IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4g. 1.0 1.1 IM 125 ■ 50 ui m 12.2 It I 1^ i2.0 MUi. 1.25 111.4 |||.6 ll== 11111^= « 6" ► Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)872-4503 m !\ <^ 4 6^ '*T^ 4 signifle "A SUIVRE", le symboie ▼ signifle "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning In the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartea, planches, tableaux, etc., pouvont Atre flimis i doe taux da reduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atro reproduit en un aeul clichA, 11 est film* i partir da i'angle supArlour gauche, do gauche i drolte, ot do haut en baa, en prenant la nombre d'imagea nAcessaire. Les diagrammea suivanta lllustrent la mAthode. irrata to pelure, n i O 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 li'.- i'^tfA ■i .*' ' '"^ ' :?A15:At> H' yf'i :■ '¥'■ 'J 'h: h». REPLY K TO THE REPORT OF THE EARL OF DURHAM. IJS 7;" ■:'■ '^i tj^K^ii' BY A COLOUIgT. " What grMt men do The lews will prattle of.' SlIAKSPKARE. r« LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, ^ttbltitl^er tn (!^)ltnari> to %tx ifHa^entj). 1839. U. These Letters, written on the spur of the moment, first appeared in the Times Newspaper, and are now gathered into a Pamphlet to meet the wishes of many Persons who feel interested in the North American Co- lonies. LONDON : PRINTED BY 8AHVEL BENTLBV, Dorset Street, Fleet Street. v« ' / A REPLY TO THE REPORT OF THE EARL OF DURHAM. LETTER I. My Lord, When your Lordship resigned the Go- vernment of Canada you were pleased to appeal to the people of the provinces and the American sympathizers against the in- justice of the British Government. Since your return to this country you have ap- pealed to the people of England against the injustice of the Colonial Governments. In the former case you complained, in most pathetic terms, of having been placed in a dangerous and difficult post, and basely abandoned by those whose cause you were upholding; of confidence withdrawn, powers A 2 4 REPLY TO THE EARL withheld, and injustice committed. After having enumerated your wrongs, and de- clared the present Administration to be unworthy of such distinguished services as you were rendering them, you declared your independence and severed the con- nexion. At such a time the example was an edifying one, and afforded a pleasing proof of how much you had at heart the object of your mission, and how great a sacrifice of personal vanity you were willing to make in the seyvice of the public. In the latter case you have attempted to show that the Colonial Governments are still worse than that of the Metropolitan State, and, imagining an analogy between the case of the disaffected and yourself, have argued, that when Colonists exceed the limits as- signed to them they should be supported^ and when their acts are unlawful they should be rendered legal; that subordi- nates have a right to assume the language of dictation to their superiors, and that, if restrained by force, it is natural for them to praise, as you have done, the neighbour- OF DURHAM'S REPORT. ing republic, to court its approbation, and declare their determination to dissolve the connexion. The tone and language of these two documents are, however, so dif- ferent — the latter is so calm, so moderate, so totally exempt from vituperation, that I think I may congratulate your Lordship upon having recovered your former equani- mity of mind. This, perhaps, may in part be owing to a difference in the political at- mosphere of the two countries. The for- mer was written in Canada, and addressed to a people labouring under a painful and unnatural excitement, and it was doubtless expedient and proper to use, in such a case, inflammatory language. By increasing the heat a fire is sooner made to exhaust itself. The latter is addressed to a phlegmatic people, and is sufficiently diluted to render the draught innocuous, although it has made it rather inconveniently large. In thus addressing your Lordship, I feel that it is unnecessary to preface my remarks with any apology. Your Lordship is an advocate of popular rights, and instead of REPLY TO THE EAUL confining your report, as humbler men would have done, to the Cabinet that employed you, you have decided upon pub- lishing it to the world at large. It is true that that Report condemns without cere- mony the conduct of individuals and public bodies in the Colonies ; but we have been too long accustomed to hear constituted authorities treated with disrespect to con- sider this public dissemination of unsup- ported charges as inconsistent with the usages of civilized society. I feel, there- fore, that your Lordship is the last person that will object to free discussion, and that as you, a mere stranger in the Colonies, and associated with strangers as your guides and travelling companions, have given us the benefit of your observations upon us, you will permit a Colonist to exercise a si- milar privilege, and to publish his opinion of you and your party. Your Lordship has designated every man that concurred in opinion with you as an able, intelligent, and respectable man ; and they have re- turned the compliment, by applying simi- OF DURHAM'S REPORT. T lar laudatory terms to your Lordship, in those flattering addresses to which you have so frequently alluded in your Report. What sort of persons those were who dif- fered with your Lordship, and who abstain- ed from signing these acceptable testimo- nials, we are not informed ; but as neither those who agreed nor those who disagreed with your opinions were ever admitted to your councils, it is to be presumed that no great value was attached to either, and that those persons whom your Lordship has thus condescended to praise have merited their approbation, not by their suggestions, but by their sagacity in permitting your Lordship to enjoy your own opinion, when they felt that expostulation is not only often useless, but frequently apt to convert vanity into obstinacy. That your Lordship was actuated by a sincere desire to promote what you conceived to be the prosperity of the colonies, it would be an act of gross in- justice to deny ; the zeal and the diligence with which you applied yourself to the task is deserving of all praise. Your Lord- • REPLY TO THE EARL ship's zeal has, however, not been directed by knowledge ; preconceived opinions have not only led you into error, but have enabled others to impose upon you, and have in- duced you to prepare a Report which might have been compiled in England from pub- lic documents, and by a person who had never visited the Colonies at all. It is the production of a theorist, and not a practi- cal man. That the bias of your Lordship's mind would naturally lead you to make such a report was well known before you arrived in America. It was expected by all parties. When your Lordship, there- fore, states << that the discontented parties, and especially the Reformers of Upper Canada, look with considerable confidence to the result of your mission," you do them no more than justice. They have regarded it with confidence, and that they had good reason to do so is sufficiently proved by a general pardon which your Lordship was pleased to grant to those of their number who were found with arms in their hands, and the immediate return from Bermuda OF UUIUIAM'S UEPOIIT. 9 of those who had made such a formidahle and murderous use of those arms. This confidence however is, I fear, more creditable to their discernment than com- plimentary to your Lordship*s wisdom. They were well aware that men who, in violation of their allegiance, had re- sorted to force to overthrow the Go- vernment, and had added murder and arson to the crime of rebellion, would not be stigmatized as " traitors " or " rebels," but would receive, in any Report that might be made on their conduct, the full benefit of that commiseration which the enlightenment of the age now bestows on such patriotic exertions, and that they would be designated by the milder and more appropriate term of " discontented parties." The result has justified their ex- pectations. Your Lordship has also ad- mitted with equal candour, " that you are well aware that many persons, both in the Colonies and at home, view the system you recommend with considerable alarm, be- cause they distrust the ulterior views of those io REPLY TO THE EARL bi/ whom it was proposed to you** This, my Lord, is perfectly true ; but it is not ex- pressed with your usual accuracy of lan- guage. " Distrust " as little conveys the full force of their feeling as " discontented" does a correct idea of " rebels." These temperate terms were doubtless used from an amiable desire to avoid giving pain, but, as few persons will understand them in the sense used by your Lordship, it is neces- sary to speak plainly and to substitute in- telligible language. We do not distrust their ultimate object — it has been too plainly avowed to admit of doubt ; it is independence to be achieved by fire and sword. We view ** the system proposed by your Lordship with great alarm, therefore, not because we distrust, but because we know the object of those by whom it was proposed to you, to be treasonable, and fear it will be successful." It would be in vain to follow your Lordship through the whole of the system you propose. I cannot rea- sonably expect that a public journal, which has so many olher important interests to Of DURHAM'S REPORT. II advocate, and has already devoted so much room to your Lordship's Report, will con- cede a similar space to my reply ; I shall, therefore, confine myself to a considera- tion of a few of its most important parts. In my next I shall solicit your Lordship's attention to that part of the system which recommends a Legislative Union. 12 REPLY TO THE EARL LETTER IF. Some of tlie changes recommended in your Lordship's Report are to be found in the communications of the Constitutional Society of Quebec and Montreal, of a date long anterior to your appointment; and your Lordship's omission of this fact is entitled to great credit, as your Lordship was doubtless aware that, if they were ge- nerally known to have emanated from so respectable and loyal a body of men, their popularity would have been greatly en- dangered among a certain class of poli- ticians in the country. For this consi- derate act of kindness they ought to be and I have no doubt they are, deeply grateful. It is undoubtedly a hazardous admission to make, but is rendered ne- cessary, lest the British Parliament might OF UU RIIAM'S UKPOIIT. 