=Source.=--Lord Durham's _Report on the Affairs of North America_,
edited by Sir C. P. Lucas. Vol. II. Oxford, 1912.
From the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed, I was
enabled to make such effectual observations as convinced me
that there had existed in the constitution of the Province, in
the balance of political powers, in the spirit and practice of
administration in every department of the Government, defects that
were quite sufficient to account for a great deal of mismanagement
and dissatisfaction. The same observation had also impressed on me
the conviction, that, for the peculiar and disastrous dissensions
of this Province, there existed a far deeper and far more efficient
cause,--a cause which penetrated beneath its political institutions
into its social state,--a cause which no reform of constitution
or laws, that should leave the elements of society unaltered,
could remove; but which must be removed, ere any success could be
expected in any attempt to remedy the many evils of this unhappy
Province. I expected to find a contest between a government and
a people: I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single
state: I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races, and I
perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws
or institutions until we could first succeed in terminating the
deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada
into the hostile divisions of French and English....
The grounds of quarrel which are commonly alleged, appear, on
investigation, to have little to do with its real cause; and the
inquirer, who has imagined that the public demonstrations or
professions of the parties have put him in possession of their real
motives and designs, is surprised to find, upon nearer observation,
how much he has been deceived by the false colours under which they
have been in the habit of fighting. It is not, indeed, surprising,
that each party should, in this instance, have practised more than
the usual frauds of language, by which factions, in every country,
seek to secure the sympathy of other communities. A quarrel based
on the mere ground of national animosity, appears so revolting to
the notions of good sense and charity prevalent in the civilised
world, that the parties who feel such a passion the most strongly,
and indulge it the most openly, are at great pains to class
themselves under any denominations but those which would correctly
designate their objects and feelings. The French Canadians have
attempted to shroud their hostility to the influence of English
emigration, and the introduction of British institutions, under
the guise of warfare against the Government and its supporters,
whom they represented to be a small knot of corrupt and insolent
dependents; being a majority, they have invoked the principles of
popular control and democracy, and appealed with no little effect
to the sympathy of liberal politicians in every quarter of the
world. The English, finding their opponents in collision with
the Government, have raised the cry of loyalty and attachment to
British connexion, and denounced the republican designs of the
French, whom they designate by the appellation of Radicals. Thus
the French have been viewed as a democratic party, contending for
reform; and the English as a conservative minority, protecting
the menaced connexion with the British Crown, and the supreme
authority of the Empire. There is truth in this notion in so far
as respects the means by which each party sought to carry its own
views of Government into effect. The French majority asserted the
most democratic doctrines of the rights of a numerical majority.
The English minority availed itself of the protection of the
prerogative, and allied itself with all those of the colonial
institutions which enabled the few to resist the will of the many.
But when we look to the objects of each party, the analogy to
our own politics seems to be lost if not actually reversed; the
French appear to have used their democratic arms for conservative
purposes, rather than those of liberal and enlightened movement;
and the sympathies of the friends of reform are naturally enlisted
on the side of sound amelioration which the English minority
in vain attempted to introduce into the antiquated laws of the
Province.