Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

From the circumstances attending the early settlement of Upper Canada, and from the character of the early settlers themselves, the preachers of the Methodist denomination were not merely almost the only preachers they had for many years an opportunity of hearing, but were, of all others, those they most desired to hear. The clergymen of the Church of England were few, and stationed in the larger towns. But it is one of the peculiarities of Methodism, that however numerous or scattered the settlers might have been, the preacher could always manage to live among them; for he received with his circuit a sort of universal billeting-ticket, and the houses of all his flock, and all his flock's friends, thereupon became one vast home to him; and wherever he happened to take up his temporary abode, he conferred a sort of honour instead of receiving a favour. The system had another peculiarity too – at all events, at the early period we are speaking of – it had no standard of fitness in the way of education for its ministry. Yet where men of education could never think of penetrating or existing, these men were willing to go. Where no bishop could dream of sending a pastor, it is the principle of Methodism to believe the Lord will raise up or send one. If his talents are none of the brightest, they are willing to trust to Heaven to make up the deficiency; and certainly, in some instances, there is much need of it.

It is not difficult to perceive how great must have been the influence of these preachers over a people so circumstanced: how eagerly – in the absence of newspapers, and of nearly every means of learning what was going on in the province, much less in the affairs of the world – the leading characters of the neighbourhoods gathered round the preacher, after the meeting was over, at the fireside of some brother of the Church, to hear the latest news, to get the last newspaper or pamphlet, and to receive his oracular opinions upon the measures and the men agitating the country. And in two-thirds of the districts in the province, these preachers had for years, unopposed and unquestioned, those opportunities of instilling a political education – which, if they chose to make use of them, would enable them to plant a crop, whether of good or of evil, for or against the institutions of England, wholly, uneradicable, – were there even the same opportunities afforded of eradicating it that there were of sowing it.

For five successive parliaments in Upper Canada, previous to the rebellion, each party had alternately the majority in the house – the one party being known as the Tory or Family Compact; the other as the Radical or the Saddle-bag faction – a name more truthfully than elegantly applied to it, on account of its owing its majority to the exertions of these same Methodist preachers in its favour; and from their mode of travelling through the country being on horseback, with large saddle-bags swung on each side of the nag, and, by way of adding to the picturesque, with a leathern valise strapped on immediately over his tail. These bags and valise, it was alleged by their opponents, were always filled – with, we suppose, the necessary exception of stowage for hymn-books, and the other paraphernalia of their craft – with papers and pamphlets against the monarchy, the Church, and the institutions of England, and in favour of the democracy of the States. But whether the bags and valise were so filled or not; or whether, indeed, these preachers, at this early period, had it in their power to treat their friends to as many pamphlets, and papers, and almanacs – for the last was and is a method of disseminating political opinions much resorted to in America – as they were accused of, we shall not undertake to determine. This, however, we certainly can assert – that if we had out of the whole world to select the most perfect embodiment of the spirit of hostility to all the pomp, and pride, and distinction, and deference to rank, incident to monarchy, wherever it may exist, we should select these same Methodist preachers. Educated, for the most part, in the United States, or in Canada by American schoolmasters; with their conferences held in the States; the seat of their church in the States; their ministers ordained in the States; their bishops sent from there – for they were all, at this time, Episcopal Methodists – and the great body of their church flourishing there, – they imbibed, from the very beginning, American feelings of hostility to the established Church of England, and to the pride and love of distinction – to all the characteristics which must exhibit themselves wherever English society has a footing, and England's monarchy a representative. Hostility to these was, in truth, the very genius of their religion. Looked upon with contempt by Episcopal clergymen, they took a pious revenge in wildly declaiming against the pride and arrogance of those who derided them, and incidentally pointed to the luxurious grandeur and sumptuous living of the great dignitaries of the church, while its poor hard-working curates had scarcely the means of living. Treated with contumely by the few educated English who, from time to time, settled among their hearers, they pointed in their indignation to that country, and to those institutions, where one man was held no better than another, and where the many could soon level the pride and bring down the pretensions of the few. Deprived by law, as they were at this time, of nearly all the rights of Christian ministers – of the right to marry, and all similar ones, (for both the government and the church had long contended against men whom they regarded and believed, in point of education and character, to be wholly unfit to exercise these sacred functions,) they declaimed from the very bottom of their hearts against the illiberality and exclusiveness of English institutions, of English feelings, and of English pride, in depriving them of these rights; and they applauded, with equal earnestness, that government under which their church flourished, in the fullest exercise of the widest privileges of a Christian denomination. There is no exaggeration on the one side or on the other in this. It would be offensive to the church and to its adherents to say, that they regarded these preachers otherwise than we have described. It would be unjust to the Methodists to say, that they did not feel, and that they did not act, as we have given them credit for doing.

