t that the intention to
establish and endow the Church of England was thoroughly in accord
with the ideas of colonial government prevailing from the conquest to
the end of the eighteenth century. In the instructions to Murray and
other early governors there are constant injunctions for the support
of a Protestant clergy and Protestant schools, "to the end that the
Church of England may be established both in principles and
practice."[3] Governor Simcoe, we are told, attached much importance
to "every establishment of Church and State that upholds a distinction
of ranks and lessens the undue weight of the democratic influence."
"The episcopal system was interwoven and connected with the
monarchical foundations of our government."[4] In pursuance of this
idea, which was also that of the ruling class in Canada, the country
was to be made as much unlike the United States as possible by the
intrenchment of class and ecclesiastical privileges, and this was the
policy pursued up to the time that responsible government was
obtained. Those outside the dominant caste, in religion as in
politics, were branded as rebels, annexationists, Yankees,
republicans. And as this dominant caste, until the arrival of Lord
Elgin, had the ear of the authorities at home, it is altogether likely
that the Act of 1791 was framed in accordance with their views.

The law was unjust, improvident, and altogether unsuited to the
circumstances of the colony. Lord Durham estimated that the members
and adherents of the Church of England, allowing its largest claim,
were not more than one-third, probably not more than one-fourth, of
the population of Upper Canada. Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman
Catholics, each claimed a larger membership. He declared that the
sanction given to the exclusive claims of the Church of England by Sir
John Colborne's establishment of fifty-seven rectories, was, in the
opinion of many persons, the chief pre-disposing cause of the
rebellion, and it was an abiding and unabated cause of discontent.[5]

Not only was the spirit of the colony opposed to the establishment and
domination of any Church, but settlement was retarded and the
hardships of the settler increased by the locking up of enormous
tracts of land. In addition to the clergy reserves, grants were made
to officials, to militia men, to the children of United Empire
Loyalists and others, in the hope that these persons would settle on
the land. Many of these fell int