THE AMERICAN MIGRATION
From the first the problem of governing the settlements
above Montreal perplexed the authorities. It was very
early proposed to erect them into a separate province,
as New Brunswick had been erected into a separate province.
But Lord Dorchester was opposed to any such arrangement.
'It appears to me,' he wrote to Lord Sydney, 'that the
western settlements are as yet unprepared for any
organization superior to that of a county.' In 1787,
therefore, the country west of Montreal was divided into
four districts, for a time named Lunenburg, Mecklenburg,
Nassau, and Hesse. Lunenburg stretched from the western
boundary of the province of Quebec to the Gananoqui;
Mecklenburg, from the Gananoqui to the Trent, flowing
into the Bay of Quinte; Nassau, from the Trent to a line
drawn due north from Long Point on Lake Erie; and Hesse,
from this line to Detroit. We do not know who was
responsible for inflicting these names on a new and
unoffending country. Perhaps they were thought a compliment
to the Hanoverian ruler of England. Fortunately they were
soon dropped, and the names Eastern, Midland, Home, and
Western were substituted.
This division of the settlements proved only temporary.
It left the Loyalists under the arbitrary system of
government set up in Quebec by the Quebec Act of 1774,
under which they enjoyed no representative institutions
whatever. It was not long before petitions began to pour
in from them asking that they should be granted a
representative assembly. Undoubtedly Lord Dorchester had
underestimated the desire among them for representative
institutions. In 1791, therefore, the country west of
the Ottawa river, with the exception of a triangle of
land at the junction of the Ottawa and the St Lawrence,
was erected by the Constitutional Act into a separate
province, with the name of Upper Canada; and this province
was granted a representative assembly of fifteen members.
The lieutenant-governor appointed for the new province
was Colonel John Graves Simcoe. During the war Colonel
Simcoe had been the commanding officer of the Queen's
Rangers, which had been largely composed of Loyalists,
and he was therefore not unfitted to govern the new
province. He was theoretically under the control of Lord
Dorchester at Quebec; but his relations with Dorchester
were somewhat strained, and he succeeded in making himself
virtually independent in his western jurisdiction. Though
he seemed phlegmatic, he possessed a vigorous and
enterprising disposition, and he planned great things
for Upper Canada. He explored the country in search of
the best site for a capital; and it is interesting to
know that he had such faith in the future of Upper Canada
that he actually contemplated placing the capital in what
was then the virgin wilderness about the river Thames.
He inaugurated a policy of building roads and improving
communications which showed great foresight; and he
entered upon an immigration propaganda, by means of
proclamations advertising free land grants, which brought
a great increase of population to the province.
Simcoe believed that there were still in the United States
after 1791 many people who had remained loyal at heart
to Great Britain, and who were profoundly dissatisfied
with their lot under the new American government. It was
his object to attract these people to Upper Canada by
means of his proclamations; and there is no doubt that
he was partly successful. But he also attracted many who
had no other motive in coming to Canada than their desire
to obtain free land grants, and whose attachment to the
British crown was of the most recent origin. These people
were freely branded by the original settlers as 'Americans';
and there is no doubt that in many cases the name expressed
their real sympathies.
The War of the Revolution had hardly been brought to a
conclusion when some of the Americans showed a tendency
to migrate into Canada. In 1783, when the American Colonel
Willet was attempting an attack on the British garrison
at Oswego, American traders, with an impudence which was
superb, were arriving at Niagara. In 1784 some rebels
who had attempted to pose as Loyalists were ejected from
the settlements at Cataraqui. And after Simcoe began to
advertise free land grants to all who would take the oath
of allegiance to King George, hundreds of Americans
flocked across the border. The Duc de la Rochefoucauld,
a French _emigre_ who travelled through Upper Canada in
1795, and who has given us the best account of the province
at that time, asserted that there were in Upper Canada
many who falsely profess an attachment to the British
monarch and curse the Government of the Union for the
mere purpose of getting possession of the lands.' 'We
met in this excursion,' says La Rochefoucauld in another
place, 'an American family who, with some oxen, cows,
and sheep, were emigrating to Canada. "We come," said
they, "to the governor," whom they did not know, "to see
whether he will give us land." "Aye, aye," the governor
replied, "you are tired of the federal government; you
like not any longer to have so many kings; you wish again
for your old father" (it is thus the governor calls the
British monarch when he speaks with Americans); "you are
perfectly right; come along, we love such good Royalists
as you are; we will give you land."'
Other testimony is not lacking. Writing in 1799 Richard
Cartwright said, 'It has so happened that a great portion
of the population of that part of the province which
extends from the head of the Bay of Kenty upwards is
composed of persons who have evidently no claim to the
appellation of Loyalists.' In some districts it was a
cause of grievance that persons from the States entered
the province, petitioned for lands, took the necessary
oaths, and, having obtained possession of the land, resold
it, pocketed the money, and returned to build up the
American Union. As late as 1816 a letter appeared in the
Kingston _Gazette_ in which the complaint is made that
'people who have come into the country from the States,
marry into a family, and obtain a lot of wild land, get
John Ryder to move the landmarks, and instead of a wild
lot, take by force a fine house and barn and orchard,
and a well-cultivated farm, and turn the old Tory (as he
is called) out of his house, and all his labor for thirty
years.'
Never at any other time perhaps have conditions been so
favourable in Canada for land-grabbing and land-speculation
as they were then. Owing to the large amount of land
granted to absentee owners, and to the policy of free
land grants announced by Simcoe, land was sold at a very
low price. In some cases two hundred acre lots were sold
for a gallon of rum. In 1791 Sir William Pullency, an
English speculator, bought 1,500,000 acres of land in
Upper Canada at one shilling an acre, and sold 700,000
acres later for an average of eight shillings an acre.
Under these circumstances it was not surprising that many
Americans, with their shrewd business instincts, flocked
into the country.
It is clear, then, that a large part of the immigration
which took place under Simcoe was not Loyalist in its
character. From this, it must not be understood that the
new-comers were not good settlers. Even Richard Cartwright
confessed that they had 'resources in themselves which
other people are usually strangers to.' They compared
very favourably with the Loyalists who came from England
and the Maritime Provinces, who were described by Cartwright
as 'idle and profligate.' The great majority of the
American settlers became loyal subjects of the British
crown; and it was only when the American army invaded
Canada in 1812, and when William Lyon Mackenzie made a
push for independence in 1837, that the non-Loyalist
character of some of the early immigration became apparent.