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of which must be to kindle a blaze of actual war along the whole line of frontier between the two countries, with the most lamentable and irreparable consequences of bloodshed and disaster, even though a national declaration of general war might not take place on either side.

And what was the actual state of things, in which the Government has found itself compelled to undertake the unpleasing and unpopular discharge of this duty? It was known that a very extensive secret organization was in progress along our line of frontier from Vermont to Michigan, which had invoked the aid of a means especially odious to American ideas, and hostile to the spirit of American institutions-that of secret association, with illegal and anti-national objects. The full extent of this organization cannot, from its secret nature, be known; we have, however, received the assurance from a source entitled to high credit, that it comprised not less than ninety thousand young men-of whom it is to be presumed that the rash and thoughtless adventurers of Prescott were a specimen-enrolled and pledged to this service, when the proper hour and opportunity should arrive. Allowing for a very great exaggeration in this statement, there can be no doubt either of the magnitude or of the imminence of the danger which called for the prompt and energetic action of the Government; and every disinterested and reflecting mind, considering the matter properly in this point of view, must see in it a sufficient justification for the decisive course adopted by it-without having recourse to absurd presumptions, of a pusillanimous dread of the power of England, or a mean subserviency to her influence; or to the still more absurd one, of an undemocratic sympathy with the cause of authority against that of freedom and self-government.

The following extract from the President's Message (which has met with the singular ill fortune of receiving about an equal measure of abuse from the two antipodes, of Mackenzie's Gazette and the Montreal Herald) places in as clear a light as any commentary we could give, the broad distinction between that kind of interference by American citizens which we have reprobated, and the indulgence and free expression, in proper manner, of that sympathy in a kindred cause which cannot but be deeply and extensively felt in a Republic founded on rebellion against a similar colonial dominion:

"By no country or persons have these invaluable principles of international lawprinciples, the strict observance of which is so indispensable to the preservation of social order in the world-been more earnestly cherished or sacredly respected than by those great and good men who first declared, and finally established, the independence of our country. They promulgated and maintained them at an early and critical period in our history; they were subsequently embodied in legislative enactments of a highly penal character, the faithful enforcement of which has hitherto been, and will, I trust, always continue to be, regarded as a duty inseparably associated with the maintainance of our national honor. That the people of the United

States should feel an interest in the spread of political institutions as free as they regard their own to be, is natural; nor can a sincere solicitude for the success of all those who are, at any time, in good faith struggling for their acquisition, be imputed to our citizens as a crime. With the entire freedom of opinion, and an undisguised expression thereof, on their part, the Government has neither the right, nor, I trust, the disposition to interfere. But whether the interest or the honor of the United States requires, that they should be made a party to any such struggle, and, by inevitable consequence, to the war which is waged in its support, is a question which, by our Constitution, is wisely left to Congress alone to decide.”

Thus much for the first topic of which we proposed to give our views, the duties of our Government and people in relation to this mast unhappy contest, of which we fear that we have as yet witnessed but the opening scenes, in the Canadas. We trust that we have made ourselves distinctly understood, in marking out the precise ground on which we place ourselves, and--with all the decided sentiments in favor of the ultimate objects of the popular party in the contest, which are already sufficiently familiar to our readerssustain the strong measures deemed necessary by our Government to suppress the illegal and criminal interference in it, of our own citizens. Those measures appear to meet with a very general approval from both political parties; and we cannot doubt that many of those whose personal interests or excited feelings lead them now to place upon them the construction we have here attempted to repel, will themselves, on the "sober second-thought," of which we confess that the benefit has not in this instance been lost on ourselves, perceive their propriety, and the injustice of their own first judgment.

With respect to the question as between the British Government and the Canadian malcontents, considering it in an abstract and speculative point of view, nothing has occurred to change, but much, rather, to confirm the opinions and sentiments freely expressed in our former Article. If it was then opinion, it has now become certainty, that the English colonial ascendency cannot be much longer maintained. The breach is plainly much wider now than it was then. Independently of the events that have occurred to widen it, the total failure of Lord Durham's mission, and the manner and circumstances of that failure, have placed beyond rational question, as it seems to us, the impossibility of effecting any compromise between the two parties that shall restore tranquillity and satisfaction, short of a full concession of the demands of the Canadians. Their principal demand-into which every other may be considered to resolve itself-is for an elective Upper House, and nothing short of that point ever will or can content them; though we confess that on the English side that point would be the concession of every thing. Popular parties, in the pursuit of such objects, never go backward. It is absurd to suppose that in this country and age government can be long maintained on any other basis

than that of the interest and free consent of the governed mass; and the longer the attitude is maintained by the governing power, of refusing a reform claimed by the majority, the direct and sole effect of which must be to enable the mass to govern themselves according to their own views of their own interests, the deeper must become the resentment, and the stronger the determination, of the latter. A community may sometimes be kept for any indefinite period, in a state of passive content with an extraneous governing power, under the institutions bequeathed to it from age to age; and ideas of liberty and self-government may not penetrate the dull depth and breadth of the inert mass, content with their lot, absorbed in their daily industry, and spell-bound by the prejudices and influences of the education of generations, but when such ideas have once thus penetrated, it is vain to dream that they can ever be either dislodged or stifled. The human breast is too congenial a soil for such seed, to admit of their ever being eradicated. On the contrary, they must grow, and every year must only strike deeper their roots, and mature the fruits which it is their nature to bring forth. How, then, in the present instance, when the popular demand is for the privilege of self-government by elective legislation-when the truth has gone abroad through the earth, of the sovereignty of the people-and when the vicinity of such institutions as those of our Union must serve as a perpetual model and incentive-how can the British Government cherish the absurd delusion, of being ever able to appease the agitation once thus awakened, by any thing short of the unreserved concession of such a demand? What can such a refusal imply there being no natural aristocratic order in the country to be represented in the legislature--but a hostile and antagonist interest to that of the mass? And how can the peaceful acquiescence of the latter be ever expected in the ascendency of such an interest, when thus once made sensible to them?

