' to apply a remedy to the existing political evils of these Provinces, but it is their humble opinion that the Provisions thereof are insufficient; that numberous circumstances concur to render vain any attempt permanently to regulate to the satisfaction of both Provinces the division of the Revenue collected at the Port of Quebec unless united under one Legislature; and further they humbly beg leave to express their fears, that some of the provisions of this Act although dictated by the necessity of regulating the conflicting claims of the two Provinces may afford a pretext for others for imputing to the Imperial Parliament a disposition remote from the intentions and views of your Majesty's Government. Having thus stated the evils under which they have suffered your Petitioners feel the fullest confidence in the justice and wisdom of your Majesty's government, and being satisfied that the subject will receive the most serious and deliberate consideration, would have felt much hesitation in presuming to suggest remedies; but as the Re-union of the two Provinces has been proposed in the Imperial Parliament, they beg leave to express their entire acquiescence in the adoption of that measure upon such principles as shall secure to all classes of your Majesty's Subjects in these Provinces their just rights and protect the whole in the enjoyment of existing Laws and their Religion as guaranteed-such a Union would in the opinion of your Petitioners afford the most effectual remedy for existing evils as it would tend gradually to assimilate the whole population in opinions, habits and feelings, and afford a reasonable hope that the wisdom of the United Legislature would devise a system of government of more consistency and unity, and of greater liberality to all classes than has hitherto been experienced-a Union on the Equitable Principles humbly suggested by your Majesty's Petitioners, will necessarily include a representation proportionate as near as possible to the numbers, wealth and resources of the different classes of inhabitants of these Provinces, will require no innovation in the Laws or Religion of the Country nor pro1 See p. 306, note. scription in Debate or Motion in the Legislature, of the language of any portion of the Inhabitants, in every class of whom, bravery and loyalty have been evinced as fellow soldiers in defence of the Provinces. May it therefore graciously please your Majesty that a Bill for the Union of the two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, on the equitable terms prayed for by your Petitioners, do pass into Law and the Constitution established thereby be preserved inviolate to your Petitioners and their posterity. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. XCIV PETITION FROM THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS FOR UNION' [Trans. Brymner, op. cit.] To the Honorable the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, representing the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the subscribers, His Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, of British birth or descent Inhabitants of the Townships of Dunham, Stanbridge, St. Armand, Sutton, Potton, Stanstead, Barnston, Barford, Hereford, Farnham, Brome, Bolton, Hatley, Compton, Clifton, Granby, Shefford, Stukely, Orford, Ascott, Eaton, Newport, Bury, Hampden, Milton, Roxton, Durham, Melbourne, Windsor, Shipton, Stoke, Dudswell, Simpson, Kinsey, Grantham, Wickham, Wendover, Brompton, and other townships and places situated on the South East side of the River St. Lawrence in the Province of Lower Canada, Humbly Sheweth, That your Petitioners have learnt with the most heartfelt satisfaction and the most profound gratitude that a Bill was introduced in the Honorable the House of Commons, at the last Session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, for uniting the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature; a measure to which the Inhabitants of the Townships of Lower Canada look forward as the only effectual means of terminating the difficulties and troubles under which they have laboured in times past, and of preventing the evils with which a continuation of the present state of things would threaten them for the time to come. That the situation of the Inhabitants of the Townships is different from that of any other portion of the British Empire, and is likely to prove most unfortunate and disastrous for themselves and their posterity, unless the legislative aid of the land of their ancestors be extended to relieve them-as will be briefly shown in the following statement. The Province of Lower Canada, according to its present condition may be separated into two parts, viz.: First the Seignories or French Lower Canada, which comprehends a narrow tract of land on each side of the River St. Lawrence, varying in breadth from ten to Forty miles-and secondly, the Townships or English Lower Canada which comprehends the remainder of the Province, and is more extensive and capable of containing a far greater population than the Seignories or French Lower Canada. The Seignorial part of Lower Canada whose population may be considered as about half filled up, is inhabited chiefly by Canadians, whose origin and language are French, but contains besides these a population of about 40,000 Inhabitants of British origin. The Townships or English Lower Canada are peopled wholly by inhabitants of British birth and descent and American Loyalists amounting at present to about 40,000 souls, who have no other language than that of their British ancestors, who inhabit Lands granted under the British tenure of free and common 1 For the history of the Eastern Townships, see Bradshaw, op. cit., pp. 58, 71, 75. Soccage who have a Protestant clergy for whose maintenance a portion of those lands is set aside, and who, notwithstanding, are subject to French Laws, (the custom of Paris) of which they know nothing, compiled in a language with which they are unacquainted. In addition to the evil of subjection to foreign laws in a foreign language, the Townships, or English Lower Canada, labour under the further difficulty of having no courts within their own limits for the administration of those foreign laws, but are compelled for the most trifling legal redress, to resort to the Courts established at the Cities of Quebec, Montreal, or Three Rivers in Seigniorial Canada, at a distance frequently from 100 to 150 miles, thrɔ' a country where the travelling, by reason of the inadequacy of the laws regarding communications, is frequently difficult and dangerous, and to complete the measure of their grievances, the Townships are de facto without any representation whatever in the Provincial House of Assembly in Lower Canada. Their complaints to the Provincial Assembly have been always treated with contempt or indifference, nor can Your Petitioners account for their being placed, as it were almost out of the pale of Civil Government, by a neglect so different from the course pursued in the Legislatures of the British Provinces, except on the