A History of Canadian Wealth/Chapter V: Difference between revisions
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{{title|A History of Canadian Wealth|[[w:Gustavus Myers|Gustavus Myers]]|Chapter V. The Landed and Mercantile Oligarchy}} | {{title|[[A History of Canadian Wealth]]|[[w:Gustavus Myers|Gustavus Myers]]|Chapter V. The Landed and Mercantile Oligarchy}} | ||
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Revision as of 19:01, 31 December 2010
After the British conquest of Canada many of the old French seignories became the property of English, Scotch and Canadian military officers or merchants or of Canadian politicians.
In 1765, General James Murray, Governor, bought from Charest the extensive seignory of Lauzon running six leagues at Point Levy along the St. Lawrence River, and as many leagues in depth, producing in rents and feudal tributes of various kinds an annual revenue of £233: 15s sterling — a revenue which Murray thought could be increased to £358: 13s sterling, a year.1 (This seignory, or parts of it, later became the property of the Government of the Province of Canada ; in Chapter XI the details are given of a transaction by which Prime Minister Sir Francis Hincks, James Morris and other high officials formed a syndicate and bought a portion of this seignory from the Government composed of themselves and associates ; they did this anticipating that the completion of the Grand Trunk Railway would enhance its value.)
G.B. Hamilton and others became the seigneurs of the De Lery seignory ; William Bingham, seigneur of Rigaud ; Edward Ellice, with a part of the profits made from the fur trade, bought the seignory of Beauharnais ; and William P. Christie became the owner of six seignories—the Lacolle, Lery, Noyan, Sabrevois, De Bleury and Repentigny.2 Simon McTavish, whose fortune of £126,000 sterling came, as we have seen, from his North West Company fur trade, bought the seignory of Terrebonne for the sum of £25,000 sterling in 1803, and there his brother-in-law and associate, Hon. Roderick McKenzie, lived.3 Other seignories came into possession of still other English or Scotch-Canadian merchants, although not a few of the seignories still were held by the French seigneurs.
These seignories not only yielded annual sums, considerable for the time, in feudal tributes of various and oppressive kinds, but many of them became increasingly valuable for their timber resources and for their privileges of hunting furbearing animals.
A New Landed Class Created
Meanwhile, a powerful new landed class was being created by fiat of the British Governors and Government. Under the old seignorial tenure, any individual standing in well with the officials could secure large grants of land, seeing that, according to French law, he was obliged, nominally at least, to concede land to any settler who applied for it in good faith. The various abuses under this custom to which we have referred were evasions, not results, of this law.
In 1763 the British Government abolished the seignorial system of land grants, and in 1791 introduced the system of so-called free grants and free tenure. It was this Act, says Langelier, that “ gave rise to the plague of large landholders which has so greatly hindered the settlement and material advancement of the Province [Quebec].” He proceeds to tell that under this system, favored individuals, with the connivance of the Provincial authorities, could obtain a whole township and close it to settlers, and how this had been the result in a considerable portion of the Eastern Townships. “ It was under this regime that the system of township leaders and associates originated, which, in less than 15 years, from 1796 to 1809, gave 1,457,209 acres of the best Crown lands into the possession of about 70 persons, one of whom, Nicholas Austin, obtained in 1797 a quantity of 62,621 acres of land in the township of Bolton.”4
Frauds in Obtaining Large Estates
Describing the secret machinery of the system, Langelier says that, “ A person wishing to thus take possession of a portion of the public domain, first came to an understanding with the members of the Executive Council and the persons occupying the highest positions, to secure their concurrence and that of the Governor. He afterwards came to an understanding with a certain number of individuals, picked up at hap-hazard, to get them to sign a petition to the Governor, praying for the granting of land he desired. To compensate them for this accommodating act on their part, he paid his associates a nominal sum, generally a guinea, in consideration of which they at once retransferred their share to him as soon as the letters patent were issued. Sometimes one or two of the associates kept a lot of 100 or 200 acres on a grant covering several thousands of acres, but this was the exception, not the general rule. For that purpose stationers sold blanks for such retransfers, which forms, as shown in 1821 before a committee of the Legislative Assembly, had been prepared and drafted by the Attorney General.
