Petition of the Inhabitants of the Townships of Lower Canada in favour of Uniting the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature: Difference between revisions

The PETITION of the Subscribers His Majesty's dutiful and loyal Subjects of British birth or descent Inhabitants of the Townships of Dunham Stanbridf e St Armand Sut ton Potton Stanstead Barnston Barford Hereford Faini nm Brome Bolton Hat ley Compton Clifton Granby Shefford Stukoly Ort ord Ascott Eaton Newport Bury Hampden Milton Iloxton Duib im Melborne Windsor Shipton Stoke Dud well Simpson Kingsey Grantham Wickham Wendovcr Brompton and other To u shipg and Places situate in the Province of Lower Canada;

That yonr Petitioners harp learnt with the greatest heartfelt satisfaction and the most profound gratitude tiiata Bill was introduced into the Honourable the House of Commons at the last session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for uniting the Proyinces of Upper and Lower Canada under one Legislature a measure to hiifc the inhabitants of the Townships of Lower Canada look forward as the only effectual means of terminating the difficulties and troubles under which they have laboured in times past and of preventing the evils ith hich a continuation of the present state of things would threaten them for the time to come.

Tliat thesituation of the inhabitants of the Townships is different from that of any other portion of the British empire and is likely to prove most unfortunate and disastrous for themselves and their posterity unless the legislative aid of the land of their ancestors be extended to relieve them as will be briefly shown in lh following statement The province of Lower Canada according to its present condition maybe separated into tv о parts viz first the Seigniories or Frene i Lower Canada which comprehends a narrow tract of land on each side of the river St Lawrence varying in breadt i from ten to forty miles and secondly the Townships or English Lower Canada which comprehends the remainder of the Province and is more extensive and capable of containing afar greater population than the Seigniories or French Lower Canada Tue Seignorial part of Lower Cannila whose population may be considered as about half filled up is inhabited с ielly by Canadians whose origin aud lan nr i are French but contains besides these a population of about 40,000 inhabitants of Britith origin The Townships or English Lower Canada are peopled irfwlly by inhabitants of British birth aud descent and American loyalists amounting at present to about 40,000 souls who have no other language than that of their British ancestors who inhabit lands granted under the British tenure of free and common soccage w ho have a Protestant clergy for wi ose maintenance a portion of those lands are set apart and who notwithstanding are subjected to French laws the custom of Paris of which they know nothing compiled in a language with which they are unacquainted.

In addition to the evil of subjection to foreign laws in a foreign language the Town ifcipi or English Lower Canada labour under the further difficulty of having no court within their own limits for the administration even of those foreign laws bot ere pelled for the most trifling legal redress to resort to courts established at the citi of Quebec Montreal or Throe Hivers in Meignorial Canada at a distance frequently fron luOto 150 miles through a country where the travelling by reason of the inadequacy of the laws regarding communications is frequently difficult aud dangerous and to cnm plcte the measure of their grievances the Townships are de facto without any repr tatiou whatever in the Provincial House of Assembly in Lower Canada Their resen ly in Lower Canada Their complaints to the Provincial Assembly have been always treated with contempt or indifference nor ran your Petitioners account for their being placed as it were almost out of the pale of civil government by a neglect so different from the course pursued in the Legislature other British provinces except on the supposition that the Frene i anadian House of Assembly has not been desirous that emigrants from Britain or of British origin sdouU have inducements to seek an asvlum or become settlers in Louer Canada If such indfr 1 were the object it has not failed of partial success as of the many thousand emi n ints who within the last few years have arrived from Great Britain scarcely OOO bare settled in the Townships of Lqwer Canada but great numbers of them Lave pone iuto the United States considering possibly tliat they sliould there find themselves iu a I foreign country thin in this British colony under its present circumstances and und r the foreign aspect of the representative branch ol its Legislature .

Your Petitioners will not enlarge upon the general statement they have giren of their condition by entering iuto the detail of the numerous hardships aud ditlicultiet with which they have had to contend although sensible t at t be recital would call forth commiseration They will content themselves with statin that as settlements under tr se Engli h tenures have been commenced as immense tracts still remain to be settled mini ns the population of Lower Cunada is trilling compared to the amount which it is capulí of attaining tliere can be no sound reason for rearing up any portion of the province и as at its maturity to constitute a nation of foreigners or tor continuing a system cali u lated to deter Britons and their descendants from settling upon the waste lauds of tb Crown In the management of colonies as in the management of youth prudence ouli веет to dictate that the lasting interests of the future maturity not the шошспигт inclinations of the present condition should be considered of the deepest import Already within a recent period near 100 GGO emigrants of British birth have шаЛ Lower Canada only a place of transit who if t e foreign aspect of the Legislature h not urged them to take an abode elsewhere might have augmented thi strength ui J means of the English population in the province But notwithstanding he past checks colonial increase unless similar causes are allowed to operate ereafter future emigrant and their dccendaiits joined to the English already established here may ultimately fuim a great majority of the in ahitauts aud r nder the country iu fact as it is iu uume a Britisli colony And in the attainment of ihis happv result no injury could be doue thejust rig ts of others nor oiild even any prejudices be affected except Uiose dfir iions circulated and fostered by demagogues that the Canadians of French extraction are to remain a distinct people and that they are entitled to be considered a nation prejudices from whic it must follow as a necessary consequence that the province of Lower Canada of which not one sixth part is settled should be deemed their riatiui jj territory where none lint those willing to become French ought to be allowed to establish hernselves prejudices which however absurd they may appear will obtain stren f audiufluence if not speedily and completely discouraged and will be found not only incompatible with colonial duty and allegiance but also dangerous to the future safrty of the adjoiuing colonies and subversive of the rights of all the inhabitants of the Town ships as ell as of all the Euglisii settled in seiguorial Canada through hjge hand tb entire trade wilht e mother country is conducted .

