and French, but a conflict of the two
races. He says:--

"I expected to find a contest between a government and a people: I found
two nations warring in the bosom of a single state: I found a struggle,
not of principles, but of races; and I perceived that it would be idle
to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could first
succeed in terminating a deadly animosity that now separates the
inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and
English."

But why should this conflict between the two races have taken place?
Firstly, because the French, by the injudicious generosity of our
Government in allowing them to retain their language in public affairs,
with all their customs and usages, were allowed to remain a French
colony, instead of amalgamating them with the English, as might have
been done. Subsequently, because the interests of the English colonists
have been sacrificed to the French, who, nevertheless, became
disaffected, and would have thrown off the English dominion. Lord
Durham very correctly adds:--

"Such is the lamentable and hazardous state of things produced by the
conflict of races which has so long divided the province of Lower
Canada, and which has assumed the formidable and irreconcilable
character which I have depicted. In describing the nature of this
conflict, I have specified the causes in which it originated; and though
I have mentioned the conduct and constitution of the colonial
government, as modifying the character of the struggle, I have not
attributed to political causes a state of things which would, I believe,
tinder any political institutions have resulted from the very
composition of society. A jealousy between two races, so long
habituated to regard each other with hereditary enmity, and so differing
in habits, in language, and in laws, would have been inevitable under
any form of government. That liberal institutions and prudent policy
might have changed the character of the struggle, I have no doubt; but
they could not have prevented it; they could only have softened its
character, and brought it more speedily to a more decisive and peaceful
conclusion. Unhappily, however, the system of government pursued in
Lower Canada has been based on the policy of perpetuating that very
separation of the races, and encouraging these very notions of
conflicting nationalities which it ought to have been the first and
chief care of Government to chec