ubsisting
between the members of this body, he would have found that there had
been a good many intermarriages between them, and that the pecuniary
interests which bound them together had been welded by the most powerful
of social bonds.[48] The designation "Family Compact," however, did not
owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was
borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty signed at
Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on behalf of
France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guarantee each
other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and land, and to
consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. This treaty, being
contracted between the two branches of the House of Bourbon, is known to
history as the Family Compact Treaty, and the name was adopted in the
Canadas, as well as in the Maritime Provinces, to designate the
combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the
community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect,
if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause
against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy
their influence.

The members of the Family Compact, with very few exceptions, were
members of the Church of England, which, owing to the before-mentioned
provisions in the Constitutional Act, they regarded as the State Church
of Upper Canada, established by law, and entitled to the special
veneration of the inhabitants. They accounted all persons as members of
the Church of England who were not actual members of some other
religious body, and in enumerating the people for statistical purposes
they sometimes even went so far as to include the infant children of
Dissenters as Episcopalians. They sought to defend the alleged
establishment of a State Church in Canada by arguments which it is
astonishing to think that men of education and intelligence should ever
have stooped to employ. "There should be in every Christian country an
established religion," said Dr. Strachan, in his evidence before the
Select Committee on Grievances, in 1835, "otherwise it is not a
Christian but an infidel country."[49] According to their theory, one of
the principal ends of the Government of Upper Canada was the propagation
of religious truth as set forth in the doctrines of the Church of
England. True, the arguments on the subject were not so well understood
then as now. Mr