Upper Canada had its own special troubles. A military spirit had gone abroad among the people. When the lavish expenditure of the war ceased, and the colonists were constrained to return in poverty to their prosaic, everyday occupations, restlessness and discontent spread over the land. [Sidenote: 1817 A.D.] When the legislative bodies met, the Assembly, instead of applying itself to its proper business, proceeded angrily to inquire into the condition of the province. The Governor would permit no such investigation, and abruptly dismissed the House. It was complained that a small group of influential persons--named with abhorrence the Family Compact--monopolized all positions of trust and power, and ruled the province despotically. The Government connived at the shutting up of large masses of land, of which speculators had been allowed improperly to possess themselves. Emigration from the United States into Canada was forbidden, to the injury of the colony, lest the political opinions of the colonists should be tainted by association with republicans. But the ecclesiastical grievance of Upper Canada surpassed all others in its power to implant mutual hatred in the minds of the people. An Act passed many years ago (1791) had set apart one-seventh of all lands granted by Government, “for the support of a Protestant clergy.” The Church of England set up the monstrous claim that there were no Protestant clergymen but hers. The Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists claimed an equal right to the appellation and to a share in the inheritance. The Roman Catholics proposed that the “Clergy Reserves,” now extending to three million acres, should be sold, and the proceeds applied in the interests of religion and education. No question could have been imagined more amply fitted to break up the colony into discordant factions. In actual fact the question of the Clergy Reserves was for upwards of half a century a perennial source of bitter sectarian strife. [Sidenote: 1817 A.D.] While the Canadians were thus dissatisfied with the political arrangements under which they lived, there arrived among them one Robert Gourlay, an energetic, restless, erratic Scotchman, inspired by an intense hatred to despotism, and a passionate intolerance of abuses. Mr. Gourlay began at once to investigate the causes which retarded the progress of the colony. He found many evils which were distinctly traceable to the corruption of the governing power, and these he mercilessly exposed. The Government replied by a prosecution for libel, and succeeded after a time in shutting up their assailant in prison, and ultimately sending him from the country. These arbitrary proceedings greatly incensed the people, and deepened the prevailing discord.