But in addition to the effect, political and national, produced by these preachers, the peculiarity of the Methodist church-government spread the same influences by many minor, but not less effectual ramifications. Every little society, in every neighbourhood, had what is called a class-leader, or local preacher, whose duty it was to exercise a sort of half-religious and half-civil domination over the part of the church immediately surrounding him, to give them advice, settle their differences, and practise the arts of small oratory and miniature government.

It is not difficult to perceive how this system must have furnished a leader to every little neighbourhood; how the ambition first formed by a class-meeting must have wished the larger sphere of a political one; and how the consciousness of ability to govern a congregation naturally led to the conviction that the same abilities might be usefully employed in the magistracy, or even in parliament. And it is a significant fact, that since the friends of these class-leaders have been in power, in every neighbourhood where the Methodists have had a footing, two-thirds of the magistrates appointed by the government were, and are, these very class-leaders themselves. But, at the time we are speaking of, the idea of appointing a person a magistrate, whose only qualification consisted in his exhibiting a stentorian voice at Methodist meetings, or being an influential member of "his society," was utterly repugnant to the feelings of men educated to dislike such persons, even when they are unpretending, much less when they aspire to offices of honour and distinction. No class-leaders, therefore, in neighbourhoods where every man was alike a lord of the soil, saw themselves looked up to as leaders by the many, at the same time that they were looked down upon as boorish pretenders by the few. But what galled them yet more was, that they constantly saw the few placed in offices of honour and emolument over them, and thus "rubbing in," as they termed it, the insult and the injustice of their own exclusion. Like the preachers, too, they pointed, in their indignation and revenge, to that country and those institutions where the people could raise the man, and not the crown – where they could not only attain what they aimed at, but crush what they abhorred.

Partly from this system of religious and political education, and partly from the great number of Americans who settled in the province immediately after the revolutionary war, and who came in with, and at the suggestion of Governor Simcoe, as well as the many who came in without him – but mainly from the tinge of nationality that all large communities impart to small ones adjacent to them – the manners, the customs, the accent, and even the prejudices, of the rural native population in Upper Canada, are scarcely distinguishable from the American. Their very slang words are the same, and their dislike of what they term "blooded critters," – namely, Englishmen, who cannot help evincing their inveterate dislike of either associating themselves, or allowing their families to associate, with persons whose education and habits they consider beneath them. Every feature, indeed, by which an Englishman can detect the influence of the levelling system in the States, particularly among the farming and lower classes, he can also detect, and fully to the same extent, among all the American, the Dutch, and most of the rural native Canadian population in Upper Canada. It would be digressing too far from the main object of this paper to bring forward examples – and we know hundreds – where English gentlemen have been subjected to innumerable petty annoyances, (such as cutting down their fences, and letting the cattle into their corn-fields,) merely because it became hinted about the neighbourhoods where they had settled that they were "blooded critters," and refused to eat at the same table with their labourers, and associate upon an equal footing with their neighbours, irrespective of their habits, character, and education; where men have left the harvest-fields as soon as they discovered that two tables were set in the house; and where families have been obliged, to avoid inconveniences that could not be endured, to conform, if not altogether, at least for a time, to the general usage of admitting no distinction between master and man. It must suffice for our purpose now, to say that these things exist – that they exist to the extent that we have described them; and without going into the question of the policy or the impolicy of Englishmen not conforming to the general and prevailing customs of the country in which they settle, or of the merit or demerit of these customs themselves, all we wish to say here is, that these customs are, in our humble opinion, inimical to all monarchical education – to that state of society where rank must be recognised, respectability distinguished, and refinement preserved, or monarchy cease to exist, or become a mockery.