13 suppose, from your ascribing all the sys- tem to the leaders of the rebellion, (whom you have so charitably and so condescend- ingly termed " the discontented party,") that these traitors were after all not very unreasonable people, but men whose im~ petuous temper had hurried them into the little imprudence, but manly error, of resorting to arms : but who, notwithstand- ing this venial offence, were really desi- rous of promoting some beneficial changes. With such parts of the Report as are to be found in these documents I have nothing to do, but to express my regret that all your information had not been drawn from a source equally unexcep- tionable. It is that part which is peculiarly your own, or was suggested by those able and intelligent men, the " discontented party," to which I object. Your Lordship recom- mends a Legislative Union of the Colonies, or a Congress for the whole, co-existent with, but superior to the Provincial Le- gislatures. This prescription you are 14 UKPLY TO Till". KAUL pleased to think will, by its strong drastic powers, purge the body politic of all im- purities, and not only effect a cure of all existing evils, however numerous, but how- ever dissimilar they may be. The search after such a medicine, like that after the philosopher's stone, has long since been discontinued by enlightened men : but empirics still announce occasionally that they have succeeded, by accident or inspi- ration, where science has previously failed. So prone indeed are mankind to indulge in the marvellous, that these nostrums are always favourably received by the multi- tude, and their popularity is generally proportioned to their extravagant absur- dity. This Legislative Assembly, which your Lordship recommends, is to be con- structed after the model of the Congress of the United States. Had your Lord- ship visited that country, of which you have undertaken to draw so flattering an account from the reports of the " able, intelligent, and impartial men of the discontented party," who have migrated UF DURHAM'S IlKI'OHT. 15 thither, you might possibly have lieard of collisions between the General Govern- ment and the State Governments, — of dis- putes about sovereignty and jurisdiction, and, of a term peculiar to America, of " nullification :" you might have heard of determined threats on one side, and fierce defiance on the other ; of undefined rights, of constructive powers, and of unfortu- nate omissions. You would have learned that, though the people may petition the Congress, the Congress may not deliberate; that there may be rights unaccompanied by powers ; and that written constitutions may be more vague and more uncertain than unwritten ones : you would have seen a Legislative Union of separate States, where the Supreme Legislature possessed too little power to answer the purposes of national government, and where the indi- vidual States had parted with too much to retain any separate influence or indi- vidual authority. In short, you would have everywhere beheld the melancholy spectacle of a Government unable to en- 16 KEPLY TO THE EARL force obedience to its own laws, or respect for those of its neighbours ; to protect its own armouries against its own people, or to restrain its own population from pira- tical incursions into adjoining countries, with which it had entered into solemn treaties of peace. But, supposing that your Lordship had passed through that country, as you unfortunately did through Canada, without hearing or seeing what other people had heard or seen, and had not learned that such was its condition, you would doubtless have inquired into the powers of the Congress, the imitation of which you so strongly recommend. Had you instituted such an inquiry, you would have found it had little or no- thing to do ; that though the separate States had conceded all the authority that could be safely intrusted to it, it did not amount to enough for vigorous action ; and that, although they had rendered them- selves powerless, they had not made the Central Legislature strong by their seve- ral contributions : you would have learned, OF DUIUIAM S REPORT. IT among other things, that its chief duty was to deliberate upon all external mat- ters ; also to regulate the army and navy, the post-office, the coinage, the judiciary, the commerce with foreign nations, and the wild lands, not of the several States, but the domains belonging to the United States. Having acquired this informa- tion, you would naturally have asked yourself how similar powers could be com- mitted to a Congress of the British Pro- vinces. Your Lordship has been more fortunate than most travellers, and has discovered many things of deep interest and great importance that nobody ever heard of before (so many, indeed, that I fear your account, accurate as it no doubt is, will share the fate of others of equal value, and have to await the confirmation of succeeding expeditions). But, notwith- standing, your Lordship's powers of ob- servation, I doubt if you could find a pro- vincial army and navy, for an object of legislation, or a coinage which they have B X8 REPLY TO THE EARL t ); not got and cannot have, or a post-office as a distinct and independent department. This latter, you must be well aware, is a part of the great general imperial post- off .w-, — is connected with mails that tra- verse foreign countries, and packets that cross the seas, and officers residing out of their limits, and beyond their control, and in which the parent State has an equal interest with the Colonies. The supreme judicial establishment does not exist — is not required ; and, what will doubtless have great weight with your Lordship, would not be popular. Their foreign trade they cannot regulate, so long as they are colonies, and ought not if they could. The wild lands are the appurtenances of each separate Colony, and there are no extra provincial domains that can be placed under its control. Where then are the powers of this legislature to be de- rived from ? and what is it to do ? Is it, like Congress, to be converted into a de- bating society, for wordy orators and vain- OF DURflAM'S REPORT. 19 d. of boasting patriots? or a caucus for the election of the Governor-General? or a hall of pensioners, where demagogues are to receive eight dollars a day as the re- ward of successful intrigue ? Where is it to meet ? Are the French Canadians, the Papineaus, and the Vigers, to put on their snow-shoes, and travel through several hundred miles of trackless forest to Hali- fax ? or are the " able, intelligent, and re- spectable projectors" of Nova Scotia td concede the post of honour to Quebec, to harness up their moose and rein deer, and speed over the untrodden snow to the capital? It is true there are no hotels on the road; but there would be not a few ins in the lakes ; and such would be the harmony of these travelling legislators, that the outs would not quarrel for their places. Snug berths and warm berths are the objects of patriotic desire, and not cold ones. If sectional jealousies and local impediments create a difficulty as to the seat of government, as they did B 2 20 REPLY TO TIIR EARL in the United States, where is it to be placed? Will you decide as those en- lightened men did, and choose the geo- graphical centre ? If so, shall it be the small island in the Tamawaska Lake, in the heart of the forest, between the lower and upper provinces, or shall a more en- larged view prevail ? Shall we regard the convenience of succeeding generations, and place it in the desert, midway be- tween the Pacific and Atlantic? But I forget that your Lordship has solved the difficulty, and has promised us a rail- road from Quebec to Halifax ; and we make no doubt, when the great prelimi- nary, but equally feasible, work of a bridge across the Atlantic shall be com- pleted, that the other will be commenced without delay. It was a magnificent idea, and will afford a suitable conveyance for the illustrious members of the great British American Congress. I will, my Lord, not ask you where the means for this gigantic undertaking are to come OF duhham's report. 21 from, because that is a mere matter ol detail, and beneath the notice of a states- man of your Lordship's exalted rank. They will doubtless be had for the asking. The Government is liberal, and the Ra- dicals will vote the money. 8S REPLY TO THE EARL LETTER III. IW li: It is difficult to reply to such a docu- ment as your Lordship^s Report with be- coming temper. It is so inaccurate in its statements of facts, so wild in its theories, so dangerous in its tendencies; it is so unsuitable to meet the public eye, so cal- culated to mislead the people of England, to irritate and alarm the Colonists, and to mystify and perplex what is in itself plain and intelligible, that I will venture to affirm the records of Parliament contain nothing so unworthy, nothing so mischiev- ous. You have not only differed from all your predecessors, — many of whom were most able and distinguished men, — and the present and every former Admi- nistration, but you have differed also from yourself. This ought to have induced I OF DUilUAM'S UEPORl. 8| your Lordship to have distrusted your 4^ visers, as it compels us to distrust you> The crafty manner in which Hir John Colborne*s name is introduced, and the unhandsome insinuation that he was him- self the author of these troubles, is so utterly unworthy of your Lordship, that I cannot believe it to have emanated from your own pen. It is evidently the work of an inferior mind, and as the document carries internal marks of being the joint production of several persons, I gladly avail myself of the supposition, to avoid the pain of charging it upon your Lord^ ship. It was natural you should feel how immeasurably he is your superior ; that while your imprudent manifesto invited one rebellion, his valour and conduct have suppressed two; and that in addition to the military laurels which you could not win, he is likely to merit those civic ho- nours which you could and ought to have earned. You could not but feel, and feel acutelv, that the whole tenour of his con- duct, by its striking contrast to your own. S4 REPLY TO THE EARL affords a severe commentary upon your short and disastrous administration ; but this, my Lord, is not his fault, but your own. All this I can easily conceive ; but that your Lordship, smarting under these painful reflections, could have so far lost sight of what was due to yourself as well as to him, as to have given utterance to so mean and contemptible a paragraph as that to which you have Tinfortunately lent the sanction of your name, I cannot and will not believe. " Discontented men," my Lord, are not generally so respectable and intelligent as you give them credit to be ; their counsels are dangerous, their asso- ciation infectious. Your character has suf- fered by the contact. But if this was so unpardonable, what, my Lord, shall we say to the unkind and unprovoked attack you have made on Sir Francis Head? You have announced that you are yourself an injured man, that your feelings have been deeply wounded, and that you have not t)nly been unsupported, but misrepresent- ed. Could you feel no sympathy for him ? OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 25 Was there nothing in his case to awaken a generous emotion ? Nothing to stay your hand when lifted to smite an un- suspecting