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Observation on the current state of Canada and the political dispositions of its inhabitants, submitted, | Observation on the current state of Canada and the political dispositions of its inhabitants, submitted, | ||
to the citizen Genêt, | to the citizen Genêt, <br /> | ||
plenipotentiary minister of the French Republic to the United States of America | plenipotentiary minister of the French Republic to the United States of America | ||
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It is to this disposal to revenge that the [[Americans]], in their [[Wikipedia:Invasion of Canada (1775)|last expedition against Canada]] owe the hospitality that they received there. Major [[Wikipedia:John Brown of Pittsfield|Brown]] had but a small number of men with him and was without food and money, when he received the order of the Congress to advance towards the border. Hardly just entered in the colony he found everywhere help and friends. Assisted by the ''Canadiens'', he seized the various posts successively and soon colonels [[Livengston]], [[Duggan]] and [[Wikipedia:Moses Hazen|Hazen]] commanded considerable corps of [[''Canadien'' militiamen]]: so much that it was over with the stupefied [[Wikipedia:George III of the United Kingdom|George]] in Canada, had not suddenly arrived in the harbour of the St-Laurent river an English fleet carrying eight thousand troops at the orders of [[Wikipedia:John Burgoyne|Bourgoyne]]: which, combined to the lack of weapons and ammunition the Congress had promised and never came, forced the Americans to give up the battle. | It is to this disposal to revenge that the [[Americans]], in their [[Wikipedia:Invasion of Canada (1775)|last expedition against Canada]] owe the hospitality that they received there. Major [[Wikipedia:John Brown of Pittsfield|Brown]] had but a small number of men with him and was without food and money, when he received the order of the Congress to advance towards the border. Hardly just entered in the colony he found everywhere help and friends. Assisted by the ''Canadiens'', he seized the various posts successively and soon colonels [[Livengston]], [[Duggan]] and [[Wikipedia:Moses Hazen|Hazen]] commanded considerable corps of [[''Canadien'' militiamen]]: so much that it was over with the stupefied [[Wikipedia:George III of the United Kingdom|George]] in Canada, had not suddenly arrived in the harbour of the St-Laurent river an English fleet carrying eight thousand troops at the orders of [[Wikipedia:John Burgoyne|Bourgoyne]]: which, combined to the lack of weapons and ammunition the Congress had promised and never came, forced the Americans to give up the battle. | ||
Since that period, the wicked English government, instead of reconciling the inhabitants by softness, has embittered them by new acts of oppression. The partisans of the Americans were obliged to flee and those who remained, were tied up and sent to England. One confiscated the goods of various people and the courts pushed the ''royal rage'' to the point of nonsuiting private individuals of their actions, on the sole principle that they were suspected of being ''rebels'' and deserving consequently to lose their goods. [[Cazeau]], [[du Calvet]], [[Jautard]], [[Mesplet]], [[Lusignan]] and several others still alive suffered these horrors. | |||
One could object the ignorance of the Canadiens as an obstacle to becoming free, their priests, their prejudices. To this I answer that one has a very imperfect idea of the inhabitants. Those of the cities are in possession of all the philosophical works; they read them with passion, as well as the French gazettes, the Declaration of the rights of man and the patriotic songs. They learn how those by heart to sing them at the opening of a ''Club de patriotes'' where last year one counted more than 200 citizens. This club even defied the government by publicly discussing the affairs of France, something which, the day before, had been prohibited by a proclamation. The priests in the cities are considered as they should be, I mean to say, as infamous impostors who make use of lies for their own interests; and one looks this race passing by with as little respect as a herd of pigs. I will not speak of this other caste of despicable and scorned men who style themselves ''nobles''; the poor wretches do not exceed ten in number and their ignorance and their gueusery are pitiful. Lastly, I dare statem that the [[French revolution]] has electrified the ''Canadiens'' and in one year enlightened them on their [[natural rights]] more so than one century of reading could not have accomplished. Even since the declaration of the war of France against England, such is progress that the Canadiens made in [[reason]], that they do not fear to publicly wish that the French win. Each day, they assemble in the cities in small groups, tell each other the news, are delighted when they are favorable to the French and are afflicted (but do not despair) when they are bad for them. | |||
I swear that the ''Canadiens'' love the French; that the death of the [[Capet]] tyrant has upset only the priests and the government which fear the transplantation of a guillotine in Canada. I affirm that the ''Canadiens'' would rather be chop up than to give but a single rifle shot on Frenchmen who would come to offer them freedom; I say more, I say that they would receive it with recognition and that they would be worthy to enjoy it by their courage to defend it. There are only in the province of Lower Canada sixty thousand valiant and robust ''Canadiens'', in a position to crush, on any signal, all the rapacious English who do not exceed (troops included) a number of 24,000 men. | |||
But for a greater certainty of success, in case the French Republic wished to free her brothers, it would be very easy, by means of the right people, to distribute [[The Free French to their Canadien Brothers|an address]] in Canada to all the inhabitants in which we would expose to the people the evils that it suffered since the cession; the oppression of the wicked English government; their brothers inhumanly sacrificed to its suspicions and its revenge, their trade monopolized by an unbelievable trickery; finally the absence of the arts and the ''belles lettres'' which we would attribute to the homicidal policy of England. To this tableau one would oppose a painting of the advantages which trade and letters would receive from the opening of the ports of Canada to all nations; softnesses that there is to make the law by oneself, without being subject to the ''insolentissime'' veto of a capricious good-for-nothing who shuts the mouth to a whole people; the charges to which the ''Canadiens'' could fill under a free constitution; finally, one would promise the protection of the French to them, if, rising as they did from their lethargy, they courageously wanted to make the sovereignty of their nation succeed to the sovereignty of George 3 (and the last, I hope) who, according to even the testimonies of his own Parliament and of his doctors, is an idiot, a ''[[non compos mentis]]''. But we must be wary to publish this address only at the very moment of the arrival of the French forces on the borders of Canada; because in giving it too early, one would run the risk to see, in the intermediary, the ardour which it could have given birth to, die out. | |||
Voilà, | Voilà, citizen minister, the state and dispositions of the Canadiens. I could have particularized the English forces, by specifying [the location of] the various forts; but it will be enough to observe that they are about the same as those which existed under the French government, except for Quebec, the capital, whose fortifications were since augmented. | ||
If I did not put any order in my narration, I flatter myself that at least it does not lack in frankness nor impartiality. In case you need further details, I will give them in person and I will be at your disposal at any hour of the day. If a generous feelings, the fruit of the touching interest which France take in the happiness of peoples, urged the ''[[Convention nationale]]'' to break the shameful irons in which groan sons of Frenchmen, sold by a king, citizen minister, you will reward my good citizenship by giving me the occasion to join myself to their brave liberators, to avenge them, or to die gloriously as a combatant of freedom and equality. I have no other passion but that one, except this sincere regard one must have for the virtue and patriotism proclaimed by the public voice; and the recognition due to a man who accomodated me as a brother and effectively proved me, by his behaviour, wthat I did not run after a phantom, when I left my country, without any other resource but my courage, to seek in the arms of the French the freedom of which I could not see any trace in Canada. | |||
June 12 1793, Year 2 of the French Republic | June 12 1793, Year 2 of the French Republic |