But what was the strength of all these natural and unmistakable elements of hostility to monarchy under any form, and to a people bred under monarchical institutions in any circumstances? What was the power of the Methodists, in so far as that was used against the government, over the constituencies of the province? What was the power of those who were not Methodists, but who united with them in opposing the government? And what was the power of the really honest Yankees in the province, who never hesitated to avow that they hated the British government, root, branches, and all? And in what way did their united feelings and intentions develop themselves?

For upwards of a quarter of a century they maintained, – with all the power and patronage of the government against them; with most of the talent born in the province, and the whole, or very nearly so, of that imported into it, against them; and with seven-eighths, yes, nine-tenths, of the emigrants who were able to purchase property when they came, or who subsequently became voters, against them, – alternate, and more than alternate, majorities in parliament. It can answer no good purpose now, it never answered any, to deny or to disguise this fact. This class of men formed, as what we have already stated must have satisfied the reader, fully two-thirds of the electors in the counties. In the Home District, where M'Kenzie, who headed the rebellion in 1837, had absolute control over the elections; in the Midland District, where Mr Bidwell, an American by birth, by education, and from principle, exercised a similar influence; in the London District, where Duncombe, who also headed the rebels, could carry any man into parliament he pleased; what was the character of the voters in the townships and counties which gave them this power? They were the Methodists, educated as we have described; they were the Americans and Dutch, with strong predilections in favour of democracy, and still stronger dislike of the natural and inevitable characteristics of society which arise from monarchy itself. In the Gore district, in the Niagara district, and in the Newcastle district, what do the poll-books exhibit for the counties which sent member after member, with hardly an exception, to support M'Kenzie in the parliament, and some of them to support him in the rebellion? The number of Hezekiahs, and Jedediahs, and Jonathans, of Eliacums, and Ezekiels, shows pretty clearly what was their origin, and what were their political predilections. But these democratic leanings were by no means arbitrarily confined to names, for there was both a Duke of Wellington and a Horatio Nelson in the Gore District gaol for treason in 1838. The Duke was a preacher, and regularly held forth to his fellow prisoners, until the scamp at last – we suppose to acquire a practical idea of the nature of sin – stole a watch from one of his companions, and was thereupon regularly deposed from his high calling; and the scene of his labours changed from among the political offenders down to the petty larceny fraternity. All of which may be found duly chronicled in the records of the sheriff's office of the Gore District for the period.

But there is no circumstance, perhaps, that we could mention, that could convey a better idea of the relative regard for England and the United States, of the class of people we have been describing, than the fact – well known to every person who has lived among them – that a Yankee schoolmaster, without either education or intelligence – with nothing on earth to recommend him, save an inveterate propensity for vapouring and meddling in the affairs, religious and political, of every sect and class wherever he goes – can, and ever has, exercised more influence among them in a few months, than a whole neighbourhood of English gentlemen could in years. And we speak neither from hearsay nor conjecture: we speak from what we have seen and know, and what is susceptible of full proof.

The political measures of this party, like all others, soon shaped themselves into an embodiment of their motives and principles, and into a means, the most natural and the most certain, of gaining and keeping power. Ambition, mounted between two saddle-bags, upon a jog-trot pony, was not likely to shine in the character of a courtier. A strong nasal accent, and a love of the levelling system, were but poor recommendations to English gentlemen, and English governors, for offices of distinction and the command of her Majesty's militia forces. But both were powerful at the hustings. What they could not win from the crown they could gain from the electors. What monarchical feelings and a monarchical education could not brook, democratic voters would assuredly elevate. The consequences were such as may be conceived. Their measures became, to all intents and purposes, democratic. They began by requiring, as indispensable to the proper "image and transcript," as they called it, of the British constitution, that the legislative council – analogous to the House of Lords – should be rendered elective; that the magistracy should be made elective; that voting by ballot, as it is practised in the States, should be introduced; and that every officer in the country, from a colonel to a constable, should be chosen by the people. How much of monarchy would have been left after all this – how many of the distinguishing characteristics that the English government imparts to a British people, would have been discernible, after all these measures were in full operation, it would not have been very difficult to foresee.