and unarmed man ? Were there none of those " able and respectable men" to suggest that his hands were tied, and that your gallantry could reap no honour in a contest where surprise, and not valour, should claim the victory? Your Lordship's opinion was not asked — you were not required to adjudicate upon his case; and if you had been, you were bound to have called upon him for his defence, before you pronounced judgment. Audi alteram partem is a maxim of which you claimed the benefit in your own case, and you should at least have dealt out that justice to others which you require to be meted to yourself. Had you done this, my Lord, he would have shown to you, as I know it is in his power to do, that you have been grossly imposed upon, and that you have unintentionally given to the world one of the most perverted statements of facts that has ever been 26 REPLY TO THE EARL published. He might, too, have suggested, that if an imprudent act of his, like that of your Lordship, had had a tendency to develope a rebellion, he did not desert his post in the moment of danger — having first increased the difficulties of his suc- cessor, and then insinuated things to tar- nish his character, — but met his enemies in the field, as became a brave man, and vanquished them. It is not possible, my Lord, that that part of the report which reflects upon those two distinguished offi- cers, one of whom is absent, and the other disarmed, could have been written by yourself; but you owe it to your own character to disavow it, as well as other parts equally objectionable. The poisoned arrows discharged in this Parthian flight belong not to a British armoury, and who- ever the auxiliaries were that used them, they were unworthy to be found in the train of an English Viceroy. Well might your Lordship inform the Liberals of De- vonport that you had things to commu- nicate that would astonish the people of OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 87 England, for no man in it can rise from the perusal of this extraordinary document without the most unfeigned astonishment, the deepest regret, the most bitter dis- appointment. In my last letter, my Lord, I had the honour to call your Lordship's attention to the inutility of a Legislative Union of the Colonies ; permit me now to remark upon the difficulties to which it would give rise, and the danger to be appre- hended from it. To give currency to this proposal, your Lordship has resorted to the sanction of his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent. Your Lordship was wise in so doing; you could not have selected a name more respected and re- vered in the Colonies, where the memory of his condescension, his kindness, and munificence during his residence there, and the unvaried patronage of Colonists after his return to Europe, will long be cherished with affectionate and grateful feelings. We have looked in vain for a patron since his lamented death, and the 28 REPLY TO THE EARL 1: cold and chilly atmosphere of Downing- street forms a melancholy contrast with the genial influence of his paternal regard. He sought for talent and rewarded it, for loyalty and welcomed it, for merit and honoured it. Time did not impair his memory, nor distance his constancy. Where now shall we look, my Lord, for the fostering hand of power, or to whom can Colonists apply ? We have neither votes to offer nor Parliamentary influence to give, and we require the countenance of those who are above the operation of either. Yes, my Lord, you were wise in affixing the stamp of that name, which appeals to our hearts, to this part of your document. It is gratifying to think that your opinions have undergone a change on this subject, and are more in accord- ance now than they were in the lifetime of that illustrious individual with those of a people who had ample means of judging of the powers of the mind and the qua- lities of the heart that distinguished his Royal Highness. It is true, my Lord, as >i ii OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 29 you state, that the Duke of Kent did institute inquiries on the subject ; but you have omitted to add a most important fact, that those inquiries finally induced his Royal Highness to come to the con- clusion that the scheme was visionary, expensive, and dangerous, and that he subsequently rejected it altogether. The plan which your Lordship now proposes was first seriously considered so long ago as the year 1757, long previously to the American rebellion; and, singular to say, after mature deliberation, was found open to so many objections, so dan- gerous to the rights of the mother country, and at the same time to the independence of the Colonies, that it was simultaneously rejected on both sides of the water. The pretended discoveries of Herschel of the movements of the inhabitants of the moon were so plausibly written that the greater part of mankind believed in their reality. The boldness of the assertions, and the minuteness of the details, imposed upon tile credulity of superficial readers. No h !t ■ I i 30 REPLY TO THE EARL man had visited the moon, and therefore no one was qualified to contradict them. Your Lordship is in a position of simi- lar advantage. You have described the United States, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, neither of which you have ever seen, with such discriminating nicety, that plausibility supplies the place of truth, and so few have ever been in those coun- tries, that you may well challenge con- tradiction without fear of an opponent. The region where monkeys were seen without tails has not been visited by naturalists since the voyage of Lord Mon- boddo. In my last I attempted to show your Lordship that powers similar to those exercised by Congress could not possibly be transferred to this new federal legisla- ture : what power, then, can be assigned tx> it? All legislative functions are now enjoyed either by Parliament in its im- perial capacity, or by the Colonial Assem- blies as subservient to it. From whom will you abstract the power? If from OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 31 Parliament, you cease to control these countries, and they become independent ; if from the Local Legislatures, you annihi- late them. This objection is a fatal one, and, as a practical man, I call upon your Lordship to refute it. But suppose the difficulty to be surmounted, the machinery to be constructed and put into operation, will no jealousy arise in the separate States that they are not equally represented ; that the delegates of one by numbers, by supe- rior talent, by intrigue, or by flattering addresses to a Viceroy, gain an undue share of influence ; that duties are not equally levied, nor the revenue fairly dis- tributed, nor public works equally under- taken in all? If a discontented dema- gogue should unfortunately obtain a ma- jority in this assembly, where then are your Colonies ? By gathering persons from all parts, you place them within the reach of contagion, and they return to their homes to spread the disease. Are the expenses of Local Governments not enough for modern jobbing, or must we add one fj 1 i REPLY TO THF, EAllL of a more costly character because of a more exalted rank ? If angry demagogues are to be a})peased, or hungry patriots fed, who is to supply the means ? The Colo- nists cannot, and I fear the Parliament will not do it. If your Lordship, one of the fathers of the Reform Bill — the ad- vocate for retrenchment, the unsparing as- sailant of Tory profusion — if you, my Lord, even without a salary, and without a legislature to entertain, spent such an enormous sum of money in the short space of six months, as Governor of the Canadas alone, what, I may ask, would satisfy a man who makes less pretensions than your Lordship to loftiness of sentiment and purity of patriotism, who should have all British America, four millions of geogra- phical miles, as the extent of his juris- diction ? The imperial magnificence of the Autocrat has dazzled your Lordship's mind, and led you to imagine an analogy where none subsists between the monarch of all the Russias and the Governor of a small and poor })opulation, dispersed over OF DIJUIIAMS IIEHORT. 33 the wilds of the American forest. The regal state exhibited by your Lordship will long be remembered in Canada. Though brief, it was brilliant. But, alas ! my Lord, it is humiliating to think that the loss of a king is often less regretted than the cessation of his expenditure, and I grieve to say that much of the lamentation you heard at your departure arose from a source which is so little creditable to human nature. Even the sour sectarian, who had fondly hoped to have achieved the downfall of the Church through your Lordship's exertions, felt his cupidity stronger than his zeal, and with that fa- miliarity of reference to sacred things that borders on profanity, and shocks us by its unnatural union of cant and levity, exclaimed in the words of Zophar — "Though his Excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung. They which have seen him shall say Where is he ?" " He shall fly away as a dream, and c u REPLY TO THE EAIIL shall not be found; yea, he shall be chased away as the vision of a night." "The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more behold him." i OF DUIIUAM'S IIF.PORT. 35 LETTER IV. Experience teaches us that there are few things in this life so bad that they might not have been worse, though we very rarely find that a thing might have been worse had it not been quite so bad as it really is. Among the strange para- doxes presented by your Lordship's Report this is not the least. Had your facts been a little more accurate, and your theories a little less absurd, the tendency of your scheme would have been infinitely more dangerous ; it would have been difficult to separate truth from error where they were so intimately blended, to define the limits of each, or to ascertain how much of the colouring was natural, and how much had arisen from infusion. A few drops of a powerful poison, though not discernible to c 2 36 KEIM.Y TO Till, KAIIL tlie eye or the palate, will give a deadly effeet to the draught, and yet leave the fluid to which it has heen added as clear and pellucid as ever. Fortunately for the Colonists, this Report is so utterly vicious that it carries its own antidote, and pre- sents less difficulty to an attempt to reply than to a selection of such parts as are worthy of an answer. It is overcharged, and, like Fieschi's machine, has exploded in the hands of the operator, missing the objects against whom it was directed, but doing infinite mischief to all within its reach, and to none more than the prin- cipal agent. Your Lordship has been pleased to draw a most flattering picture of the prosperity of the adjoining repub- lic, of the tranquillity that pervades its population, of the effect of its institutions on the character of its people, and of the painful