This view of the matter is quite independent of the question of the nature and extent of the actual practical grievances by which the people may have felt themselves oppressed. The inference. would be equally true had the operation of this minority governing power been of the most beneficent and "paternal" character conceivable. It is not our object here to go into this question to any extent. It could not affect in the least the view which every reflecting democrat and sincere American must take of such a contest between the causes of reform and conservatism. It is better for the majority of a people to govern itself badly for a time-thus serving an apprenticeship of experience to the art of self-government than to continue in contented submission under the arbitrary government of any extraneous power, whether of a foreign country or of a minority faction among themselves. In such a case their content would be the most unhappy symptom of their state; and

their very discontent, with all the disorder and evil springing out of it, is the best prima-facie evidence of their present fitness for freedom. But there can be no doubt that their grievances have been many, long protracted, and irritating. Take for example, in Lower Canada-the vast disproportion between the relative numbers of the two parties and the shares to which they are respectively admitted in the administration of the executive and judicial functions -the numberless instances which the Canadians specify (correctly or not, at least sincerely) of corrupt mal-administration of justice, to their grievous oppression and wrong-the long parliamentary struggle which they waged to procure even a fair tribunal for the impeachment of judges, before they extended their demand to their present principal one, of an elective legislative council-the many measures which they enumerate, for the improvement and benefit of the colonies, which have been frustrated by the legislative incubus of the Council-the denial to their House of Representatives, by the British parliament, of the great popular privilege of stopping the supplies, with the seizure and disposal of the revenues of the Province, and the abrogation of the constitution they had supposed solemnly guaranteed, carrying with it the virtual declaration that they possess no other political rights or political existence, than an absolute ultimate dependence on the will and pleasure of Parliament, here are surely examples enough, and we might allude to others, but have no desire to enlarge upon this topic. In the nature of things, in a country situated as Canada, a minority foreign ascendency, over the mass of a conquered people, must operate oppressively, and must in the course of time generate inappeasable discontents. And if this antagonist relation may have had its origin in the difference of races and languages, and in the relative attitudes of conquerors and conquered, yet in the parliamentary and civil struggles that must ensue between the two, the subject mass must have on their side all the liberal principles of popular rights, perpetually working upwards against the odious superincumbent pressure of authority sustained by a spirit of despotism and the force of the bayonet. The effect of this must be to extend the issue from one of races and languages to one of principles; and to gain over to the popular side a considerable proportion of the emigrant population as it flows in from the mother-country itself. And that such has been precisely the effect in Canada, is proved by the fact, that in the representation of the two parties in the House of Assembly, a majority even of the delegates from those districts inhabited entirely by British and American colonists, and where the English language is alone to be heard, has been found no less. steadfast and zealous on the popular side, than the representatives from the districts exclusively French. Another evidence of the same fact is, that their delegates have been not unfrequently chosen VOL. V. NO. XIII.—JANUARY, 1839. B

from the French districts without reference to race, English candidates often presenting themselves to French constituencies, and, when the latter are assured of the soundness of their principles, being often elected over French competitors; and even Wolfred Nelson himself, the idol of the peasantry, and the Chairman of the great meeting of the Six Counties, is thoroughly English in family, habits, associations and religion. That this state of things should be the case in spite of the efforts of the government party to rally the whole European portion of the population to its support on the strength of the prejudice of race, is a most important fact in illustration of the real principles involved in the contest. And, in short, the extent of these discontents-and at the same time their justice is sufficiently proved by the single and decisive fact, that at the last two general elections that have been held, in 1832 and 1834, the government party was not able, with all its official influence, to obtain more than eight or ten, in a House consisting of eighty-eight members.

We think we have said enough to prove the impossibility, on the part of the British goverument, of continuing much longer to refuse the Canadian demands. Nor-this concession once y elded-can it be any more possible to retain its colonial dominion over them at all. The events of the last year have developed the question to a still further point. It is now one, not of a reform, but of independence. The Canadians can now never again be satisfied with less. The government and the people have met in arms in the field-they can never again meet in friendly harmony. A river of blood has issued from the ground, and now flows, broadly and deeply, ⚫ between them, which must ever constitute an impassable barrier to such reunion. The appalling brutalities of a Montreal Herald, invoking the extermination of the whole Nation Canadienne' if necessary, and sustained as a prominent organ of its party-the 'new gallows' before the jail door, with their comfortable accommodations for six, and for more at a pinch'- the fire and sword of a St. Charles and a St. Eustache*-the brilliant' illuminations of a

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The following circumstance will cast some light upon the quo animo of the colonial government in relation to the Canadas; and upon the probability of a reconciliation, on any terms, ever taking place between the latter and a party in possession of the government, of which a Sir John Colburn is the favorite executive organ. We hope its benefit will not be lost on those American papers which have been so lavish of their eulogies of Sir John, nor on the English people when called upon to sustain a colonial government administered in such a spirit. The "horrors of St. Eustache" are doubtless familiar to the recollection of all. An imperfect picture, we are assured, was presented of them in our narrative published in our June Number of last year, to which the reader may refer. Before setting out, with an overwhelming force, for that expedition, two Canadian gentlemen of standing and influence sent to Sir John, through the medium of the sheriff in whose hands they were prisoners, an urgent entreaty to spare the effusion of human blood; engaging, if he would send them, or one of them, to the people collected at the north-under any

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