e, wrote Carleton,
who felt all the old troubles of 1775 coming back in a
greatly aggravated form. He lost no time in vain regrets,
however, but got a militia bill through parliament,
improved the defences of Quebec, and issued a proclamation
enjoining all good subjects to find out, report, and
seize every sedition-monger they could lay their hands
on. An attempt to embody two thousand militiamen by ballot
was a dead failure. The few English-speaking militiamen
required came forward 'with alacrity.' The habitants hung
back or broke into riotous mobs. The ordinary habitant
could hardly be blamed. He saw little difference between
one kind of English-speaking people and another. So he
naturally thought it best to be on the side of the
prospective winners, especially when they persuaded him
that he would get back everything taken from him by 'the
infamous Quebec Act.' There really was no way whatever
of getting him to see the truth under these circumstances.
The mere fact that his condition had improved so much
under British rule made him all the readier to cry for
the Franco-American moon. Things presently went from bad
to worse. A glowing, bombastic address from 'The Free
French to their Canadian Brothers' (who of course were
'slaves') was even read out at more than one church door.
Then the Quebec Assembly unanimously passed an Alien Act
in May 1794, and suspected characters began to find that
two could play at the game. This stringent act was not
passed a day too soon. By its provisions the Habeas Corpus
Act could be suspended or suppressed and the strongest
measures taken against sedition in every form. Monk, the
attorney-general, reported that 'It is astonishing to
find the same savagery exhibited here as in France.' The
habitants and lower class of townsfolk had beers well
worked up 'to follow France and the United States by
destroying a throne which was the seat of hypocrisy,
imposture, despotism, greed, cruelty' and all the other
deadly sins. The first step was to be the assassination
of all obnoxious officials and leading British patriots
the minute the promised invasion began to prove successful.

No war came. And, as we have seen already, Carleton's
last year, 1796, was more peaceful than his first. But
even then the external dangers made the governor-general's
post a very trying one, especially when internal troubles
were equally rife. Thus Carleton never enjoyed a single
day without its anxious moments