The gentry and clergy, he reported, had shown zeal and loyalty in the King’s service, but they had lost much of their influence over the people, and the Indians had been as backward as the peasantry in rallying to the defence of Canada. The crisis had come, and Carleton’s warnings of past years had been amply justified. Absence of military preparations, and neglect to take measures to attach the Canadians to the British Crown had resulted in a situation full of danger, a province open to invasion, a government without material for defence, and a confused and half-hearted people. Even Carleton’s forecast had not been wholly accurate. He seems to have over-rated the good effects of passing the Quebec Act, and not to have fully realized the strength of class feeling in Canada, or the extent to which the peasantry, under the influence of the disloyal British minority and of emissaries from the revolting colonies, had emancipated themselves from the control of the seigniors and the gentry. It was even suggested that the lower orders in the province, instead of being grateful for the Quebec Act, regarded it with suspicion and dislike, as intended to restore a feudal authority which they had repudiated, and such no doubt would have been the doctrine taught by the British malcontents inside and outside the province. ‘What will be your lordship’s astonishment,’ wrote Hey, the Chief Justice of Canada, to the Lord Chancellor, towards the end of the following August,[81] ‘when I tell you that an Act passed for the express purpose of gratifying the Canadians, and which was supposed to comprehend all that they either wished or wanted, is become the first object of their discontent and dislike. English officers to command them in time of war, and English laws to govern them in time of peace, is the general wish. The former they know to be impossible (at least at present), and by the latter, if I understand them right, they mean no laws and no government whatsoever. In the meantime, it may be truly said that General Carleton has taken an ill measure of the influence of the seigniors and clergy over the lower order of people.’ If Carleton had misjudged the feelings of the Canadians, the Chief Justice frankly admitted that he himself had been fully as much deceived. [Sidenote: Mistakes of the Home Government.]