When the American colonies broke out in revolution in 1775, the Continental Congress thought to induce the French Canadians to join hands with them. But the conciliatory policy of the successive governors Murray and Carleton, and the concessions granted by the Quebec Act of the year before, had borne {3} fruit; and when the American leaders Arnold and Montgomery invaded Canada, the great majority of the habitants remained at least passively loyal. A few hundred of them may have joined the invaders, but a much larger number enlisted under Carleton. The clergy, the seigneurs, and the professional classes--lawyers and physicians and notaries--remained firm in their allegiance to Great Britain; while the mass of the people resisted the eloquent appeals of Congress, represented by its emissaries Franklin, Chase, and Carroll, and even those of the distinguished Frenchmen, Lafayette and Count d'Estaing, who strongly urged them to join the rebels. Nor should it be forgotten that at the siege of Quebec by Arnold the Canadian officers Colonel Dupre and Captains Dambourges, Dumas, and Marcoux, with many others, were among Carleton's most trusted and efficient aides in driving back the invading Americans. True, in 1781, Sir Frederick Haldimand, then governor of Canada, wrote that although the clergy had been firmly loyal in 1775 and had exerted their powerful influence in favour of Great Britain, they had since then changed their opinions and were no longer to be relied upon. But it must be {4} borne in mind that Haldimand ruled the province in the manner of a soldier. His high-handed orders caused dissatisfaction, which he probably mistook for a want of loyalty among the clergy. No more devoted subject of Great Britain lived at the time in Lower Canada than Mgr Briand, the bishop of Quebec; and the priests shaped their conduct after that of their superior. At any rate, the danger which Haldimand feared did not take form; and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 made it more unlikely than ever. The French Revolution profoundly affected the attitude of the French Canadians toward France. Canada was the child of the _ancien regime_. Within her borders the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau had found no shelter. Canada had nothing in common with the anti-clerical and republican tendencies of the Revolution. That movement created a gap between France and Canada which has not been bridged to this day. In the Napoleonic wars the sympathies of Canada were almost wholly with Great Britain. When news arrived of the defeat of the French fleet at Trafalgar, a _Te Deum_ was sung in the Catholic cathedral at Quebec; and, in a sermon {5} preached on that occasion, a future bishop of the French-Canadian Church enunciated the principle that 'all events which tend to broaden the gap separating us from France should be welcome.'