The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
after his return to England in 1766, affords indisputable evidence that
the alleged grievances of the French Canadians were not wholly
imaginary. The ex-Governor cannot be suspected of any undue prejudice in
favour of the native population. He describes the British colonists of
the Province as being, with a few exceptions, the most immoral
collection of men he had ever known. Most of them, he alleged, had been
followers of the army, of mean education, or soldiers disbanded at the
reduction of the troops, who had their fortunes to make, and who were
not very solicitous as to how that end was accomplished. They were
represented as persons little calculated to conciliate the natives, or
to increase the respect of the latter for British laws. The officials
sent out from the mother country to conduct the public service are
described as venal, mercenary, and ignorant. "The Judge fixed upon to
conciliate the minds of 75,000 foreigners to the laws and government of
Great Britain," says the report, "was taken from a jail." Both the Judge
and the Attorney-General were unacquainted with the Civil Law and with
the French language. The chief offices of state were filled by men
equally ignorant, who had bought their situations for a price. Such a
state of things was little calculated to endear British rule to the
French Canadians. The picture is a dark one, but hardly darker than the
facts justified. And such was the posture of affairs when Guy Carleton
succeeded to office as Murray's successor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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