Your Petitioners the inhabitants of English Lower Canada had always flattered thrm selves that no laws v ould be imposed or continued on that portion of the countrv bavins a tendency to compel them to resemble a foreign nation nd to deprive them of the cbar acterestics of their Britisli origin and their confluence on this occasion vas increased IT their recollection of the promises of his late Majesty to give English laws to his subject settling in Canada and by tiie exception an exception never yet enforced in practice contained in the juebec Act of 1774 declaring that the provisión of that Act establishing liehing French laws should not extend to lands tob hereafter granted in free and common soccage a tenure bich exists exclusively in the Township.

Your Petitioners felt and they trust it is a feeling which cannot f dl to meet with syra pathy in the hearts of their countrymen and the countrymen of their ancestors in Britain t at the knowledge of their native English language ought to be sulricient to enable them to learn their rights and to perform their duties a faithful subjects while they resided under Bnti li tenures in what is at least in name a British colony They felt that one great and glorious object of nations rearing up and protecting colonies must be the extahli h uent of a people who should perpetuate in after ages the honoured resemblance of the parent state and they felt that it could neither be consistent with the dignity nor the interests of treat Britain to rear up a colony to be hereafter in languie a id in laws a representative of France while France was exempted from all the expense ot it protection They considered the Towns hips of Lower Canada now inhabited solely by settlers of British birth and origin speaking only the English language and having a Protestant clergy u on whom one seventh of the land is bestowed as possessing a sacred claim upon the British Government for protection against the painful and humiliating prospect that their posterity raipht be doomed to acquire the language and assume the manners and ch u acter of a foreign people And 1 b v also considered that the right of the Townships to a representation in the Provincial Assembly would not have been withheld from them in any other British colony nor perhaps even here had not their language and descent beeu British.

Your Petitioners would gladly limit their solicitations to one point that of being allowed a representation in the Provincial Parliament proportioned to the consequence and growing importance of the extensive districts they inhabit if a sober view of their future safety would permit them to confine themselves to that object but it is possible that even this sacred and inestimable privilege might when accorded be deprived much of its advantages and inefficiency towards procuring the settlement of the wild lauds by emigrants from Britain in consequence of the influence of the majority of French Canadians n hich would still be found in the House of Assembly of Lower Canada w in the midst of professions of attachment to the mother country seek to preserve themselves a separate and distinct people To secure and preserve to the colony and to the mother country the full benefit which ould be likely to rise from the establishment of principles calculated to produce a gradual assimilation of British feelings among all inhabitants of whatever origin it would be essentially necessary that a legislative bet ween the of and Lower Canada should take place.

There are many reasons in addition to the one your Petitioners have just assigned which render the legislative union of the two provinces indispensable for their common prosperity and which cause that measure to be most earnestly desired b all the ii habitants of both who are not influenced bv national prejudices hich ought to be extinguished or by local or private interests wl ich are unworthy to be weighed against the general benefits to be obtained from the union.

Your Petitioners humbly represent that no arguments can be urged against the union by the French Canadians whic will not when analyzed be resolvable into this real meaning that they desire to remain a separate people thereby ultimately to become a French nation or as they have denominated themselves the Nation Canat ienne The Canadians without owing any of their increase to emigration have more than twice doubled their numbers since the conquest and although they might without any injustice or deprivation of actual rights have been by this time assimilated to their British fellow subject they are nevertheless at this day with but a few individual exceptions as much foreigners in character as when that event took place and must ever continue so were the present state f f things to be permanent The present crisis therefore offers this alternative to Great Britain either by uniting the provinces to hold out inducements to the French to become English or by continuing the separation to hold out inducements to the English in Lo er Canada to become French And the question is not whether a countr already peopled is to renounce its national feelings and с aracterestics as the French Canadians may endeavour to represent but whet er a country for the mont part waste and to be hereafter chiefly peopled bv a British race is to assume the character language and manners of a foreign nation Should the latter ourse be preferred Great Britain will be rearing up a people of foreigners to become at no distant period from tbeir n i fm creasing population a scourge to the anjoimmj colonies whereas it the un j be adopted it ould ultimate remove national prejudices and i ostilitv derived frc dißoreurc of origin mid consolidate the population of both provinces into one horowo oug mass animated by the same riews for the public interest and the same sentimeoa of loyalty towards their comniou Sovereign.

The geographical situation oftbe two provinces and the relations which nature has P TN bli&hed between t hem absohitel and iudispensabl у require t heir union nudcronp Legis laTur for they have but one outlet to I lie sea and one channel of comnninicatioa with the nmi ir country The only key of that communication the only sea port is in the posso Mín u Lower C auada aud with it te only menus by which tor a length of time in a new Г У try a revenue can be raised for tlje support of ioveriinteut To plací or to leave te ocli key of communication the only sourceof revenue exclusively in the hands of a pf like the French Canadians anti commercial in principle and adverse to assimilation w i their British fellow subjects must be extreme impolicy nor can the checks upon the i position and repeal of import duties provided by tbe Act of the last session of the lin rial Parliament be more than a temporary remedy inasmuch as Upper Canada is ihr only entitled to a species uit rlo aiid ha s no initiative or deliberative voice in the eu ments nor indeed can human wisdom be adequate to devise such a system of revenue L on imports while the provinces shall remain separate as will not five unfair and UI OP advantaijcs toth one or the oilier and of necessity produce irritaiiou and euniity.