result of the contemplation of this scene of rural felicity on the minds of the Colonists, who are debarred from similar blessings. As a romance, my Lord, the production is not destitute of merit ; the OF Dl'llHAM'S Ui:iM)UT. 37 plot is well aiTiiiif^od, the lunguage is above mediocrity, and it displays a fertile iinagi- luition ; but as a state paper it is beneath criticism. May I ask your Lordship if you have ever been in the United States? or whether this is a sketch from nature, or what artists call a composition ? From whom, then, did your Lordship derive this information that you have ado])ted as your own, and given as the result of ex- perience acquired by personal inspection? Was it from those " able and intelligent men, the discontented party ?" If so, my Lord, they lied : — excuse the word, my Lord, it is not in my vocabulary, and I am reluctant to use it ; but men who have violated their oath of allegiance will pre- fer the word to "perjured," as you do " discontented" to that of" rebel." It is a milder term, it imj)lies less atrocity, and is less likely to wound their sensitive feel- ings. It is a political synonyme, but it is more cuphonous. " Discontented men " are apt, when excited, to use ferocious language ; it is more dignified not to follow 38 REPLY TO THE EARL their example. " Mild words will turn away wrath." They misinformed your Lordship, then, which is still milder; for I observe your Lordship is careful of giv- ing offence, except when you speak of the Church. The discretion exhibited in this respect is more conspicuous than the good taste, for there is little fear of goading the clergy to the use of arms. They do not desire incorporation, my Lord, with the States; they aim at nationality; they do hot envy the Americans, but they hate the English. Did your Lordship hear it from the loyal population ? If so, per- haps you could inform us what the objects of envy are. Is it protection for life and property ? The Lynching of the South, — the assassinations of the West, — the forays of the East, — answer No. Is it legislative harmony ? The Harrisburgh schism, the Hartford convention, the Ca- rolina nullification, answer No. Is it ex- emption from taxation ? The history of the celebrated tariff answers No. What, then, is the object of envy ? I am a Co- I OF DURHAM S IIEPOIIT. 39 lonist, and should like to be informed. What evidence have we of its existence ? Was it in refusing with scorn their prof- fered aid to achieve their independence ? — in the burning of the Caroline, or in the dispersion and slaughter of the Sym- pathizers ? If such be the case, it must be admitted that we have a singular mode of expressing our admiration, and that a warm reception is an ambiguous term, susceptible of two very opposite interpre- tations. Your Lordship has doubtless heard of a certain speech appearing in the papers, which an orator had prepared for the press, but was prevented from uttering at the meeting for which it was designed ; and this description of the state of America may possibly be a tran- script of a tour in the United States, which your Lordship intended to have made, had not accidental circumstances required an immediate return to Europe. Had your Lordship entered the republi- lican territories, which you say are more densely settled, and exhibit a more rapid 40 RKPLY TO TIIF, EAUf- growth than the adjoining province, you would have learned a fact of which you appear to be wholly uninformed — that when the United States were powerful enough to defy the whole might of Eng- land, to wrest from her an acknowledg- ment of independence, and to take a place among the nations of the earth. Upper Canada was a howling wilderness, the abode of savage herds of wild beasts, and the still more savage tribes of Indians. You would have ascertained, by a compa- rison of facts and dates, that since that period, though an inland province, pos- sessing no port of its own, accessible only through one country inhabited by French- men, and another by Americans, and re- ceiving emigration, not like the United States from all the world, but solely from one nation, and from that one only in common with many other colonies, it ex- hibits, notwithstanding the unequal race, a growth not surpassed by anything in America or any other part of the globe. This Report is not your own, my Lord : OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 41 your prejudices are strong, your politics are bad, and your credulity greater than either ; but you are a man of honour and a man of truth. How culpable, then, is your negligence in signing this Report without due consideration ! By affixing your signature to it you adopted it, and have made yourself answerable for its con- tents. In matters of business men suffer for such want of caution by losing their money, but in public life they lose reputa- tion. Whoever it was that compiled this document, he evidently intended that it should produce political effects here, as well as in the Colonies, and the opportu- nity has not been lost to assail previous Administrations, to attack the Church through its i)rovincial clergy, to advance the spread of democratic principles, and to enlist the sympathies of a certain class of politicians on the side of your Lord- ship. To effect this purpose, considerable adroitness has been displayed. The grand object was to attack the regular clergy (a subject of which I shall treat in 42 UKPLY TO THE KAUl. a subsequent letter), but, to mask this, a fire is first opened on regular medical men and regular lawyers. Your Lordship is made to object that these men, who have first qualified in England, should be com- pelled in Canada to undergo a second preparatory course. Does your Lordship really think this a hardship? Is it, in- deed, unfair ? Exhibit, then, your sense of that injustice and a proof of your sin- cerity by introducing a law to admit co- lonial professional men to practise in Eng- land, — for a similar rule prevails, here. Your Lordship was sent to redress the grievances of Colonists, and not of Eng- lishmen, and we did not expect to find the list of our wrongs swelled by borrow- ing some of your own. They are every- where considered two important professions, — the one having charge of your life, and the other of your property ; and previous inquiries as to character are deemed as necessary as an examination into previ- ous studies before candidates are admitted to practise. The decalogue, however, re- OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 45 quires reform ; it contains too many re- strictions upon freedom, is inconveniently rigid, and should be modified to meet the liberal views of modern times. It is wise- ly rejected by the advocates of national education, and is a fit subject for a com- mission of inquiry. It cannot certainly be denied that a very good lawyer may be a very bad man ; nor is it confined to the professions; but the converse is equally true ; and there are even instances on record where a very moral man has made a very indifferent governor. Your Lordship has informed us, on the authority of a gentleman who passed ra- pidly through Nova Scotia, that his jour- ney exhibited the melancholy spectacle " of half the tenements abandoned, and lands everywhere falling into decay ;" and this fact is adduced to prove that the Government is so bad that the people are deserting the province, or abandoning themselves to hopeless apathy. A grosser misstatement it has never been my lot to peruse. It is not only not the case in 44 IIEPI.Y TO THE EAllL Nova Scotia generally, but I know of no one district where the spectacle is exhibit- ed, and few men know more of the Colony than I do. It is not merely untrue, but there is not a word of truth in it, and I cannot express the astonishment with which I read the statement. The only rational way of accounting for this extra- ordinary assertion is by supposing him to have fallen into one of those ludicrous mistakes that so constantly occur to strangers. In the first settlement of a farm, a rude and temporary building, con- structed of logs of timber, is erected for the use of the family, which, as the pro- prietor's means increase and his arable lands are enlarged, is abandoned for a larger and more commodious framed house; and it sometimes occurs that this pleasing evidence of prosperity is found on the same property in the exist- ence of both houses at the same time, though on sites at some distance from each other. If this supposition will not account for it, and it is by no means of OF DURHAM'S KEPOIIT. 45 such frequent occurrence as to warrant the belief, then we have but one alterna- tive left us — to suppose that he has been grossly imposed upon, as your Lordship has, by listening too greedily to tales of wonder, and, by exhibiting too great a desire to gather complaints, to make out a case for your Lordship's theories of go- vernment. Let not this contradiction, my Lord, rest on anonymous assertions ; there are landed proprietors here, and those who own no land, professional men and merchants, men of different rank and of different politics, from Nova Scotia, and I refer you to them all for a confutation of this slander. I refer you to the annual speeches of the Governors to the Assembly at the opening of successive sessions, and their replies, in which the prosperity of the country is alluded to as a source of con- gratulation, to the enlarged trade and in- creasing revenue, to every return, in short, and every state paper relative to the coun- try that is to be found in the Colonial- office. What your informant means by 46 REPLY TO THE EARL lands falling into decay I do not exactly know ; but, I suppose, he means that the lands are not so well cultivated as they were in former years. This, too, my Lord, is not true. Their system of agriculture is bad, as that of a poor people generally is ; but it is much improved of late years, although a people who obtain the neces- saries of life with so little labour as the Nova Scotians do, are not so easily stimu- lated to exertions as those of an older country, where the production of human food is with difficulty made to meet the demand. But, bad as their agriculture is, it is better than that of the State of Maine, to which you refer ; better than that of Ireland, and, though greatly inferior to that of England or Scotland, quite equal to some that I have seen in both countries. There are few people, my Lord, fonder of a practical joke than the Nova Scotians, and the Viceroy's deputy was too good a subject not to be practised upon. How well they have succeeded I leave your Lordship to decide. If his inquiries for OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 4T "abandoned houses" were directed by a search after other things than truth, his eminent success entitles him to the credit of possessing some valuable qualities which you have omitted to enumerate among missionary virtues. Your Lordship gravely tells us, that " there are in none of these Provinces any local bodies possessing authority to impose local assessments for the management of local affairs. To do this is the business of the Assembly." There are few things more difficult, my Lord, than to convey a denial of a fact in language that shall not be personally offeiisive, especially if the assertion of that fact be made in so reck- less a manner as that which I have quoted. I assure your Lordship I feel the difficulty in its fullest extent, for, indignant as I am at such positive but erroneous state- ments, I am desirous to employ terms that shall embody that feeling with the fullest negative, and yet escape the imputation of grossness. I am a plain man, with all the rusticity of a colonist about me ; and 48 HIiFLY TO THE EA UL if my language is not courtly, you must attribute it to a provincial education. This statement, my Lord, is not true. Finding this to be the case in Lower Canada, you have, without inquiry and without scruple, asserted the same of all the Colonies. This practice is unfortu- nately not new ; empirics always alarm a patient, by magnifying his danger, to induce him to follow their prescriptions. Had your Lordship called upon Lord Glenelg, he could have exhibited to you returns from every county in Nova Scotia, where "local bodies imposed local assess- ments for local purposes," and shown you how they were assessed, the manner they were collected, and the purposes to which they were applied. Nor is this the case in Nova Scotia only. But the foreground of a picture is the property of the artist, and a judicious introduction of groups of figures gives life and character to the land- scape. The air of Downing-street, my Lord, is said to be narcotic, and the drow- siness of the people has long been the sub- OF DURHAM'S llEPOHT. 49 ject of much facetious comment. Happy indeed, would it have been for your Lord- ship had you been subject to its influence, for then these incoherent dreams would have found a convenient shelter under your official somnambulism. D 50 Ul'.I'l.Y TO TIIK EAllL LETTER V. It happens unfortunately that those persons who favour us with theories are seldom practical men, and that the result too frequently contradicts the prediction. That which is probable does not always happen, and that which ought to be a re- sult, and that which occurs, are by no means identical. Hence your merchant regards with rational apprehension your political economist, and the practical states- man deprecates the adoption of the dreamy innovations of the theoretical politician. What succeeds in one country is frequent- ly found to fail in another, and it is not sufficient that the machinery of govern- ment be perfect in its mechanism, but it must be adapted to the moral, intellectual, and political condition of the people who OF DUKllAM'S IlKl'UUT. 5t are to be subjected to its action. We have seen enough of rash innovation, of reckless change, and of dangerous experiments, of late years, to tamely submit to follow the prescriptions of speculative men like your Lordship. Mankind are the same every- where, my Lord, and your Lordship's Par- liamentary experience might have taught you that all legislators are more or less operated upon by passion, by prejudice, and interest, and that it is necessary to know the extent, the origin, and the direc- tion of these influences, if we desire to bring our plans to a successful issue. But, though mankind are all alike actuated by these impulses, they are operated upon in various degrees, and by different objects in different countries. The prejudices of Eu- rope are not the prejudices of America, nor are the prejudices of the Colonies iden- tical with, though somewhat similar to, those of the United States. Overlooking or disregarding these obvious truths, your Lordship's schemes have been concocted according to the political creed of a certain D 2 52 KEPLY TO THE EARL democratic party in this country, whose favour it was necessary to conciliate, and although you have disregarded the feelings and wishes of the loyal Colonists, you have paid a reverential respect to those of the movement party in Great Britain. Of that party your Lordship may flatter yourself you are the leader, or, to use a more intel- ligible term, the precursor ; but the very language of their invitation to your Lord- ship to accept this enviable situation con- veyed so distinct an avowal of their having consulted only their own convenience in that offer, and that they valued your sta- tion and influence more than your talents or stability, that your Lordship very pro- perly rejected, in the first instance, the proffered honour. It is deeply to be re- gretted that your pride had not overcome your craving after popularity, and induced you to adhere to a determination which would have compensated in character for whatever you might have lost in notoriety. Your Lordship talks of a Government of the Colonies, responsible to the people of OF DURHAM S REPORT. 53 i the Colonies, and of a Governor ruling by heads of departments, amenable to the L ^- gislature. However this theory may ap- ply to Great Britain, it is sheer nonsense as regards a dependent state. Your Lord- ship has lost sight of the incidents of a Co- lonial dependence. The power of a Go- vernor is a delegated power, and if it be designed that it shall have a useful and in- dependent action, it must be held respon- sible to the authority only that delegated it, and not to the parties governed. He is an officer of the metropolitan State ; if the control over him be relinquished, or trans- ferred to the Assembly, then the Assembly is no longer subordinate but supreme, and he ceases to be an officer of Great Britain, and becomes an officer of a foreign coun- try. If a Governor is to be controlled by his Council, and that Council amenable to the Assembly, then the Assembly controls the Governor, the character of its political relation is changed, and it is no longer a dependent but an independent state. Such doctrines, my Lord, so subversive of the 54i REPLY TO THE EARL supreme authority of the mother country, were never broached until the " discon- tented party" advanced these claims as precursors of rebellion. By adopting their views your Lordship has placed your- self in a very awkward dilemma. If you are sincpi'e in the recommendations you have made, we must believe either that you are not aware of the consequences of your own schemes, or, if aware of them, that you have not dealt fairly, in not candidl)' placing the result before us, that we might know the extent and true character of the pro- posed changes. Physicians sometimes withhold from a patient a knowledge of the medicines they intend to use, lest the violence of their action might deter him from taking them, or the dread of suffer- ing might be superadded to actual pain. In general it is both prudent and humane ; but if the existence of the patient is to be endangered by the dose, the medical ad- viser is bound to state the risk, that he may decide whether he will incur the ha- zard, or bear with his disease. OF Durham's report. 55 Your Lordship is pleased to say that a Governor should conduct his administration hy responsible heads of departments. This, my Lord, may tickle the ears of English Radicals, because it adopts the cant and phraseology of the sect, but such puerile twaddle can only excite the risibility of Colonists. Does your Lordship mean such heads of departments as the Minister of War, the Lords of the Admiralty, the Master of the Mint, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Foreign Af- fairs, the Secretary of the Dependencies, or the Postmaster-General ? Of these they annually read a list in the English alma- nacs, but that is all they know of such responsible heads of departments; nor have they any officers whose titles or duties in any way correspond to such terms. The revenue of the Colonies is the great object of attention, as it is by that alone the re- sources of the country are developed, and works of internal improvement effected. This is collected by the Excise or the Cus- tom-house Officers, and by them paid into 56 REPLY TO THE EARL the Treasury. In the Eastern Provinces (for Lower Canada is now without a Legis- lature) the accounts of those who collect and those who receive and disburse this money are audited by a joint committee of the Assembly and Council, the monies are voted by the Legislature, expended by Commissioners of their own recommenda- tion, and drawn by warrants of the Gover- nor, in most cases after the services are performed. What more of accountability, my Lord, would you have ? The Trea- surer, the Excise-officer, and their subordi- nates, give security for the faithful per- formance of their duties, are paid by the Legislature, and would be instantly re- moved upon any complaint of malversa- tion in office. Is not this responsibility ? The Custom-house Officers are appointed by the Board of Customs in London, and are under their control for this obvious reason, that it is their duty to enforce the Acts of the Imperial Parliament, and be- cause they are Officers of Great Britain, and not of the Colony. Against them, I OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 57 am happy to say, there are no complaints ; but if there were, they are amenable to the Board that appoints them ; and will your Lordship undertake to say that that Board would not entertain the complaints? If you are prepared to make this accusation against their justice, you must have re- ceived your facts from the same person who gathered the tales of the abandoned houses of Nova Scotia, for we know of no instances to warrant such an injurious suspicion. The Militia is commanded by the Governor, officered by people of the Colony,*! and regulated by temporary laws of the Local Legislature. Is this no con- trol, my Lord ? The road service is pro- vided for by grants of money from the As- sembly, expended under regulations made by themselves and by Commissioners of their own nomination, or else by statute labour, the accounts of which are audited by the Courts of Session. Is there no effi- cient control here ? All township officers are amenable to the General Sessions of the Peace for the county, from whom they re- d8 REPLY TO THE EARL ceive their appointment, and to whom they annually account. Is not this control suf- ficient? When your Lordship, therefore, talks of an officer ruling a province by means of responsible heads of departments, you speak of a state of things so inappli- cable to a Colony, that it is perfectly un- intelligible. As a theory this is, doubtless, very captivating ; but as a practical mea- sure it amounts to nonsense. By one of those strange inconsistencies that so dis- figure this Report, and that can only be accounted for by supposing that there were several compilers employed upon it, your Lordship suddenly quits this train of con- cession to the " discontented party," and recommends