“These frauds were committed with the knowledge of the Executive Council, several of whose members used this means to obtain large grants of public lands. Prescott, one of the Governors of the time, wished to stop this waste of the public domain, but he brought down upon himself the hatred of the Executive Councillors, who, headed by judge Osgood, managed to obtain his recall. Sir Robert Shore Milnes, Prescott’s successor, showed himself better disposed towards the spoilers of the Crown domain, and to give them a tangible proof of his good intentions, he had a grant given to him of 48,061 acres in the townships of Compton, Stanstead and Barnston.”5
Fur Merchants Become Landed Proprietors
As the fur merchants controlling the North West Company controlled Milnes and the Executive Council, of which some were powerful members, they, of course, were foremost among the beneficiaries of land grants.
Simon McTavish received a grant, in 1802, of 11,550 acres in the township of Chester ; and in the same year, Governor Milnes presented to William M’Gillivray a grant Of 11,550 acres of land in the township of Inverness. In 1810 the Ellice family obtained a grant of 25,592 acres in Godmanchester, and another grant of 3,819 acres in Hinchinbrooke. Five years later, Governor Lord Drummond granted to Hon. John Richardson, 29,800 acres in Grantham, and 11,500 acres to Hon. Thomas Dunn in Stukeley. The Frobisher estate comprised 57,000 acres.6 Langelier says that after about 1806, the system of township associates fell into disuse, and that thereafter almost all of the large grants were made in the name of one individual or of a single family. Every person of eminence, prominence and political influence—which practically meant the all-dominating merchant class from which even the judges often came—rushed to share in the spoils. McGill’s possession comprised 38,000 acres ; Sir John Caldwell’s estate amounted to 35,000 acres. Judge Gale received 10,000 acres ; Judges Pyke and Desbarats, 24,000 acres ; Chief Justice Sewell, by purchase, 6,500 acres. But it is needless to enumerate further the long and tedious list of beneficiaries set forth in the records.7 Many of the surveys of these grants, as Commissioner Butler later reported to Lord Durham, were fraudulently made and enlarged.
“ These violations of the instructions of the Imperial Government which sequestered the best part of the public domain in favor of a few speculators,” adds Langelier, “were encouraged by the Imperial Government itself.” Thus, of his own accord, the Duke of Portland gave 48,062 acres to Sir Robert Shore Milnes, and 12,000 acres to each of the members of the Executive Council constituting the Land Commission which had given all the extravagant and scandalous concessions up to that date. Milnes abused his position “to enrich a handful of favorites” none of whom took “the slightest trouble to fulfill the conditions of settlement which were nevertheless in force” so far as the law went.8
French Seigneurs Loose Their Hold
Probably Milnes considered himself a paragon of moderation in the granting of lands, since as early as 1800 he informed the Duke of Portland that there were 10,000,000 acres in Quebec at the disposal of the Government, and that these “ have actually been applied for.”9
In that long and instructive communication to the Duke of Portland, Lieutenant-Governor Milnes expressed great solicitude lest the power of the aristocracy should not be sustained. Any Constitution granted to Canada, he wrote, “ must rest upon a due proportion being maintained between the Aristocracy and the Lower Orders of the People, without which it will become a dangerous weapon in the hands of the latter.” He complained that “ several causes unite in daily lessening the Power and Influence of the Aristocratical Body in Lower Canada ” — the Province of Quebec. Among these causes he specified the indisposition of the French seigneurs “ to increase their Influence or improve their Fortunes by trade.” “ Hence,” he declared, the “ Canadian Gentry have nearly become extinct.”
