CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.
In course of years the English Government fought out its quarrel with
the revolted American colonists and was defeated. [Sidenote: 1783 A.D.]
A treaty of peace was concluded, and the independence which America had
proved herself able to maintain was now acknowledged. At the opening
of the war England had borrowed a suggestion from France, and sought,
by attaching the valley of the Mississippi to Canada, to shut in the
Americans on the west as on the north by Canadian settlements breathing
the spirit of loyalty and submissiveness. The Americans would endure
no such restriction. The southern boundary of Canada was now the St.
Lawrence river and the great lakes out of which it flows. The vast
western region with its boundless capability was made over to the
victorious colonists. England held only the north. The two branches
of the Anglo-Saxon family had divided in nearly equal proportions the
whole enormous area of the North American continent.
As one of the results of the revolutionary war, Canada gained a large
accession to her population and her prosperity. There were among the
Americans a considerable number of persons who did not sympathize
with the aims of the majority, and who had given good wishes and
occasionally active support to the royal cause. Congress had given to
the British Government a promise that it would endeavour to mitigate
the discomforts which the unpopularity of the cause those persons had
clung to now entailed. But the victors did not at once forgive those
who resisted the national desire, and the position of the royalists
became intolerable. It was resolved to make provision for them in
Canada, where they could still enjoy those relations with the English
monarchy their love for which had cost them so dear.
Western Canada was still almost wholly unpeopled. There were a few
soldiers at Niagara, and some inconsiderable French settlements near
Detroit. Kingston had been abandoned; the settlers at Toronto had been
chased away during the troubles which preceded the conquest, and the
traces which they left had been long covered by the luxuriant growth of
the fertile wilderness. The vast expanse of rich land which lies along
the upper waters of the St. Lawrence and the northern shores of Lake
Ontario still waited the coming of the husbandman.
Here was the home chosen for the men who had incurred the hatred
of their neighbours by seeking to perpetuate English rule over the
American colonies. The English Government honestly desired to requite
those unfortunate supporters. It desired also to plant them far away
from the colonists who were of French origin and sentiment. For
England mistrusted now her own children who lived within range of
American influences, and it was her aim to preserve unimpaired the
submissive loyalty of her French subjects. Therefore she chose that
while the Frenchmen prospered and increased in the lower valley of
the St. Lawrence, those Englishmen who were fleeing from triumphant
republicanism, but who had probably not altogether escaped its taint,
should open their new career on the shores of Lake Ontario. They came
in such numbers, that within a year there were ten thousand settlers in
the new colony. They came so miserably poor, that for a time England
required to feed and clothe them. But they bore stout hearts, and hands
not unaccustomed to wield the axe and guide the plough. The country
was one vast forest, and the labour of clearing was great. Every man
received, free of charge, a grant of two hundred acres; and for each
child of those who had borne arms a like endowment was reserved. The
settlers worked with good-will. In a short time each man’s lands were
ready for the plough, and the landscape was lighted up with corn-fields
and the dwellings of man.
During the course of peaceful years which she now enjoyed Canada
increased steadily. Emigrants were drawn from England by the inducement
of free lands in the western province; in the east there were constant
additions both to the French and to the English section of the
population. Shortly after the close of the American War it was found
that in the whole colony there were not fewer than one hundred and
fifty thousand souls. Canada had doubled her population in the twenty
years which had elapsed since she became an English possession.
Her government was still administered according to the pleasure of
the English Crown, without any concession being made to the wishes of
the people. But events now occurred in Europe which quickened, for a
space, the democratic tendency, and disposed governments to listen to
the wishes of their subjects. The French Revolution had vindicated the
right of a nation to guide its own destiny. The influences of that
great change were keenly felt in Canada. The English colonists, who
had long been dissatisfied with the system under which they lived,
earnestly desired a representative government. Many of the Frenchmen,
who had hitherto been indifferent to the privilege, partook of the
same desire, in sympathy with the revolution which their countrymen
had effected. The English Government, wiser now than when it undertook
to deal with the discontents of the American colonies, listened with
favour to the prayer of the Canadians. [Sidenote: 1791 A.D.] A Bill was
introduced by Mr. Pitt to confer upon the colonists the long-withheld
privilege of self-government. It was not the desire of England that the
Canadians should grow strong in the enjoyment of a union which might
result in their independence. It seemed prudent that the Frenchmen,
who cared little for liberty, should form a separate colony with
power to bridle the more democratic Englishmen. Therefore Canada was
divided into two provinces, which were named Upper and Lower Canada,
the boundary line being for the greater part of the distance the
Ottawa river. Each of the colonies received from the King a Governor,
an Executive Council to act as his advisers, a Legislative Council,
and a Legislative Assembly elected once in four years by a somewhat
restricted suffrage. The Roman Catholic clergy were already endowed,
and a similar provision was now made for Protestants. One-seventh of
all Crown lands which were being settled was reserved for the teachers
of Protestantism--a reservation which proved in the coming years a
source of infinite vexation and strife. The criminal law of England was
set up in both provinces; but in all civil laws and usages Upper Canada
became wholly English; Lower Canada remained wholly French. The English
settlers opposed with all their might this ill-advised separation. They
foresaw the enfeebling divisions which it must produce: living as they
did far in the interior, they felt that they were wronged when the
river, by which alone their products could reach the sea, was placed
under control of neighbours who must be rivals and might be enemies.
But their opposition was unheeded. The Bill became law, and continued
during fifty unquiet years to foster strife between the provinces and
hinder their growth.