s more practicable than force. He was
determined to be conciliatory, to throw aside unjust suspicions, to
listen to no tales from interested parties, to redress such grievances
as existed, and to create no new causes of discontent if he could avoid
it. He was made acquainted with all the steps that had been taken by
his predecessor, and he entered on the administration of the government
of Lower Canada, with a determination to pursue a very opposite policy.
A few weeks after his assumption of office he remodelled, or rather
recommended to the Imperial ministry, the expediency of remodelling the
Executive Council. He caused seven new members to be added to it, and
he further offended the officers of the principalities or departments,
by preferring to places of trust and emolument, some of the demagogues
persecuted by Sir James Craig. Sir George Prevost met the parliament on
the 21st of February, 1812. He congratulated the country on the
brilliant achievements of Wellington, in the deliverance of Portugal
and the rescue of Spain from France. Notwithstanding the changes, so
astonishing, which marked the age, the inhabitants of Canada had
witnessed but as remote spectators the awful scenes which had desolated
Europe. While Britain, built by nature against the contagious breath of
war, had had her political existence involved in the fate of
neighboring nations, Canada had hitherto viewed without alarm a distant
storm. The storm was now approaching her. The mutterings of the thunder
were already within hearing. All was gloomy, still, and lurid. It was
necessary to be vigilant. To preserve the province from the dangers of
invasion it would be necessary to renew those Acts which experience had
proved essential for the preservation of His Majesty's government, and
to hold the militia in readiness to repel aggression. The renewal of
the "Preservation Acts," was not that which the Assembly very much
desired. They had had enough of such "Preservation" of government Acts
already. They would much rather have been preserved from them than be
preserved with them. On the principle of self preservation, the
Assembly would rather be excused from continuing any such Act as that
which had been so abused as to have afforded a licence for the
imprisonment of three members of the Assembly, on vague charges, which
the ingenuity of the public prosecutor could not reduce to particulars.
Had it not been from a conviction of the goodness of the new G