Lord Durham, in speaking of this party, and of that which opposed it, observes: —

"At first sight it appears much more difficult to form an accurate idea of the state of Upper than of Lower Canada. The visible and broad line of demarcation which separates parties, by the distinctive characters of race, happily has no existence in Upper Canada. The quarrel is one of an entirely English, if not British, population. Like all such quarrels, it has, in fact, created not two but several parties, each of which has some objects in common with some one of those to which it is opposed. They differ on one point and agree on another; the sections which unite together one day are strongly opposed the next; and the very party which acts as one against a common opponent, is in truth composed of divisions seeking utterly different or incompatible objects. It is very difficult to make out, from the avowals of parties, the real objects of their struggles; and still less easy is it to discover any cause of such importance as would account for its uniting any large mass of the people in an attempt to overthrow, by forcible means, the existing form of government."

There could not have been anything more mischievously incorrect, or more likely to lead to unfortunate conclusions, than these statements. We can safely challenge the whole parliamentary history of the province, the character of the leading measures and of the leading men, and the result of every election, for twenty-five years, to find even a reasonable pretext for them, although we believe they were made in full conviction of their truth by the nobleman who made them. Of course, he could not have properly understood what he was writing about. For six successive elections previous to the rebellion, the whole history of England does not afford an example of each party's going to the hustings with so little change in men, measures, principles, or feelings, as in every one of these. In every new House of Assembly the same identical leaders, and the same followers, singled out the same men four years after four years; and neither accidents nor changes, the reproaches of treason on the one side, or the accusations of corruption on the other, caused the loss of a man to one party or the gain of one to the other. The whole heart, soul, and hopes of the two parties were as distinct and opposite as those of any two parties that ever had an existence. Nor could it have been otherwise, when the tendencies of the one were so manifestly against the existence of a fabric, which every feeling of the other urged them to preserve at all hazards and under all circumstances.

At last an important event in the history of the province brought the contest between these parties to an issue. When Sir Francis Head assumed the government in 1836, he found the party which had opposed it for so many years with a large majority in Parliament. With the view, if possible, of reconciling the two parties, and of getting both to unite with him in furthering the real interests of the province, he formed an executive council of the leaders of both. But the council had scarcely been formed, before the leaders of the party which had been so perpetually in opposition declined remaining in it, unless Sir Francis would surrender up to them, practically, the same powers that are enjoyed by the ministry in England. This he neither could nor would do. An angry correspondence ensued. They significantly pointed, in the event of the character of the struggle being changed, to aid from the great democracy of America. He asserted that the great right arm of England should be wielded, if necessary, to support the crown. They finally concluded by stopping the supplies. He dissolved the house.

In the election contest which ensued, it was distinctly and emphatically declared by the government, that the contest was no longer as between party and party in a colony, but as between monarchy and democracy in America. Monarchy was, in fact and in truth, the candidate at the election. And whether the whole of the party engaged in this desperate opposition participated in the declaration made to Sir Francis, that they would look for aid to the States, and which elicited from him the reply, "Let them come if they dare," is not a matter that they have ever enlightened the public upon. But that he was forced and obliged to make monarchy the candidate in this election, or let democracy threaten and bully him out of the country, is a historical fact, and incontrovertible in the Canadas, but most grossly and most unfortunately misunderstood in England.

The government party gained the election. But after the contest, the opposition, seeing their hopes of success – which were founded upon the plan of embarrassing the government into their measures, by gaining majorities in parliament and stopping the supplies – all destroyed by the result of this election; and knowing that immigration was every year adding to the strength of their opponents, finally determined to change the struggle from the hustings and the parliament, to the camp and the battle-field – to risk all in a bold attempt to strike down the oak at a blow, instead of attempting to destroy it, branch by branch, by democratic measures and factious legislation. That there were men of this party who did not approve of this desperate step, and that there were others who thought it premature, we believe and know; but that the great body of the party itself sympathised with the leaders in it, and would have gloried in, and contributed by all the means in their power to their success, had it been attainable, we are not only sure of, but could prove by the history of the whole affair, given by those who had the best means of understanding it.

When Lord Durham arrived in Canada, he found this party in the situation of masses of threatening, but scattered clouds. Some had voluntarily withdrawn to the States; others were there, either to escape arrest, or from consciousness of their guilt in the rebellion. The great body of the party remained in the province, with all those feelings towards England and her loyalists, that humbled pride, many sufferings, a contemptible struggle, and a mortifying defeat, were likely to engender. But though the storm had passed over, the clouds were nearly all left. The party had, in reality, gained by experience much more than it had lost in numbers. It had come to the understanding that England's great right arm could not be so easily broken. It had learned, and its friends in the States had learned – what was most useful to both under the circumstances – that if England's institutions were to be destroyed in America, it must be done by some other means than by blows and bayonets.