that all money votes should first receive the Governor's assent before they are proposed in the Assembly. I will not enter into a consideration of the ques- tion, my Lord, whether this might not have originally been a wise measure, if adopted in the first American Legislatures, although I entertain very strong doubts about it, and rather incline to the belief, OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 59 i that with all the evils attendant upon the present mode, it is less objectionable than the other, but will ask whether it is pos- sible that your Lordship can know so little of the feelings of Colonists upon this subject, as to suppose for a moment that they would submit to such a fun- damental change in their privileges? If there is any one recommendation in the Report more than another that betrays a total want of knowledge of the feelings and prejudices of the people it is this, and no man but one who had never met a Provin- cial Legislature could entertain an idea that either persuasion or force could ever effect the change. As well, my Lord, might you attempt to force back Niagara, as the stream of public opinion on this subject. It is uniform, universal, irresistible. I do not wonder at this flagrant instance of ignorance, for it is natural; it was to be expected that you should fall into error ; but I do wonder indeed, my Lord, at the coolness, the self-possession, nay, at the self-complacency, with which your Lord- Fi 60 REPLY TO Tin: KARL ship discourses upon matters of which you know so little, and the vanity that leads you to suppose that that little qualifies you to frame constitutions, to demand their immediate adoption, and to treat with in- difference or contempt the less presumptu- ous, but more solid information of others. The exhilarating gas which your Lord- ship has inhaled, and caused others to im- bibe, in the Colonies, has given rise to an extraordinary exhibition, in which grave and serious men have been so elated as to render themselves eminently ridiculous. Imagining their dimensions enlarged in proportion to their ideas, they have talked of a National Congress, international rail- roads, ship canals, responsible Governors, dignified heads of departments, represen- tation in Parliament (for that, too, was promised to them), munificent Viceroys, imperial body-guards, and similar absur- dities, until, like the frogs in the fable, they have well-nigh burst with the un- natural inflation. It is full time, my Lord, that this hallucination ceased, and OF DURHAM'S RRPORT. 61 that we recovered our senses, and set our- selves to work in the business of life like practical men. It is time that we rejected these delusions of a heated imagination, and called in prudent and experienced men to aid us with their advice. There are evils in the Canadas that require prompt and firm treatment, and the constitutional societies of Quebec and Montreal, composed of men of character, property, influence, and tried loyalty — men who have given numerous and con- vincing proofs that they know how to de- fend their own rights and to respect yours, are the safest and surest guides. In the lower province we are better without your interference. " Laissez nous fmre^' was the prudent answer of the French mer- chants to speculative philanthropy like that of your Lordship. Be content to cauterize the diseased part, and leave that which is sound exempt from experiment. It has not yet been ascertained that it is necessary or advisable to physic a whole family because one member of it requires 62 REPLY TO Tin: Ex\HL medicine. But if this theory is worthy of a trial, begin, my Lord, with your own. The experiment can be conducted under your own eyes, and if it should succeed, you may indulge the hope that these aber- rations will not be hereditary. OF DUUIIAMS IIEI'OIIT. C.'J LETTER VI. The most redeeming part of your Lord- ship's Report is the zeal it displays in the cause of religion. The space devoted to this subject is so much larger than we had reason to expect, and so much greater than that allotted to your Chaplain on your outward voyage, that it has somewhat taken us by surprise. It was feared that " the still small voice " would not be so audibly heard amidst the din of arms, or listened to with such devout attention at the Court of the Viceroy, and I apprehend it may still be doubted whether it has found that favour so important a subject demanded. Manufacturers wisely suit the texture and quality of their wares to the taste of their customers, and the compilers of your Lordship's Report have not lost 'ill j>^ ii 64 REPLY TO THE KARL sight of this worldly maxim. Men of all shades of belief and of disbelief, except the Church, and of every gradation of politics, except Loyal Conservatives, have received their due share of commendation and en- couragement. How is it, my Lord, that they have incurred your displeasure, and merited this rebuke ? Have the Clergy, with ill-directed zeal, joined with the Pre- mier in expressing " their surprise and regret " at your Lordship's disregard of their feelings in your official appointments, or have cold averted looks supplied the place of benedictions ? Have your Lord- ship's compilers sought the opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the enemies of the Church here, by disseminating their favourite opinions under the sanction of your name, or did your unexpected return preclude your Lordship from calling upon the Clergy for their defence against these slanders? In this instance, as in most others, your Lordship has been too credu- lous and too hasty, but, like every ingenu- ous man, will rejoice, no doubt, in being UF DURHAM S UEI'OIIT. corrected. Your Lordship commences by an eulogium upon the Catholic Clergy of Ca- nada, extolling their exemplary lives, their loyalty, and many virtues. In this you do them no more than justice ; they deserve this commendation, and I am happy to add my humble testimony in their favour. Had your Lordship's compilers exhibited in their Report any proof that they really valued these qualities, which they extol so highly, and expressed their approbation of other persons equally conspicuous for pos- sessing them as the French Clergy, their impartiality would have proved their since- rity, and enhanced the value of their praise. As it is, I fear it was not so much de- signed for Canadian as for European cir- culation, for French edification as for Irish conciliation. Your Lordship next turns to the Dissenter, and alludes " to the posi- tion he occupies at home, and the long and painful struggle through which alone he has obtained the imperfect equality he now possesses," and again to " the strife from which he has so recently and imperfectly £ 66 REPLY TO THE EARL escaped." Whether this condition of equa- lity in England be perfect or not, I do not stop to inquire ; I merely ask your Lord- ship what this has to do with a Report on the state of Canada, and what other motive could have induced your compilers to in- troduce it, than a desire to make that Re- port acceptable to a party in this country, to pander to prejudice, and to add fresh fuel to the war of dissent against the Church, by enlisting sectarian sympathies against her ? It is your Report, my Lord, and not the Coloijial Dissenter, to which I object— 1 war with no man's creed : but if we appeal to England, let us appeal to its judgment, and not to its passions. Having thus attempted to conciliate fa- vour by expressing your belief in their ** imperfect equality " in England, your Lordship descants on the universality of the voluntary principle in America, and proclaims one of those discoveries that is to astonish the people of this country, not merely from its importance, but its novelty — that they have no Established Church in OF DURHAM S REPORT. 67 the United States. From this your Lord- ship argues there should be no Established Church in the Colonies, and then very wisely leaves your readers to draw any fur- ther inference they please as to England from " the apparent right which time and custom give to the maintenance of an an- cient institution." Here your Lordship's spirit of conciliation departed, and having made up your mind to an assault upon the Church and the Clergy, you declare, as manfully as if you were resisting the rebels instead of that loyal and truly English body, " that you will not shrink from mak- ing known the light in which it has pre- sented itself to your mind." When you said " you would not shrink," my Lord, you evidently meant to convey the idea that you were about to do some- thing unusual, something that would deter ordinary men, and required an exercise of moral courage. The word was appropriate. Most men would revolt at the idea of pre- senting an ea? parte statement, would shud- der at tlie thought of doing an act of in- ' E 68 REPLY TO THE EARL justice, and shrink from an attempt to alie- nate the affections of a people from their Clergy. Most men, my Lord, on meeting in the wilds of America with an English clergyman would have been touched with far different feelings from those which ap- pear to have affected your Lordship. Is it nothing to leave the home of his fathers, the friends of his youth, and the refinements of life, to encounter privation and toil in a foreign land in the service of his Master ? Was there nothing in the mutual recollec- tions of your common country to call up a sympathy for his exile, or awaken a respect for his sacrifice ? Could you listen to his ministrations, to the well-known liturgy of your own Church, the prayers of your youth, and the devotion of your riper years, so far from home, without emotion ? My Lord, I envy you not the nerve that enables you, " without shrinking, " to repre- sent these services as unsuited to the coun- try, to state your preference of casual, un- certain, and irregular missionary visits, to the regular, stated, and certain offices of OF DURHAM S REPORT. 