d mostly of Americanized
camp-following traders, who, having come to fish in
troubled waters, naturally wanted the laws made to suit
poachers. The British garrison, the governing officials,
and the very few other English-speaking people of a more
enlightened class all looked down on the rancorous
minority. The whole question resolved itself into this:
should Canada be handed over to the licensed exploitation
of a few hundred low-class camp-followers, who had done
nothing to win her for the British Empire, who were
despised by those who had, and who promised to be a
dangerous thorn in the side of the new colony?

What this ridiculous minority of grab-alls really wanted
was not a parliament but a rump. Many a representative
assembly has ended in a rump, The grab-alls wished to
begin with one and stop there. It might be supposed that
such pretensions would defeat themselves. But there was
a twofold difficulty in the way of getting the truth
understood by the English-speaking public on both sides
of the Atlantic. In the first place, the French Canadians
were practically dumb to the outside world. In the second,
the vociferous rumpites had the ear of some English and
more American commercial people who were not anxious to
understand; while the great mass of the general public
were inclined to think, if they ever thought at all, that
parliamentary government must mean more liberty for every
one concerned.

A singularly apt commentary on the pretensions of the
camp-followers is supplied by the famous, or infamous,
'Presentment of the Grand Jury of Quebec' in October
1764. The moving spirits of this precious jury were
aspirants to membership in the strictly exclusive, rumpish
little parliament of their own seeking. The signatures
of the French-Canadian members were obtained by fraud,
as was subsequently proved by a sworn official protestation.
The first presentment tells its own tale, as it refers
to the only courts in which French-Canadian lawyers were
allowed to plead. 'The great number of inferior Courts
are tiresome, litigious, and expensive to this poor
Colony.' Then came a hit at the previous military
rule--'That Decrees of the military Courts may be amended
[after having been confirmed by legal ordinance] by
allowing Appeals if the matter decided exceed Ten Pounds,'
which would put it out of the reach of the 'inferior
Courts' and into the clutches of 'the King's Old Subjects.'
But the gist of it all was contain