Address to the people of Canada
[ Below is a translation of the Adresse au peuple du Canada by Lower Canada patriot Robert Nelson. Read the original French language text here. ]
People of Canada,
We were oppressed by the hand of a transatlantic power, and we were punished by the unjust and criminal rod of a restless disorder, during a long series of years; so long that the measure of tyranny is currently filled up and it overflows. We tried unceasingly, but in vain, to bridle a bad government, to rescind bad laws, to create laws such that they could make take our institutions our of the mud of an old vasselage and raise them to the level of those which characterize the governments of the nineteenth century.
We are now constrained, by the violence of tyranny and contrary to our feelings, to resort to the force of arms, to experience and ensure us the rights which are due to a deserving and just people. We will not drop these arms, until we have ensured our fatherland the benefits of a patriotic and sympathizing government.
We lend our hand with fraternity and compatriotism to all the people who will help us in our patriotic efforts. For those who will persist in the blind, stubborn, plundering, sanguinary and incendiary path which, to our great sorrow and to the sufferings of our elderly, our wives and our children, mark so ungracefully the horrible career of Sir John Colborne, commander-in-chief of the forces, and that of his followers, we must, for our personal defence and for the common justice towards our people and our cause, to inflict retaliation to who placed before us the terrible example. But as there exists currently lot of people who repent their conduct and the vandalism of their associates, acts which forced us to raise the flag of war, and as our sense of humanity, justice and honor, is thrown in a different mould than that of our oppressions, we can reconcile with our principles or with the morality of our actions all others than those who, in the English government of Canada, cannot distinguish the age in which we live to exert their cruel passions.
Consequently, we promise to offer safety and protection of the people and their properties to all those who will put down the arms and will cease to oppress us, a promise that our character and the well known moral and peaceful habits of our people sufficiently guarantees.
We will not put down the arms, until we have carried out and ensured the object of our first proclamation.
By order of the provisional government of the State of Lower Canada,
Robert Nelson,
Commander-in-chief
[Frebruary 28, 1838]
See also
- The 1838 Declaration of independence of Lower Canada by Robert Nelson
- The 1776 United States Declaration of Independence
- The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- The 1919 Irish Declaration of Independence