And it was with this party, thus situated, and composed of the materials, and influenced by the considerations, we have mentioned, that Lord Durham proposed, by a union of the provinces, to neutralise the legislative influence of the French of Lower Canada – to destroy their supremacy, which was pregnant with rebellion, and to subvert their power, which had been synonymous with decay. For without the aid of this party, or a great portion of it, the loyalists could not accomplish this; much less could it ever be accomplished if this party should happen to unite with the French. A vast power, too, whether for good or for evil, and hitherto unknown in a colony, was thrown among them all to be scrambled for. We mean a power analogous to that of the ministry in England, and known by the name of a Responsible Government in Canada. This power, always held in England by the heads of great parties – by men of lofty intellects and great characters – by men who were literally invested with the moral worth, the intelligence, the rank, and the honour of millions – this mighty power was tossed up in the Canadas like a cap in a crowd, to fall upon the head of whomsoever it might chance. It mattered not whether it was a Frenchman, the dearest object of whose existence was the destruction of England's power, that gained the majority. The cap must be his. It mattered not whether it was a democrat, whose secret but highest aim was the annihilation of England's monarchy, that succeeded at the elections: the mantle of England's honour, and of upholding England's crown in America, must fall upon him. We should be sorry to propose the curtailment of a single privilege of a single Briton, in any part of the world where the flag of his country waves over him. In what we shall have to say hereafter as to the government of the colonies, we do not intend doing so. But what we mean to say of this vast power, which was thrown among the people to be scrambled for at this time in the Canadas, is, that what in England must have been, from the very nature of things, a guarantee for all orders in the state being preserved and protected under it, was in the Canadas, equally from the nature of things, precisely the reverse. No ministry in England could be formed without the nobility, the gentry, the wealth – all that owed its all to the preservation of the institutions of the country – being represented in it. In the Canadas a ministry could be – yes, from the very nature of things, a ministry must be – formed, where Frenchmen, who hated England – where democrats, who hated monarchy, must control the destinies of England's subjects – the existence of England's empire in the west. We would not be understood, therefore, as desiring to curtail a single privilege; but we would, nevertheless, keep edge-tools out of the hands of madmen and enemies. We would not remove the rope from the neck of another to put it round our own.

Extraordinary though it seem that human credulity could go so far – if the character of the parties, if the character even of the measures of the parties, in Upper Canada was understood – as to expect that the giving to the one which had opposed the government, as it were by nature, the power, by uniting with the French, of crushing its enemies for ever, that it would not do so; that it would not join with its old allies in dividing the spoils of prosperity, as it had already done in sharing the mortifications of defeat; that it would not join them, even for the purpose of having revenge, each of its own enemy in its own province; – yet such was the hope, such the infatuation of Lord Durham. He let a little stream of abstract right fall into a whole sea of French prejudices and democratic infatuations, and he expected that it would change the great face of the waters. And what has been the result? – that the little stream has been lost in the great sea; that, instead of its changing the sea, it has but added to its weight; that all the prejudices, all the infatuations are left; and the power that was expected to change them has been converted into tools for them to work with.

Up to the last election, the French had never fairly recovered their former influence, or rather had not the opportunity of fully exerting their powers in the elections. Up to the same period, the reform party, as they styled themselves in Upper Canada, had laboured under a similar disadvantage. The latter had suffered for the want of its leaders, three of whom were outlaws in the States, as well as from other causes. But at the last election – a fair one for all parties – the French recovered all their former power, and the Upper Canadian party all its former counties. The French, therefore, were making all the strides they could towards the domination that, according to Lord Durham, was pregnant with rebellion; the reform party had just the opportunity that he fondly wished for them, of checking the evil, and of establishing an enlightened and moderate British party between the two extremes. And what did they do? The measures and the facts must speak for themselves.

The following resolution, moved by Mr Lafontaine, attorney-general for Lower Canada, taken in the abstract, would seem harmless and fair enough: —

"Resolved, that this house do now resolve itself into a committee to take into consideration the necessity of establishing the amount of losses incurred by certain inhabitants of Lower Canada during the political troubles of 1837 and 1838, and of providing for the payment thereof."