Another cause, Milnes wrote, was the overshadowing influence of the Roman Catholic Church and the independence of the priests resting upon a sure and solid revenue-producing foundation.
“The Priests,” he wrote, “have (in tithes) a 26th of all the Grain, which may be valued at £25,000 or £26,000 a year, which alone must make their influence very considerable, and especially as the Religious Bodies are in possession of nearly One-Fourth of all the Seignorial Rights granted before the Conquest (excepting those of the Jesuit Estates lately taken into possession of the Crown, as will appear by the Inclosure) : there are 123 parishes and 120 Parish Priests.”10 Milnes justified the giving of land grants to Protestants on the ground that it would, in time, if judiciously done, “form in this Province a body of people of the Protestant Religion that will naturally feel themselves more intimately connected with the English Government.”
The Commanding “ Shopkeeper Aristocracy ”
The dominant class at this time in Quebec and Ontario were the mercantile and shipping merchants — what judge Thorpe, in 1806, described as the “ shopkeeper aristocracy.” Writing from York (now Toronto), December 1, 1806, to Sir George Shee, Judge Thorpe said that this shopkeeper aristocracy, “with great interest in England, composed of Scotch pedlars” who had so long insinuated themselves into favor with General Hunter and who had so long irritated and oppressed the people, were surrounding the new Lieutenant-Governor. There was a chain of them, he said, linked from Halifax to Quebec, Montreal, York, Kingston, Niagara and on to Detroit. The system pursued was to “ get as many dollars as you can for [from] the Governor by land,” and after themselves, their families and friends were favored with unbounded tracts of land in the finest situations, at whatever fees they chose to give.11
In the next year Judge Thorpe wrote in the same indignant strain to Sir George Shee complaining of being “ surrounded by the vilest miscreants on earth, who have gorged themselves on the plunder of every Department, and squeezed every dollar out of the wretched inhabitants.”
Denouncing this shopkeeper aristocracy, as he termed it, Judge Thorpe was elected to the Ontario House of Assembly under the express promise that he would expose the flagrant abuses, land granting and other grievances, one of which complaints appears to have been the charge that the subservient members of the Assembly all were bribed with donations of public land.12
As the head of this discontented popular party, Judge Thorpe charged that the Governor was surrounded by a few half pay captains, “ men of the lowest origin,” and that he was directed by a half dozen storekeepers “men who have amassed wealth by the plunder of England, by the Indian Department and every other useless Department, by a Monopoly of Trade and extortion on the people ; this shopkeeper aristocracy who are linked from Halifax to the Mississippi,13 boast that their interest is so great in England that they made Mr. Scott (their old Attorney) Chief justice by their advocate Sir William Grant, that they will keep Lt. Governor Gore in his place, drive me away, and hold the people in subjection.”14
Further remonstrances written by Judge Thorpe contained more references to the extensive ramifications of the “ shopkeeper aristocracy ” and the power it unscrupulously wielded throughout Canada.
Land Jobbing and Corruption
Judge Thorpe also charged that the public lands were bartered openly for private emolument and public corruption ; that public money was not accounted for ; that the people concluded that it was embezzled by the officials when they heard that General Hunter had sent nearly £30,000 to England ; and that the “shopkeeper aristocracy, who rule British North America with a rod of iron, a voracious set,” were an all-powerful clique who not only made the laws but they were “ universally the Magistrates and enforce the demands of each other.”15 Judge Thorpe added that he was satisfied that his opposition to the illegality of fees, the land jobbing, and the arbitrary system in force, and his exposure of other abuses had raised against him a host of foes, which was true enough.
Accusing Thorpe of being a “ factious demagogue,” the traders and officials sought in every possible way to intimidate, harass and discredit him, even degenerating into such petty meannesses (as he charged) as to open his letters and to cheat him of part of his salary.
