POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF LOWER CANADA. CHAPTER I. Discovery of the Country, and Origin of its Name-Passes into the Hands of the English-Boundaries—Object of the present Work. IN the year 1497, Sebastian Cabot, holding a commission from Henry VII. of England, discovered the countries situated on the south-west of the river St. Lawrence. The appellation of CANADA was given to these territories, as well as to those afterwards discovered by Jacques Cartier, a subject of France. Of the origin of the word CANADA there are various accounts. It is by some asserted to be a word of the Iroquois language, signifying a collection of huts; others, however, give it a fanciful derivation from the Spanish. It is said that the Spaniards, long before Verazani was dispatched by Francis I. on a voyage of discovery, had disembarked in the bay now called Chaleurs, and, in their B search after mines, pronounced constantly before the savages of the country the two words, aca nada-here nothing; which words the Indians afterwards repeated to the French. Others, again, assert, that the term is a corruption of capo de nada―cape of nothing; which appellation the Spaniards are supposed to have conferred on the country, believing it utterly barren and desolate. The territory now known by the name of Canada was, until the year 1759, in possession of France; and, together with the remainder of her possessions in that part of America, was distinguished by the appellation of La Nouvelle France. In 1629, Canada was taken by the English, but was then held in so little estimation as to be returned to its former owners, the French, in three years afterwards*. In 1759, however, General Wolfe was dispatched for the purpose of conquering the country; and on the plains of Abraham, under the walls of Quebec (the capital), he defeated the French troops, who had been induced to leave their almost impregnable fortress. Wolfe lost his life in the action; but the victory he had gained decided the fate of Canada, which then passed for ever from under the dominion of France. A capitulation was entered into by the inhabitants of Quebec and Montreal, and ratified by the regular authorities. To this capitulation I shall hereafter have to revert†. For some time the country was under the direction of one government, and was generally designated the Province of Quebec. In 1791, the province of Quebec was divided into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. To Lower Canada alone, as then marked out, are the succeeding observations intended to apply. * Le conseil de Louis XIII. tenait aussi si peu à cet établissement, qu'il opinait à ne pas en demander la restitution; mais Richelieu, qui avait fondé la dernière compagnie, fit changer d'avis. On arma six vaisseaux pour soutenir cette demande, et la cour d'Angleterre, d'après le conseil du Lord Montague, rendit le Canada aux Français en 1631.-Beautés de l'Histoire du Canada, p. 84. † See Appendix, Nos. IV. and V. For the purpose of preventing confusion, it may be advisable to give a specific detail of the boundaries of the province. The country lies between 45° and 52° of north latitude, and 63° and 81° of west longitude from Greenwich. The territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, or East Maine, is its northern boundary: the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the river St. John, and part of the Labrador coast, bound it on the east. Its southern limit is formed partly by New Brunswick, and partly by a portion of the territory of the United States; viz. the district of Maine, the province of New Hampshire, the state of Vermont, and of New York. The western boundary was settled by the Act of the Imperial Parliament, passed in 1791, dividing the province of Quebec. The line running between the two provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, is, by that Act, directed to commence at a stone boundary, on the north bank of the lake St. Francis, at the cove of Pointe au Baudette, in the limit between the township of Lancaster and the seigneury of New Longeuil; then along the northern boundary of the seigneury of Vaudreuil, running north; twenty-five degrees east, until it strikes the Ottawa river; to ascend the said river, into the lake Temiscaming; and, from the head of the said lake, by a line drawn due north, until it strikes the boundary line of Hudson's Bay, including all the territory to the westward and southward of the said line, to the utmost extent of the country, commonly called or known by the name of Canada*." 66 Differences having arisen between Great Britain and the United States, respecting the boundaries of their respective territories, commissioners were appointed to arrange the difficulties. The line between the province of Upper Canada and the United States was accordingly settled by them; but finding that they could not agree respecting * See BOUCHETTE's Topography, pp. 1—3. the division between Lower Canada and the district of Maine, the matter was referred to the emperor of Russia; from whose decision it was eventually transferred to that of the king of the Netherlands, to the great, discontent, it is asserted, of the United States. The matter, in a military point of view, is considered of importance, and is still undecided. The object of the present work is to give a succinct detail of the government of the country thus described, from the epoch of its passing under the dominion of the English, down to the period of the termination of Lord Dalhousie's administration, in the year 1828. Into a very minute discussion of the proceedings of the colonial government, during the first years of the English rule, however, it is not my intention to enter; and with a cursory view of the more important legislative proceedings of the Imperial Parliament I shall dismiss this early portion of our history: but as I come nearer to the present time, a more particular detail will be required. I flatter myself that an exposition of the conduct of this specimen of colonial administration will not be entirely destitute of interest, even to the English reader: it will give him an insight into the workings of a vast, and, in my mind, an ill-constructed machine of government: it will prove to him the pernicious consequences of having irresponsible rulers, and the utter impossibility of a wellorganized administration being composed of persons drawn from a distant country, ignorant of the manners and situation of the people they are destined to rule, and careless of those interests with which they are but temporarily connected : it will exhibit to him a scene of complicated and vexatious oppression, on the one side; of unsuspecting confidence and willing obedience, changed by ill-usage into distrust and opposition, on the other: it will prove how the best intentions on the part of the English people have been constantly defeated, by the avarice and despotism of petty officers: it will teach him, in short, how a whole people |