cool-headed enough to
refuse to sign the manifesto, admitted that "our fellows lost their
heads"; but he cannot be allowed to claim credit for having advocated
the formation of another organization, the British-American League, as
a safety-valve for Tory feeling.[43] Unfortunately for his accuracy,
the League was formed in the spring of 1849; it held its first
convention in July; and the manifesto did not appear till late autumn.
Still, it is true that the meetings of the League provided some
occupation for minds which, in their irritable condition, might have
done more foolish things, and Mr. Holland MacDonald described the
feelings of the wiser of his fellow-leaguers when he said at Kingston:
"I maintain that there is not an individual in this Assembly, at this
moment, prepared to go for annexation, although some may be suspected
of having leanings that way."[44] It was a violent but passing fit of
petulance which for the moment obscured Tory loyalty. When it had
ended, chiefly because Elgin acted not only with prudence, but with
great insight, in pressing for a reciprocity treaty with the United
States, the British American {337} League and the Annexation Manifesto
vanished into the limbo of broken causes and political indiscretions.

The truth was that every great respectable section of the Canadian
people was almost wholly sound in its allegiance. Regarded even
racially, it is hard to find any important group which was not
substantially loyal. The Celtic and Gallic sections of the populace
might have been expected to furnish recruits for annexation; and
disaffection undoubtedly existed among the Canadian Irish. Yet Elgin
was much more troubled over possible Irish disaffection in 1848 than he
was in 1849; the Orange societies round Toronto seem to have refused to
follow their fellow Tories into an alliance with annexationists; and,
as has been already seen, D'Arcy M'Gee was able, in 1866, to speak of
the Irish community as wholly loyal.

The great mass of the French-Canadians stood by the governor and
Britain. Whatever influence the French priesthood possessed was
exerted on the side of the connection; from Durham to Monck there is
unanimity concerning the consistent loyalty of the Catholic Church in
Canada. Apart from the church, the French-Canadians, when once their
just rights had been conceded, {338} furnished a stable, conservative,
and loyal body of citizens. Doubtless they had their points of
dive