The popular backing that judge Thorpe received was not one of sentimental agitation or emotional indignation ; it arose from the definite and well-understood material interests of a considerable body of settlers who, seeing the abundant natural resources about them, wanted a free hand in developing the fur, hemp, flour and lumber trade and a command of resources with which to engage in manufacturing.16 In other words, it was the beginning of the rebellion of the germinating capitalist manufacturing class — an abortive movement that, although then ending in the dismissal of Judge Thorpe, subsequently broke out afresh and culminated in the rebellion of 1837-1838, led by William Lyon Mackenzie in Ontario and by Papineau in Quebec.
It is, however, by turning to the exhaustive and conscientious report of 1839 by Lord Durham, after his appointment as High Commissioner and Governor-General of Canada, that we get a comprehensive knowledge of the circumstances under which tens of millions of acres of the best lands in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and other parts of Canada were made during these decades to individuals, to the Protestant Church, or to the great land companies owned and controlled by absentee landlords luxuriating in England.
Immensity of the Land Grabbing
Lord Durham reported that of about 17,000,000 acres comprised within the surveyed districts of Upper Canada (Ontario), less than 1,600,000 were unappropriated by 1838, and this 1,600,000 acres included 450,000 acres constituting the reserve for roads. This left less than 1,200,000 acres open to grant ; and of this remnant, 500,000 acres were required to satisfy claims for grants founded on pledges given by the Government. The remaining 700,000 acres, in the opinion of Acting Surveyor-General Rodenhurst, consisted, for the most part, of land inferior in position or quality. “ It may be said, therefore,” concluded Lord Durham as to Ontario, “ that the whole of the public lands in Upper Canada have been alienated by the Government.”17
In Lower Canada (Quebec) of the 6,169,693 acres in the surveyed townships, nearly 4,000,000 acres had been granted or sold ; and there were “ unsatisfied but indisputable claims ” for grants to the extent of nearly 500,000 acres.”18
As for Nova Scotia, nearly 6,000,000 acres had already been granted, and in the opinion of the Surveyor-General only about one-eighth of the land, or 300,000 acres remaining to the Crown, was available for the purposes of settlement.19
The whole of Prince Edward Island, about 1,400,000 acres, Lord Durham reported further, was alienated in one day.20
In New Brunswick, 4,400,000 acres had been granted or sold, leaving to the Crown about 11,000,000 acres, of which 5,500,000 acres were considered fit for settlement.21
Protestant Clergy Get 3,000,000 Acres
To whom, and under what conditions, were given these great areas of land thus alienated from public ownership ? Lord Durham went into this phase of the subject at length. Of the lands granted in Upper and Lower Canada — that is to say, in the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec,— fully 3,000,000 acres were granted for the support of the Protestant clergy. Much of these lands were obtained, it would appear, by irregular methods.
The Church of England clergy had long been scheming to put itself upon the same solid economic footing as the Roman Catholic Church, with its enormous land holdings. “ Compared,” wrote the Anglican Bishop of Quebec to Lieutenant-Governor Milnes, June 6, 1803, “ with the respectable Establishments, the substantial Revenues, and the intensive power of the Church of Rome, the Church of England sinks into a merely tolerated Sect ; possessing at the present moment not one shilling of Revenue which it can properly call its own . . .”22
But already a system of clergy reserves, — as the land grants were called, — had been established by an Act passed in 1791 which directed that in all grants made by the Government, a quantity of land equal to one-seventh of the land so granted should be reserved for the clergy. These clergy grants were generally lots of 200 acres each, scattered at regular spaces over the entire territory of all of the townships. Even this extraordinarily liberal donation was accompanied, it was shown, by the most glaring frauds by which the clergy benefited.
“ A quantity equal to one-seventh of all grants,” Lord Durham reported, “ would be one-eighth of each township or of all of the public land. Instead of this proportion the practice has been, ever since the Act was passed, and in the clearest violation of its provisions, to set apart for the clergy of Upper Canada a seventh of all of the land which is a quantity equal to a sixth of the land granted.
