=Source.=--Durham's Proclamation of 9th October, 1838, quoted in
_The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham_. London, 1839.
... I have also to notify the disallowance by her Majesty of the
Ordinance ... "to provide for the security of the Province of Lower
Canada."
I cannot perform these official duties without at the same time
informing you, the people of British America, of the course which
the measures of the Imperial Government and Legislature make it
incumbent on me to pursue....
I did not accept the Government of British North America without
duly considering the nature of the task which I imposed on myself,
or the sufficiency of my means for performing it. When Parliament
concentrated all legislative and executive power in Lower Canada
in the same hands, it established an authority, which, in the
strictest sense of the word, was despotic. This authority her
Majesty was graciously pleased to delegate to me....
To encourage and stimulate me in my arduous task, I had great and
worthy objects in view. My aim was to elevate the province of Lower
Canada to a thoroughly British character, to link its people to the
sovereignty of Britain, by making them all participators in those
high privileges, conducive at once to freedom and order, which
have long been the glory of Englishmen. I hoped to confer on an
united people, a more extensive enjoyment of free and responsible
government, and to merge the petty jealousies of a small community,
and the odious animosities of origin, in the higher feelings of a
nobler and more comprehensive nationality....
I had reason to believe that I was armed with all the power which
I thought requisite.... I also trusted that I should enjoy,
throughout the course of my administration, all the strength which
the cordial and steadfast support of the authorities at home can
alone give to their distant officers; and that even party feeling
would refrain from molesting me whilst occupied in maintaining the
integrity of the British Empire.
In these just expectations I have been painfully disappointed.
From the very commencement of my task, the minutest details of
my administration have been exposed to incessant criticism, in
a spirit which has evinced an entire ignorance of the state of
this country, and of the only mode in which the supremacy of the
British Crown can here be upheld and exercised. Those who have in
the British Legislature systematically depreciated my powers, and
the ministers of the Crown by their tacit acquiescence therein,
have produced the effect of making it too clear that my authority
is inadequate for the emergency which called it into existence. At
length an act of my Government, the first and most important which
was brought under the notice of the authorities at home, has been
annulled; and the entire policy, of which that act was a small
though essential part, has thus been defeated....
In these conflicting and painful circumstances, it is far better
that I should at once and distinctly announce my intention of
desisting from the vain attempt to carry my policy and system of
administration into effect with such inadequate and restricted
means....
You will easily believe that, after all the exertions which I
have made, it is with feelings of deep disappointment that I find
myself thus suddenly deprived of the power of conferring great
benefit on that province to which I have referred; of reforming the
administrative system there, and eradicating the manifold abuses
which had been engendered by the negligence and corruption of
former times, and so lamentably fostered by civil dissensions. I
cannot but regret being obliged to renounce the still more glorious
hope of employing unusual legislative powers in the endowment of
that province with those free municipal institutions, which are the
only sure basis of local improvement and representative liberty,
of establishing a system of general education, of revising the
defective laws which regulate real property and commerce, and of
introducing a pure and competent administration of justice. Above
all, I grieve to be thus forced to abandon the realisation of such
large and solid schemes of colonisation and internal improvement,
as would connect the distant portions of these extensive colonies,
and lay open the unwrought treasures of the wilderness to the wants
of British industry and the energy of British enterprise.
... Our exertions, however, will not, cannot be thrown away. The
information which we have acquired, although not as yet fit for the
purposes of immediate legislation, will contribute to the creation
of juster views as to the resources, the wants and the interests of
these colonies, than ever yet prevailed in the mother country.