orm gradually subside. A less
dangerous evidence of discontent was a manifesto signed by leading
citizens of Montreal advocating annexation to the United States, not
only to relieve commercial depression, but "to settle the race
question forever, by bringing to bear on the French-Canadians the
powerful assimilating forces of the republic." The signers of this
document were leniently dealt with; but those among them who
afterwards took a prominent part in politics, were not permitted to
forget their error. Elgin was of opinion that there was ground for
discontent on commercial grounds, and he advocated the removal of
imperial restriction on navigation, and the establishment of
reciprocity between the United States and the British North American
provinces. The annexation movement was confined chiefly to Montreal.
In Upper Canada an association called the British American League was
formed, and a convention held at Kingston in 1849. The familiar topics
of commercial depression and French domination were discussed; some
violent language was used, but the remedies proposed were sane
enough; they were protection, retrenchment, and the union of the
British provinces. Union, it was said, would put an end to French
domination, and would give Canada better access to the sea and
increased commerce. The British American League figures in the old,
and not very profitable, controversy as to the share of credit to be
allotted to each political party for the work of confederation. It is
part of the Conservative case. But the platform was abandoned for the
time, and confederation remained in the realm of speculation rather
than of action.

CHAPTER IV

DISSENSION AMONG REFORMERS

Within the limits of one parliament, less than four years, the
Baldwin-Lafontaine government achieved a large amount of useful work,
including the establishment of cheap and uniform postage, the
reforming of the courts of law, the remodelling of the municipal
system, the establishment of the University of Toronto on a
non-sectarian basis, and the inauguration of a policy by which the
province was covered with a network of railways. With such a record,
the government hardly seemed to be open to a charge of lack of energy
and progressiveness, but it was a time when radicalism was in the air.
It may be more than a coincidence that Chartism in England and a
revolution in France were followed by radical movements in both
Canadas.

The counterpart to th