69 the Church ; to exalt all other sects over it ; to awaken the prejudice of all against it ; and to recommend the division of its property among other denominations. When you first began to feel a preference for itinerancy, which, in the beautiful Ian-' guage of Scripture, " Leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust ; and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them," did you ask the clergy to solve your doubts ? Did you inquire whether the Church had its missionary as well as its parochial clergy, or whether they did not frequently unite the labours of both ? Had you done so, my Lord — had you read the affecting reports of these faithful and zealous men, you would have found abundant evidence that the Church visit- ing Missionary in a new country is the pioneer of a stationary ministry — " The voice of one crying in the wilderness, pre- pare ye the way of the Lord," — that he is found on the outskirts of civilization, where he clears the field and sows the in 70 REPLY TO THE EARL seed, and, advancing with the march of migration, leaves his appointed fellow- labourer to garner up the harvest in the house of the Lord. When you extol the benefits of a French priest to a French community, how could your Lordship as- sert that an English Clergyman conferred no benefits on an English congregation, when you everywhere found the flock of one disobedient to their pastor and trai- torous to their Queen, while the great body of the parishioners of the other afforded the pleasing contrast of respect for the laws and fidelity to their Sove- reign ? With this fact before you, now notorious to all mankind, your Lordship has been made, by your disingenuous com- pilers, to peril your character by asserting, " I know of no parochial clergy in the world whose zealous discharge of their clerical duties has been productive of more beneficial consequences than the French Canadians." I know of none, my Lord, who are more zealous, more exemplary, or more deserving of praise, but I know of OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 71 none who have been more signally and de- plorably unsuccessful. When your Lord- ship speaks with complacency of their tithes, of their having been retarded in their labours from want of means, and of the policy of a better provision for them in future, had you no remorse of consci- ence when you assailed your own Church, represented it as having too much of the public money, as comprising none but the opulent, and lauded the policy of stripping it of its lands, to appease the craving appe- tite of others ? More just, my Lord, as well as more generous, than those who cast lots for " the garment without a seam," you consent that it shall be rent to pieces, and distributed to each according to his necessities. Not content with making your Lordship appear in the unamiable light of acting unfriendly, your compilers have re- presented you as willing to act unfairly. You are made to say, when speaking of the Church Clergyman, "though he *may' have no right to levy tithes, for even this has been made a question, he is," &c. 'Mil 1^ 72 REPLY TO THE EARL The evident intent of this artfully- worded clause, that dares tq hint, but fears to assert, was to insinuate that a question exists in Upper Canada as to the right of levying tithes, and to convey an idea that your Lordship does not concur in the claim, if such were not the case, the mis- statement would be superfluous, and your compilers are too acute and too subtle to hazard such assertions unnecessarily. Can it be believed, my Lord, by those who value truth, that your coadjutors in preparing this Report were not actuated by a malignant spirit of misrepresentation, when they are informed that a law exists to remove all doubts from jealous and rival sects upon this subject, renouncing all claims to such a right, and precluding slander from even insinuating the desire for an impost, when the power to levy it, if it had a legal existence, was annihilated for evier ? Why, I may ask, was this am- biguous and deceptive clause introduced at all? and if there be sufficient reason for its introduction, why was ib nui acconi- OF DURHAM'S REPORT. n panied by the explanation I have jiist given ? -The cause, my Lord, is obvious : the word " tithe" is too familiar a topic with agitators not to be connected on every occasion with the Church, and if the declaratory act were to be mentioned, it would be impossible to conceal the still more important fact that the seventh of land, or the clergy reserve, was given in lieu of tithes ; that the Church was other- wise provided for, and it was deemed pro- per it should not have two endowments of so extensive a description. On the argument against the policy of establish- ing a dominant Church in the Colonies, where not only none exists, but where no one that I have ever met advocates its introduction, and on the insidious appli- cation of the word " dominant" to the Church of England, as now constituted in the provinces, I shall not comment. I conceive it to be addressed rather to the movement party of this country than to the Legislature or the Government. 1 cannot believe that your Lordship was 74 REPLY TO THE EAUL aware of those injurious aspersions when you signed the Report, but it was your duty, my Lord, to have examined it minutely before you adopted it. The publisher is held responsible in law as well as the author. Such things may be popular, but they are not respectable. Gross food like this, my Lord, excites but never satisfies the appetite of the popu- lace, and he who ministers to its wants will soon find that he fills both a dan- gerous and a thankless office. 1 OF DURHAM S REPORT. 75 !.l LETTER VII. A GREAT observer of human nature has informed us, that misery derives consola- tion from having associates in the same unhappy condition with itself; but he has omitted to notice the propensity inherent in us to implicate others in our troubles for the sake of their agreeable fellowship. That your Lordship should desire the company of Sir John Colborne in the poli- tical shipwreck you have encountered was, therefore, quite natural, and your com- pilers have endeavoured to make him a fellow-passenger and joint sufferer, that you might not be deprived of the comfort arising from condolence. "The last pub- lic act," say these ingenuous and liberal men, "of Sir John Colborne before quit- ting the Province in 1835, the establish- 76 REPLY TO THE EARL merit of fifty-seven Rectories, has com- pletely changed the aspect of the question. In the opinion of many persons, this was the chief predisposing cause of the recent insurrection.'* Had your Lordship been content with having this distinguished but criminal man arraigned at the bar of pub- lic opinion with yourself, you would have doubtless succeeded ; but, in your indis- creet haste to secure other persons, you have loosened your hold of him, and suf- fered him to escape. This is much to be regretted, for, by distracting attention and dividing responsibility, your own position would have been less painful as well as less perilous. Your compilers were de- sirous of involving the Law Officers of the Crown in their indictment, in the hope, no doubt, that legal ingenuity would discover one of those numerous devices by which the guilty so often escape. " Last sum- _ mer," continue these agreeable and con- ciliatory gentlemen the compilers of this ponderous Report, " the controversy was revived with more heat than ever by the OF durhaim's report. 77 most inopportune arrival in the Colony of opinions given by the English Law Officers in favour of the legality of the establish- ment of the Rectories." " In another part we are informed that Sir Francis Head "entrapped them into rebellion ;" we now learn that Sir John Colborne baited this ingenious instrument, the rebel trap, with a Rectory. Sir John Colborne then provoked an insurrection by defining the limits of parishes, in obedience to the law of the land ! But this is absurd. Then it must have been the Law Officers that gave the opinion who were to blame, not for giving an unsound opinion, for that is not questioned, but for giving it " in- opportunely." Here again is disclosed one of those recondite discoveries that was to astonish mankind, and the parturition of the mountain has rewarded us with this secret in return for our anxious attend- ance upon it during a trying and pro- tracted period of gestation. Had your Lordship seen as much of the American forests as I have, you would 78 REPLY TO THE liAUL have learned that a man wlio loses himself in those interminable wilds generally tra- vels in a circle, and after exhausting his strength and his spirits, has the mortifi- cation to find himself on the same spot from which he started. Your Lordship is in a similar situation of distress in your bewildered search after " the predisposing cause of the rebellion." You commenced with the Church, and successively en- countering Sir John Colborne, the Rec- tories, the Law Officers of the Crown, and Sir Francis Head, returned, after great toil, to the Church again. Common hu- manity, my Lord, requires that we should put a man in the right road who has lost his way, and if you will give me permis- sion, I will undertake to perform this friendly office. " The predisposing cause" of the first rebellion is to be sought for much nearer home than your Lordship is aware of, and it was unnecessary for you to traverse the seas, at such great incon- venience to yourself, and such enormous expense to the nation, to institute these \l OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 79 interesting and laborious investigations. It consisted in a correspondence carried on in London by persons of influence and political station with certain " intelligent, able, and respectable men" of " the dis- contented party" in Canada, in which the mild, liberal, and paternal Government of the parent State was called "a baneful domination," and in which they were ad- vised " to resist the Parliament," to agitate continually, and to keep constantly before their eyes "the glorious example of the United States." This advice was followed by promises of Parliamentary support which should sanction their conduct and embarrass the Government, and a certain portion of the press, conducted by " intel- ligent, able, and respectable men" of the " discontented party" here, by disseminat- ing the grossest mis-statements and ca- lumnies of the local authorities, led them to believe that they had the ability as well as the disposition to render them valuable assistance in their patriotic endeavours. Prompted by this advice, and relying on i I i,: 80 . REPLY TO THE EARL these promises, the "discontented party," who had nothing to lose, and everything to gain by a revolution, boldly followed their instructions, and drew the sword. This, my Lord, was the "predisposing cause" of the first outbreak; the second found " a predisposing cause" in a certain imprudent, ill-judged, and inflammatory proclamation issued by a certain Governor- General, in which he accused the Govern- ment that employed him, of all that the rebels had accused it ; complained that Parliament legislated in ignorance and indifference on Canadian matters, and de- clared that, as a man of honour, he could no longer continue to hold office under it. This " able and intelligent," but " discon- tented man," repeated, " without shrink- ing," this edifying language before the delegates of the other Colonies in a man- ner so touching as to draw tears from the eyes of those who listened to the affecting catalogue of his wrongs, and at a military festival, which of all places was the most appropriate for such a recital, as it is the OF DURHAM'S REPORi. 