=Source.=--A Petition from the British Inhabitants of Montreal,
December, 1822: printed in the _Report on the Canadian Archives for
1897_.
It is a consequence of the relative geographical situation of the
Provinces, that Upper Canada is entirely dependent on Lower Canada
for the means of communicating with the parent state and other
countries; it is only through Lower Canada that the Upper Province
can receive its supplies or export its surplus commodities.
The port of Quebec is the entrance common to both. This being
situated in Lower Canada, the inhabitants of Upper Canada can have
neither free ingress into, nor egress from, their country, except
in so far as it may be permitted by the Government of Lower Canada.
This, your Majesty's petitioners humbly represent, is a cause for
the union of the Provinces perpetual in its operation, and which
cannot be counteracted without a long series of inconveniences and
disasters to both. If, while it may still be done, the population
of the two Provinces be not gradually assimilated and identified
in their interests by a union, the differences between them from
the causes now in operation and the collisions to which they will
give rise, must have the effect of rendering the inhabitants of
each a separate and distinct people, with the most hostile feelings
towards each other, requiring only a fit occasion to urge them into
measures of actual violence. In the progress of things towards this
conclusion, the inhabitants of Upper Canada would imperceptibly
be induced to form connections with their American neighbours,
and, being unnaturally disjoined from Lower Canada, would seek to
diminish the inconveniences arising by a more intimate intercourse
with the adjoining states, leading inevitably to a union with
that country. The actual tendency of things to this result, while
the Provinces continue under separate Legislatures, it is to be
observed, is likely to be much promoted by the artificial means of
communication by canals which have been lately formed at immense
expense in the state of New York, affording to Upper Canada, if
the outlet at the port of Quebec should be rendered inconvenient
to her, an easy communication to American seaports; and her
disposition to avail herself of this communication will obviously
be increased while the Lower Province continues in its character to
be French.
Some of the circumstances arising from the division of countries
thus united by nature ... have been practically exhibited in the
disputes respecting revenue between the two Provinces. Upper Canada
relies on the revenue to be derived from import duties for the
payment of her civil expenditure. The nature of her local situation
precludes her from conveniently or effectually levying these duties
within her own limits; it is at the port of Quebec only that she
can levy them: but this is in another Province, and, while she has
a separate Legislature, beyond the authority of her Government....
In adverting to the injurious consequences arising from the
division of the late Province of Quebec, your Majesty's
petitioners cannot omit to notice more particularly the effect
that measure has had in preventing the increase of the British
population in Lower Canada and the development of its resources.
The preponderance of the French population in the Legislature has
occasioned obstacles to the settlement of British emigrants that
have not been surmounted; so that the vast increase of British
population to have been expected from this cause has been, in a
general degree, prevented. The injury sustained in this particular
may be easily appreciated when it is observed that, since the late
American War, upwards of eighty thousand souls (that is, a number
equal to one-fourth of the actual French population) have found
their way to this Province from Great Britain and Ireland, and of
these scarcely one-twentieth part remains within its limits, the
rest, with the exception of a small number who have settled in
Upper Canada, having been induced by the foreign character of the
country in which they had sought an asylum, and the discouragements
they experienced, to try their fortunes in the United States.
The loss thus sustained is not confined to those who left the
country, but comprises their connections and friends who would have
followed them. In the same proportion as the increase of British
population has been prevented, has the agricultural and commercial
prosperity of the country been retarded and obstructed; as it is
to the enterprise, intelligence and persevering industry of that
population that both agriculture and commerce must be principally
indebted for their advancement. On this head it may be fairly
advanced that, had not the impolitic division of the late Province
of Quebec taken place, and had a fit plan of representation been
adopted, the British population would now exceed the French, and
the imports and exports of the country be greatly beyond their
present amount.