Illegally Get an Excess of 527,559 Acres
" There have been appropriated for this purpose 300,000 acres which, legally it is manifest, belong to the public. And of the amount for which clergy reserves have been sold in that Province, namely £317,000 (of which about £100,000 have already been received and invested in the English funds) the sum of about £45,000 should belong to the public.”23
But this extensive irregularity in land grants for the benefit of the clergy of great areas of the public domain was by no means confined to Upper Canada. “ In Lower Canada ” [Province of Quebec] Lord Durham’s report continued, “ the same violation of the law has taken place, with this difference — that upon every sale of Crown and clergy reserves, a fresh reserve for the clergy has been made equal to a fifth of such reserves. The result has been the appropriation for the clergy of 673,567 acres, instead of 446,000, being an excess of 227,559 acres, or half as much again as they ought to have received.
“ The Lower Canada fund already produced by sales amounts to £50,000, of which, therefore, a third, or about £16,000, belong to the public.”
“ If, without any reform of this abuse, the whole of the unsold clergy reserves in both provinces should fetch the average price at which such lands have hitherto sold, the public would be wronged to the amount of about £280,000 ; and the reform of this abuse will produce a certain and almost immediate gain to the public of £60,000.”24
Having thus exposed these flagrant frauds, Lord Durham, probably to avoid the appearance of being too severe upon the all-powerful clergy, allowed them the grace of his mitigating comment that “ the clergy have had no part in this great misappropriation of the public property, but that it has arisen from needless misconception, or some other error of the civil Government of both Provinces.”
But the documents of the time go to show that not only were the clergy fully aware of the frauds perpetrated for their benefit, but that high Episcopal prelates, such as Bishop Mountain of Quebec and Bishop Strachan of Toronto, obtained large land grants for themselves individually. There is not a scrap of evidence that the clergy ever called attention to the excess land that they thus fraudulently or erroneously acquired or sought to restore it ; they maintained a discreet silence, taking with a serene conscience all the land and funds that came their way, and subsequently, as we shall see, protested vigorously when an attempt was made to compel forfeiture or restitution.
Crown Lands Commissioner Dismissed for Corruption
Moreover, the Upper Canada Crown Commissioner of Lands conducting the disposition and sale of certain of the clergy reserves and other lands during a considerable part of this time was William B. Felton who later — in 1836 — was impeached by the Quebec House of Assembly for fraud, corruption, oppression, peculation and extortion, and dismissed from office.25 The House of Assembly standing committee reported that he had “corruptly and fraudulently” received large sums of money from settlers by representing that he was the proprietor of a great extent of land which was really public land that the settlers should have received gratuitously, and that Felton had caused to be fraudulently granted to himself and members of his family much of a total of 31,475 acres.26
Different Sects Squabble
At first intended exclusively for the Church of England in Canada, certain of the proceeds from the sale of clergy reserves eventually had to be apportioned among other Protestant creeds, so vociferous and insistent an outcry did the clergy of the other denominations make to have their recognized share in the distribution of the bountiful spoils.
The Presbyterian clergy, in 1820, had demanded that they be given their share. They pointed out that the Roman Catholic clergy and the Episcopal, or Church of England, clergy were already well provided for, and that the State should come promptly to their assistance.27 The Methodists made the same demand.
Indisposed to yield even a portion of the largess to these denominations, the Episcopal clergy made a bitter opposition. But the other denominations gained the favorable ear of a select committee of the Ontario House of Assembly, in 1828. This committee rebuked Bishop Strachan for his insinuations against the Methodists, and pointed out that, apart from the clergy reserves, the Church of England always had peculiar advantages in Ontario. “ It has been the religion of those high in office and had been supported by their influence and countenanced more than any other church by favor of the Executive Government. Its clergymen have had the exclusive right of marrying persons of all denominations indiscriminately,” etc., etc.28 The committee further dilated upon the enormous gift of 225,994 acres of the public lands and an additional £1,000 a year for 16 years, that had been granted to King’s College, controlled absolutely by the Church of England clergy with Bishop Strachan at their head.
