Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the CanadasLizars, Robina
History
Humours of '37, Grave, Gay and Grim: Rebellion Times in the Canadas
Lizars, Robina
Canada -- History -- Rebellion, 1837-1838
Sir James now held the Governor responsible for the existing state
of affairs; he accused the Colonial Minister of appealing to the
sympathies of the House in favour of British interests only. Were the
twenty thousand British to be privileged at the expense of the four
hundred thousand French? Were the former to be cared for exclusively,
their religious sympathies so fostered as to bring about Protestant
domination? Again he draws a parallel between what Ireland was and what
Canada might become, and in the name of heaven, his eloquence aided by
large grey melancholy eyes, adjured them solemnly that such a scourge
fall not a second time upon any land under Britain’s sway. “Above all,
let not the French-Canadians suppose for a moment that their rights or
aspirations are less cared for by us than those of their fellow-adult
colonists of our own blood.... Finally, I look upon a distinction in
the treatment of races and the division of a population into distinct
classes as most perilous in every way and at all times.”
Then Melbourne rose to reply that nothing was as unsafe as analogy,
particularly historical analogy.
And Lord Aylmer thought, after an extensive tour of the French
province, giving all these questions earnest consideration, that the
best way to settle the question was to bring in thousands of the Irish
to the colony; the Eastern Townships he estimated could take five
hundred thousand, and the valley of the Ottawa one hundred thousand.
These painstaking, conscientious governors generally left England laden
with minute instructions, and came on the scene with exact directions
as to their action. The Canadians, first credulous, afterwards wary and
lastly suspicious, shrewdly guessed that many of the “_impromptus_”
were in the Governor’s pocket; they also knew that Lord Glenelg was a
Reformer in London and a Conservative in Quebec. They believed that
orders publicly given carried with them secret advice not to have
them enforced, as they were meant “only to blarney the Radicals.” And
Papineau had told them that the same hand which wrote the King’s speech
penned the answer to it. When the Irish emigrant did come he brought
the cholera with him, and Jean cried out again that legislation and
emigration only meant fresh trouble.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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