supposition that the French Canadian House of Assembly has not been desirous that emigrants from Britain or of British origin should have inducements to seek an asylum or become settlers in Lower Canada. such indeed were the object it has not failed of partial success; as of the many thousand Emigrants who, within the last few years, have arrived from Great Britain, scarcely one thousand have settled in the Townships of Lower Canada; but greater numbers of them have gone into the United States, considering possibly, that they should there find themselves in a less foreign country, than in this British Colony under its present circumstances and under the foreign aspect of the Representative branch of its Legislature. If Your Petitioners will not enlarge upon the general statement they have given of their condition, by entering into the detail of the numerous hardships and difficulties with which they have had to contend altho' sen sible that the recital would call forth commiseration. They will content themselves with stating, that as settlements under these English Tenures have been commenced, as immense tracts still remain to be settled, and as the population of Lower Canada is trifling compared to the amount which it is capable of attaining, there can be no sound reason for rearing up any portion of the Province, so as at its maturity to consitute a nation of foreigners or for continuing a system calculated to deter Britons and their descendents from settling upon the waste Lands of the Crown. To the management of Colonies as in the management of Youth, prudence would seem to dictate that the lasting interests of the future maturity, not the momentary inclinations of the present condition should be considered of the deepest import. Already within a recent period nearly a hundred thousand Emigrants of British birth have made Lower Canada a place of transit, who, if the foreign aspect of the Legislature had not urged them to take an abode elsewhere, might have augmented strength and means of the English population in the province. But notwithstanding the past checks to colonial increase, unless similar causes are allowed to operate hereafter, future Emigrants and their descendents joined to the English already established here, may ultimately form a great majority of the inhabitants, and render the country in fact, as it is in name, a British Colony, and in the attainment of this happy result no injury could be done to the just rights of others; nor could even any prejudices be affected, except those delusions circulated and fostered by demagogues, "that the Canadians of French extraction are to remain a distinct people," and that they are "entitled to be considered a nation" prejudices, from which it must follow as a necessary consequence that the Province of Lower Canada (of which not one sixth part is settled) should be deemed their national Territory where none but those willing to become French ought to be allowed to establish themselves-prejudices which however absurd they may appear will obtain strength and influence; if not speedily and completely discouraged and will be found not only incompatible with colonial duty and allegiance, but also dangerous to the future safety of the adjoining colonies and subversive of the rights of all the Inhabitants of the Townships, as well as of all the English settled in Seignorial Canada, thro' whose hands the entire trade with the Mother Country is conducted. Your Petitioners, the Inhabitants of English Lower Canada, had always flattered themselves that no laws would be imposed or continued on that portion of the country having a tendency to compel them to resemble a foreign nation and to deprive them of the characteristics of their British Origin; and their confidence on this occasion was increased by their recollection of the promises of His late Majesty to give English laws to his subjects settling in Canada by the exception (an exception never yet enforced in practice) contained in the Quebec Act of 1774, declaring that the Provisions of the Act establishing French laws "should not extend to lands to be thereafter granted" in "Free and common soccage" a tenure which exists exclusively in the Townships. Your Petitioners felt, and they trust it is a feeling which cannot fail to meet with sympathy in the hearts of their countrymen and the countrymen of their ancestors in Britain, that the knowledge of their native English Language ought to be sufficient to enable them to learn their rights and to perform their duties as faithful subjects, while they resided under British tenures in what is at least in name a British Colony. They felt that one great and glorious object of Nations rearing up and protecting colonies must be the establishment of a people who should perpetuate in after ages the honoured resemblance of the Parent State; and they felt that it could neither be consistent with the dignity nor the Interests of Great Britain, to rear up a colony to be hereafter in language and in laws a representative of France while France was exempted from all the expense of its protection. They considered the Townships of Lower Canada, now inhabited solely by settlers of British birth and origin, speaking only the English Language and having a Protestant clergy upon whom one seventh of the land is bestowed-as possessing a sacred claim upon the British Government for protection against the painful and humiliating prospect that their posterity might be doomed to acquire the language and assume the manners and character of a foreign people, and they also considered that the right of the Townships to Representation in the Provincial Assembly would not have been withheld from them in any other British Colony, nor perhaps even here had not their language and descent been British. Your Petitioners would gladly limit their solicitations to one point— that of being allowed a Representation in the Provincial Parliament, proportioned to the consequence and growing importance of the extensive Districts they inhabit,-if a sober view of their future safety would permit them to confine themselves to that object; but it is possible that even this sacred and inestimable privilege might, when accorded, be deprived of much of its advantage and efficiency towards procuring the settlement of the wild lands by Emigrants from Britain, in consequence of the influence of the majority of French Canadians which would still be found in the House of Assembly of Lower Canada who, in the midst of professions of attachment to the Mother Country, seek to preserve themselves a separate and distinct people. To secure and preserve to the colony and to the Mother Country, the full benefit which would be likely to arise from the establishment of principles calculated to produce a gradual assimilation of British feeling among all the Inhabitants of whatever origin it would be essentially necessary that a Legislative Union between the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada should take place. There are many reasons in addition to the one Your petitioners have |