Although the clergy of the various Protestant denominations made a great noise, and were able by reason of their influence and compact organization to arrange meetings and concoct petitions, there was a comparatively immense body of men, including those of their own creed, antagonistic to their land-grabbing projects. Church of England clergy completely forgot their 39 articles of creed in order to fight to hold the clergy reserves exclusively, and keep the Methodists and Presbyterians from having any part of those blessed preserves. In turn, Methodists and Presbyterians fought back energetically.
The Landed Proprietors Enter the Contest
Another aggressive element now entered the contest. This was the individual “ Landed Proprietors ”— men who had got together immense estates in various sections, and who wanted the Government to spend large sums building a system of roads, so that their estates could be made accessible, and lumber and produce hauled.
These proprietors cared nothing about the 39 sacred articles when they conflicted with roads, and in this view they were supported by the mass of settlers who were intensely exasperated that so inordinate a part of the best lands, reserved for the clergy, should have been thus withdrawn from settlement entry to lie uncultivated for years. A petition, signed by more than 10,000 Ontario settlers,29 was sent to the British House of Commons in 1831. From this petition, a pointed and voluminous one, some extracts only can be quoted here.
Demanding that the proceeds from the sale of clergy reserves be applied to the purposes of general education and various internal improvements, the petition declared that “ any kind of ecclesiastical establishment, situated as this province is, is essentially anti-christian and baneful to every interest of humanity.” The Church of England, the petition asserted, was really in the minority. Yet the enormous land grants given as clergy reserves were controlled by a body of between 50 and 60 Church of England clergy not responsible to anyone.
These clergy, the petition charged, were intent upon avoiding public investigation, and committed to private and secret measures to bring about their ends. “ The Clergy reserve lands of this Province,” the petition read on, “ have been brought from a nominal to a real and rapidly increasing value by the labor, industry and enterprise of the population generally ; and to appropriate the avails of these lands to the support of the clergy of a minor church or churches, will be converting the labors of the many to the undeserved aggrandizement of a few.”30
Holding the high political offices in Canada, the Church of England or Episcopal men treated such petitions disdainfully. Just before quitting office, in 1835, Sir John Colborne established 57 rectories for the benefit of the Church of England — an act that, according to Lord Durham, was bitterly resented by Methodists, Presbyterians and Irish Roman Catholics.31
The contest was a long and acrimonious one, but the revenues of the clergy reserves could not be loosened from the hold of the ecclesiastics. In the end the Presbyterians and Methodists accomplished their purpose, although their share of the proceeds was not nearly as large as that of the Church of England. The amounts named in Lord Durham’s report as paid to the clergy from the sale of the reserves were only those paid up to 1838 ; the total amounts, it may here be remarked, paid to the clergy of the various denominations, from 1814 to after the final settlement, subsequent to the abolition of the clergy reserves in 1854, were $3,843,997 — an impressive, even formidable sum for those times,32 and constituting the chief foundation on which the economic power of the Protestant churches was erected.
Notes
1. Report of the Work of the Archives Branch, Dom. Gov’t., 1910, pp 51-53. This seignory contained 387 families, and in produce yielded to the seigneur about 803 barrels of wheat a year.
2. Titles and Documents Relative to the Seignorial Tenure, etc., Legislative Assembly, Quebec, 1851, p. 175. The value of seignorial estates owned and possessed by British subjects in Canada in 1788 was estimated at £140,000.—A Review of the Government and Grievances of the Province of Quebec, etc. (1788), p. 88.
3. Borthwick’s History of Montreal, p. 214. British property in the Province of Quebec, including Segnorial estates and the Indian trade was estimated, in 1788, at £1,386,023.—A Review of the Government and Grievances of the Province of Quebec, etc. (1788), p. 88.
