FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149  
150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   >>   >|  
lared, while avowing such distrust, that no officer of the Crown was to be elected into the House. The English in general and their own seigneurs were entirely proscribed. Except in the boroughs or cities these classes had no chance of election. A paper called the _Canadien_, had been published, and industriously circulated in the country, for three or four years, to degrade and vilify the officers of government, under the title of _gens en place_; and to bring the government itself into contempt, by alluding to the Governor as a _ministere_, open to their animadversions. Nothing calculated to mislead the people had been omitted in this vile print. The various circumstances that brought about the abdication of James the Second, had been pointed out, with allusions, as applicable to the government here. "_La nation Canadienne_," was their constant theme. Religious prejudices, jealousy, and extreme ignorance, forbade the expectation of any improvement in the Assembly. Questions before the Houses were always viewed as affecting or otherwise some temporal right of their clergy, or having some remote tendency to promote the establishment of the Protestant interest. How the Act for the establishment of Public Schools had passed had always been matter of surprise to him. There was much jealousy at the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were settled by American loyalists. The country was beginning to look up to the members of the Assembly as the governors of the country. Formerly the cry was--"_La Chambre_ to the devil!" He thought that the only remedy for the state of things which he had described was to deprive the province of its constitution, as the provincialists termed their charter. The people were unfitted for liberty. And here are the Governor's reasons for saying that a people were incapable of free institutions. "That spirit of independence, that total insubordination among them, that freedom of conversation, by which they communicate their ideas of government, as they imbibe them from their leaders, all which have increased wonderfully within these five or six years, owe their origin entirely to the House of Assembly and to the intrigues incident to elections. They were never thought of before." One really wonders that even a general officer could have ventured upon sending to England such trash, a country which had produced a Charles Fox, who took at the passing of the Separation Act so opposite a view of human
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149  
150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
country
 

government

 

Assembly

 

people

 

establishment

 
thought
 
jealousy
 

Governor

 
officer
 

general


deprive

 

progress

 
province
 

remedy

 
things
 

constitution

 
unfitted
 
liberty
 

provincialists

 

termed


charter

 

Eastern

 

passing

 

members

 

governors

 

beginning

 

American

 

opposite

 

loyalists

 

Formerly


Townships

 
Separation
 

Chambre

 

settled

 

England

 
origin
 

increased

 
wonderfully
 

sending

 
intrigues

wonders
 

ventured

 
incident
 
elections
 

leaders

 

spirit

 
independence
 

insubordination

 
institutions
 

reasons