But when the following commentary of items, intended to be paid under it, is added to it, the nature of the political troubles of 1837 and 1838, and the intention of the resolution, will be better understood: —

Items selected from the Report of the Commissioners appointed to ascertain the Amount of Rebellion Losses in Lower Canada, and their observations thereon: —

"No. 1109. Wolfred Nelson, Montreal. Property destroyed, £23,109, 19s. 5d.; but Dr Nelson deducts the amount of his liabilities (for which his creditors have claimed, or may claim) and claims the balance only, say £12,379, 12s. 7d.

1089. Pierre Beauchere, St Ours. £69, 10s., quartering insurgents under the command of 'General Mathiot,' and £131, 6s. 3d. for imprisonment five months and nine days.

1107. Jos. Guimond, Chateauguay, conviction recorded. The wife claims £8, 10s. for the purchase of the confiscated estate bought by her.

P. N. Pacaud, Three Rivers. Claims £400 for false imprisonment, and £25 for expenses there, and £500 for absence from the Province, to avoid arrest, &c.

27. J. Dorion, M.D., St Ours. Claims £300 as due from Dr Nelson's estate; £175 for three months' imprisonment, &c.

32. Theophile Robert, Montreal. Conviction recorded. Claims £215 for loss of time whilst in exile.

34. Cyrille Beaudriault, Sault au Recollet. Claims £268, 16s. for interest, and £200 profit, on the goods destroyed and pillaged.

77. Church of St Cyprien, Napierville. The sum of £327, 12s. 6d. was taken from the treasury of the Church, forcibly, by Dr Cote, against the will and remonstrance of the churchwardens.

398. Jos. Dumouchel, Ste. Martine. Conviction recorded. Claims £1878, 13s. 9d., including £525 for compensation for seven years' imprisonment and exile.

564. Etienne Langlois, Blairfindie. Conviction recorded. Claims £345 for loss of time while in exile, and £34 passage from Sidney to Canada.

565. Louis Pinsonneau, St Remi. Conviction recorded. Claims £2275, 10s. 9d., including £855, 15s. for imprisonment and exile.

634. David Blanchette, St Cyprien. Conviction recorded. Claims £520, 16s. 8d. for imprisonment and exile.

654. Pierre Lavois, St Cyprien. Conviction recorded. Claims £300 for being exiled six years, at £50 per annum.

656. Louis Laurelin, St Cyprien, claims £50 for imprisonment and expenses, having been acquitted.

789. Luc H. Masson, St Benoit, claims £450 for the interruption of his business during three years.

Euph. Lamard, St Réme. Conviction recorded. Claims £519, including £150, six years' rent of property destroyed.

838. Archelaus Welch, West Farnham, claims £80, 7s. 6d. loss on sale of timber, on account of the troubles in 1837.

850. Théodore Béchard, Blairfrudie. Conviction recorded. Claims £670, 6s. 8d., value of his estate confiscated and purchased by his wife.

931. Edouard Major, Ste. Scholastique, claims £921, 4s. 7d., including £250 for interest, and £150 for the loss of profit, in discontinuing business.

992. Léandre Ducharme, Montreal. Conviction recorded. Claims for imprisonment and transportation, living in exile, and passage home, £262, 5s.

1327. B. Viger, Boucherville, claims £2000. Exile to Bermuda.

1651. C. Baiseune, St Benoit, claims £150 for three years' exclusion from his profession as a notary, owing to the loss of his books, when prepared to pass his examination as notary.

1812. J. B. Archambeault, and 216 others, of St Eustache, claim £489, 13s. for guns taken and not returned to the owners.

1916. Ninety Persons of St Eustache, for guns taken and not returned, £205, 0s. 10d.

1951. F. Dionne, St Cesaire, claims £12 per annum, or £200 for his brother, who lost his senses from imprisonment and ill usage.

2215. H. D'Eschambault, Boucherville, claims the sum of £12,000, as partner of Dr Nelson, for the creditors of the joint estate; but as the separate creditors have filed, or will file, their separate claims, this claim is not inserted. Dr Nelson also deducted this amount from his claim, as still due to the creditors of the firm.

2174. L. Perrault, Montreal, claims £500, absence in the United States, and £1105, loss of business."

That this flagitious calendar of charges was deliberately intended to be paid by her Majesty's Canadian ministry, it may probably be more satisfactory to the reader to establish by the testimony of that ministry itself, than by any statements of our own.