4. List of Lands Granted by the Crown in the Province of Quebec, 1763 to 1890, by J.C. Langelier, Deputy Register, Printed by Order of the Legislature, Quebec, 1891, p. 7.
5. Ibid, pp. 7-8.
6. Ibid., pp. 11-I2. See also Lord Durham’s Report, Imperial Blue Books on Affairs Relating to Canada, Vol. X, p. 63. Here it is stated that the Dunn estate covered about 52,000 acres.
7. See pp. 15-I9, List of Lands Granted by the Crown in the Province of Quebec, 1763 to 1890, etc., Quebec, 1891. Further details of the land grants to individuals are given in Chapter VI of this volume.
8. Ibid., p. II.
9. Report on Canadian Archives, 1892 Vol., Note B., p. 13.
10. Report on Canadian Archives, 1892 Vol., pp. 9-11. Milnes stated that the priests did not consider themselves amenable to any other power than the Catholic Bishop. The population of Lower Canada or Quebec at this time was 160,000, largely Roman Catholic.
11. Report on Canadian Archives, 1892 Vol., Note D., p. 57. “Those,” wrote Judge Thorpe, “whom ‘the Family Compact’ could not intimidate or frustrate in demands for land were sent to a distance in the wilderness, while favorites and complying members of the House of Assembly were granted large and convenient tracts.”—Ibid., p. 106.
12. Ibid., pp. 97 and 101.
13. Up to 1805, the North West Company had 95 men stationed in the territory of the United States. To put a stop to this trade a proclamation was issued by the United States Government, August 25, 1805, forbidding traders, canoemen and others, not citizens of the United States, from pursuing their traffic on the Missouri River.
14. Report on Canadian Archives, 1892 Vol., Note D., p. 98. Complaint of the popular grievances, Judge Thorpe insisted, was prevented from being sent to England “because the members of the House of Assembly were bribed with Crown Lands.”—Ibid., p. 101.
15. Thorpe to the Secretary of State, August 14, 1807.—Ibid., pp. 105-106).
16. Ibid., p. 101. Also in his letter to the Secretary of State, August 14, 1807, Judge Thorpe, after telling of the persecutions and calumnies to which he had been subjected by those whom he had exposed and opposed, went on to say, “ I strove to cherish what was in infancy, Fur, Flour and Potash, and to bring forth what was in Embryo, Iron, Hemp and Lumber,” etc., etc.—Ibid., p. 105.
17. Imperial Blue Books on Affairs Relating to Canada, Vol. X, p. 77.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid. Nova Scotia had been ceded by the French in 1713, and it was long a debatable question whether New Brunswick was included in the cession.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Report on Canadian Archives, 1892 Vol., Note C. “Ecclesiastical Affairs in Lower Canada,” p. 17.
23. Imperial Blue Books on Affairs Relating to Canada, Vol. X, p. 78. Previous to 1827 the lands reserved for the benefit of the Church could only be leased, not sold, but an Act passed that year gave power to sell one-quarter of the land, and not more than 100,000 acres a year.
24. Ibid., p. 78. Lord Durham’s surprisingly penetrating and comprehensive investigation and report followed the rebellion of 1837.
25. Imperial Blue Books on Affairs Relating to Canada, Vol. No. VII, pp. 141-142. Also Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., pp. 930-932 and 1064.
26. Imperial Blue Books, etc., Vol. No. VII, p. 142.
27. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., Note A., Clergy Reserves.
28. Ibid., pp. 6, 7, etc.
29. Considering the population of Upper Canada at that time — 400,000 — this number of signatures was proportionately very considerable.
30. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., Note A., “Petition Respecting Clergy Reserves.”
31. Imperial Blue Books on Affairs Relating to Canada, Vol. X, p. 66.
32. The specific sums paid to each denomination are set forth in chapter VII of this volume.