81 special duty of soldiers to canvass the orders of their superiors, he adverted in strong language to the same topics. A Lord High Commissioner defying and de- nouncing his Government to the rebels he was sent to quell, informing the exiles that no impediment existed to their re- turn, and abandoning his post when his presence was most needed, was a predis- posing cause to others to follow such a laudable example. Few people are so fortunate as to have such an instructive lesson read to them by such high au- thority. From this sketch, my Lord, you will perceive that the Church, which enjoins on its members " to be obedient to those in authority," to " honour the King," and to " render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," could not by any possibility be a predisposing cause to rebellion. I think also that your Lordship will concur in opinion with me, that, if the statement I have just submitted to you be true, both those men who were " the predisposing F ' i I ' ill 891 REPLY TO THE EARL cause" of the first, and the man who was " the predisposing cause" of the second rebellion, ought to be impeached, and that whatever a reformed Parliament may do, no doubt can exist that an unreformed Parliament, such as once existed in this country, would have lost no time in vi- siting those men with that punishment which such serious offences so justly me- rited. Having now set your Lordship right, I am anxious to give you some directions that will enable you to avoid a similar mis- take in future. Should your Lordship un- fortunately hear of a third insurrectionary movement, you will find " the predispos- ing cause " in a certain Report, which cer- tain persons unknown have recently com- piled, and very properly published, and from its republican tone as properly ad- dressed to the Queen, in which they, the said compilers, " not having the fear of God before their eyes, but listening to the instigations of the Devil, have wickedly, craftily, and of malice aforethought," de- H OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 83 ceived your Lordship's unsuspecting confi- dence, misstated facts,* and misrepresented motives, and to divert attention from the real offenders, who travel under the assum- ed name of " discontented gentlemen," * As most of the misstatements exposed in these let- ters refer to matters in the Colonies, it may be as well to select a few immediately within the knowledge of the people of this country, that they may see how little de- pendence is to be placed on the accuracy of any part of the Report. His Lordship inserts a complaint that, although the proper height according to law is preserv- ed betweeen the decks of emigrant ships, the officers do not enforce the measure ment between the beams. Now, it appears that the power of the officers extends to the height between the decks, but not between the beams, of which the complaint is made. He next points out the ignorance of the surgeons of emigrant ships, when the ignorance consists in supposing surgeons are required by law in vessels sailing to America. He also inserts a remark relative to selecting ships which are scarcely sea-worthy, when, in fact, the officers are not empower- ed by law to select the ships at all : yet upon such grounds as these was his I>ordship made by his com- pilers to prefer a sweeping charge- of neglect of (\nty, upon the worthy superintendant of *his department, and eleven or twelve meritorious offitxy* of the navy who honestly discharge their functions at th«-ir respec- tive stations. Almost every part of che Report teems with similar errors, betraying deplorable ignorance and most inexcusable carelessness in the compilers. I 84 REPLY TO THE EARL have raised " a hue and cry " against the Government of the Queen and the Church of God. By following these directions, your Lordship will be able to extricate your- self from the labyrinth of crooked paths into which your compilers have so insidi- ously and designedly conducted you, and to arrive at the object of your anxious search — " the predisposing cause of the rebellion." Confiscation of property was once a con- sequence of treason, before a reform of our criminal code reduced the offence in the scah of guilt, and applied to that crime the mitigated name of " discontent," but I am not aware that it was ever resorted to in any age as a punishment for loyalty. To pardon the guilty and punish the innocent is a modern theory, and being first pro- mulgated in this Report is doubtless one of those discoveries so loudly proclaimed at Devonport as likely to create universal astonishment. Your compilers make you OF DURHAM S REPORT. 85 I to say, " I know of no mode of giving satis- faction but by repealing all provisions in Imperial Acts that relate to the applica^ tion of the Clergy reserves and the funds arising from them." Ignorant of the world, and holding the antiquated notions of Co- lonial simplicity, I should have thought, my Lord, it was your duty to have in- quired into the right of the Church to this property, and if you found upon such in- vestigation that it belonged to the Church, to state with that frankness and manliness that becomes a Peer of the Kealm, and " without shrinking,'' that the first duty of a Government being to protect people in the enjoyment of their property, these re- serves must be held sacred from all inter- ference, and that, so far from countenan- cing such sacrilegious plunder, you would resist it to the utmost of your power ; and on the other hand, if it did not belong to the Church, that it was equally your duty to deliberate upon the mode of its distri- bution that should be best calculated to 86 REPLY TO THE EARL promote the cause of true religion. I should have thought, that instead of embodying rumours as facts, and pretensions as truths, your Lordship, from the illegality of your first measures, distrustful of your own judgment on matters of law, would have called for legal opinions, and especially would have requested a perusal of that given by so distinguished a man as Mr Justice Patteson on this subject. I should have thought it your duty to have stated to those claimants, among other proofs of the Clergy of the Church of England being the parties to whom this property belong- ed, these remarkable words of this learned judge — " I have no doubt that the Clergy of the Church of England are that body : I am also of opinion that the Governors of the Provinces, acting under His Majesty's direction, cannot legally make any appro- priation to others ;" and thus allayed irri- tation by showing its injustice, and sup- pressed agitation by exhibiting its folly Px!^ well as its inutility. But such opinion? I find are long since exploded as too primi- OF DURHAM'S REPORT. 87 tive for this enlightened age, when Reform has enlarged our ideas as well as extended our Suffrage. I shall not here enter into any particulars of this title — it is not the place for such discussions. They would distract attention and occupy more space than a public journal can devote to them ; nor shall I inquire whether this provision was a wise one, or a convenient one, or whether an arrangement could not be made satisfactory to all and injurious to none. It is the principle to which I object, that the property of any individual or any body of men should be forcibly taken from them, and distributed among others to appease their turbulent clamours. Your Lordship is entitled to the credit of great liberality, but has no pretension to the ho- nour of originality in propounding this doctrine. History is full of instruction on this subject, and he who will not draw the moral deserves to suffer for his obstinate refusal. In this country it has already been announced as an article of the poli- tical creed of a certain party, and will 88 REPJ.Y TO THE EARL doubtless receive additional weight from the sanction of your Lordship's name. But, my Lord, in the eventful changes that are in progress, and which I fear a chasten- ing Providence has in store for us, the di- vision of the Lambton Estates may awaken your Lordship when too late to a know- ledge of this truth, that the principles of justice are uniform, universal, and immu- able, and that that which is right in Ca- nada cannot by any possibility be wrong in England. I am now about to take my leave of you, my Lord, for ever : circumstances over which I can exercise no control, but which at this juncture I deeply deplore, render it necessary that I should close these remarks upon your Lordship's Report. There are other subjects of great importance that re- quire explanation, but I must leave that task to others. Having done my duty, I shall await the result as becomes a good subject, with a full reliance upen the jus- tice of that tribunal to which the matter is referred. If there are any parts jf these OF DURHAM S REPORT. 8ft letters calculated to give your I^ordship pain, believe me, the infliction has been mu- tual. If I have expressed myself strongly, it is because I feel deeply, and not because I harbour any of those base propensities, now so common in Great Britain, to impair the respect that is due to rank and station. Such a motive would be as unworthy as the servile adulation you have received is mean and contemptible. The nobility of this country give stability to the Govern- ment, splendour to the Throne, dignity to the Legislature, and character to the Peo- ple, and are at once its brightest ornament and its best support. When your Lordship shall have occupied the high station a few years longer to which you have been so re- cently elevated, and the pride of rank shall have departed with its novelty, and when the exercise of new duties shall have su- perseded former habits of agitation, I make no doubt that better, calmer, and juster notions will prevail in your Lord- ship's mind. The Crown and the People have an G 90 REPLY TO THE EAKL equal claim upon the protection of the Peers against any encroachments on their rights, and they best consult their own safety in a vigilant restraint of both within their legitimate spheres. An undue pre- ponderance given to the one endangers the liberty of the subject ; an opposite inclina- tion of power perils the safety of the Sove- reign ; but vibration affects the harmonious action of each, and, disturbing the balance of the constitution, produces a cessation of its powers. This crisis, my Lord, is called a revolution. Similar causes produce similar effects. The Report of La Fayette, on his return from the States, subverted monarchy in France ; the Report of your Lordship, equally laudatory of that Republic and its institutions, is no less dangerous from its democratic tendencies to the Monarchy of England. Let us hope, that as your Lord- ship is as much superior to that man in principle as you are fortunately inferior to him in talent, there may be no resem- blance in the result, and that the crude OF DURHAM'S IIEPOIIT. 91 and undigested theories of a few vision- ary men will not be substituted for the ex- perience of ages. I have the honour to be, Your Lordship's most obedient servant, A COLONIST. THE END. LONDON ; rKINTKD BV SAMUEL BENTLEy, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.