rians in the more contracted meaning of the word; and this will be the case until the rough and angular points of their social position are rounded by time, and the general diffusion of refinement shall call for those mental enjoyments which are sought for and produced in the later years of national existence.

Deeply and broadly, in the mean time, have the AngloSaxon race laid the foundations of freedom and civilization in the Northern American continent. Useful though common education is more generally diffused than in Europe. Christianity has taken deep root. The principles of self-government in local and in general affairs have trained men in the exercise of their public duties, have taught them the value of social order, and given security to person and to property.* Cold, then, must be the heart, and narrow and selfish the mind, that can look with indifference on a country, "in which one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now performing."-Hypercritical and fastidious the taste, that can record the Backwoodsman eating his fish with a knife instead of a silver fork, or helping himself unceremoniously to the wing of a chicken; and yet fail to draw a comparison between the security and freedom he enjoys, and is the means of extending to others, with the violence and barbarism that have distinguished the infancy of other states.

“The national character is yet in a state of fermentation; it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has given proofs of powerful and generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers, who are only affected by the little asperities incident to its present situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things; of those matters which come in contact with their private interests and personal gratifications. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old, highly finished and over-populous state

*The abolition riots, the piratical incursions on the Canadian frontier, and the occasional infliction of "Lynch-law," seem to militate against this opinion; and, unless a moral or physical power be found to prevent the recurrence of such events, they will, undoubtedly, seriously affect the peace and security of American society. We believe that such a controling power will be found if the evil continue; while up to the present time these disgraceful occurrences, though too frequent to be passed over in silence, cannot in justice be considered as more than exceptions to the general good order that prevails.

of society, where the ranks of useful labour are crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices and appetite of self-indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all-important in the estimation of narrow minds, which either do not perceive or will not acknowledge that they are more than counterbalanced by great and generally diffused blessings."-Washington Irving's Sketch-Book.

Such is independent America; and, following in the same path, though with unequal steps, and marked by some unfavourable peculiarities, such is the state to which Canada is approximating.

With these preliminary remarks, we shall proceed with the difficult task of tracing to their true source the unhappy events which have lately taken place in Canada. "How in"adequate and unsuccessful," says Lord Bacon,*" that hu"man knowledge is, which we have at present in use, may appear from things commonly asserted. It is certain that "the true knowledge of things is the knowledge of causes." -It is the absence of this "knowledge of causes" which has, in our opinion, contributed so much to perplex the discussions on Canada, and which has exercised so baneful an influence over the welfare of our Canadian provinces.

Mr. Roebuck, with the zeal of an advocate, exclaims,

"The officials of that country I am about to speak of;-a party, which, backed by the powers of the Colonial Office, have been the cause of all the dissensions and difficulties that have arisen †.”

And again we find him stating at the Bar of the House of Lords,

'It is the fashion, my Lords, to talk of the ignorance of the Canadian people; and assertions are recklessly hazarded, which greater knowledge of that people, and of their actual condition, and also of the true criterion of education, would altogether have prevented.

“America, at this moment, is governed by habits of thought and feeling,--fostered, perpetuated and extended by that remarkable band of religious and political enthusiasts who originally settled New-England, and whose sons now swarm in every part of the great federal Union of the United States. The political creed of these men has in fact become the political creed of the whole Continent, and is entertained as well by the descendants of the French Colonists on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, as by the immediate heirs of those emigrants of English descent who took possession of the lands bordering on the Hudson and Connecticut ‡.”

* Nov. Organum, vol. i. p. 150.

+ Speech at the Bar of the House of Commons, 22nd January, 1838.
Speech at the Bar of the House of Lords.

Similar opinions were expressed during the debates on the Canadian question by Mr. Leader, Mr. Hume, Mr. Warburton and Mr. Grote.

Against the correctness of these opinions we beg leave to enter a most emphatic protest; and jejune and imperfect will any legislative measure be which assumes them to be sound, or deals with the administrative errors of the colonial government of Quebec, and the abuses of the colonial office in Downing Street, as the only difficulties to be overcome. We seek not, however, to defend or palliate the errors of the one, or the abuses of the other. We believe, on the contrary, that they have produced disastrous effects on the public mind, and have loosened the links which bind the colony to the parent state; but to refer to them as the cause of ALL the difficulties that have arisen, betrays either a lamentable absence of the " knowledge of causes," or a want of candour, still less excusable, on a question of national importance.

Admitting, then, the existence and deprecating the continuance of these abuses, it shall be our endeavour to show that they ought to be classed rather as effects than causes; and that the peculiarity of the Canadian question, as well as the essential difference between it and the disputes with our former American colonies, consists in this—that the people of the New-England provinces were of one race, while in Canada the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman*, in every condition of life, at the bar and in other professions, in the pursuits of commerce and of agriculture, in the struggle for political power, have revived-on a small scale indeed, and in a remote province, but still with much excitement of feeling— the national jealousy and the personal rivalship which marked the collision of the two races in England at the time of the Conquest.

As we consider this an important view of the question, it shall be our endeavour, by a few brief notices of the early history of New-England and of Canada, to show that there is evidence of its being a true one; and it will, we hope, be

*The Canadians, for the most part, came from Normandy, and bear a striking resemblance to the people of Normandy of the present day.

made obvious to our readers, that widely different must be the manners, the customs, and the prejudices of the two races in Canada at this day, when he bears in mind that the effect of every legislative measure passed by us has been to sharpen and give an edge to points of difference to prevent amalgamation, not to promote union.

The majority of our colonies have been first inhabited by men without education, driven by poverty or misconduct from their native land, or by adventurers anxious to improve their fortune; but the settlement of New England was distinguished by peculiar circumstances, and all the events attending it were novel and unprecedented. The settlers belonged to the more independent classes in their native land. Their union on the soil of America presented the singular phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people, neither rich nor poor; and they possessed, in proportion to their numbers, a greater amount of intelligence than was to be found in any European nation of their time.

The emigrants, or as they deservedly styled themselves, "the Pilgrims,” belonged also to that sect, the austerity of whose principles had acquired for them the name of Puritans. But puritanism corresponded in many points with the most absolute democratic theories. It was this tendency which had excited its most dangerous adversaries; and persecuted by the Government of the parent state,-disgusted by the usages of a society opposed to the rigour of their own principles,— the puritans went forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, where they could express their opinions with freedom, and worship God in their own manner.

The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the women and the children. Their object was to plant a colony on the shores of the Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time in the Atlantic ocean, they were forced to land on that arid coast of New England which is now the site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is still shown on which the pilgrims disembarked.*

Nathaniel Morton, the historian of the first years of the

*This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. Bits of it are carefully preserved in several towns of the union.

settlement of New England,* thus describes the situation of the "Pilgrims":

"Let the reader with me make a pause, and seriously consider this poor people's present condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of God's goodness towards them in their preservation: for being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectation, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns to repair unto to seek for succour: and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were they then knew not; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand, in appearance, with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country full of woods and thickets represented a wilde and savage hew; if they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."

This state things, it must be admitted, was sufficiently discouraging, and such as would have reduced ordinary minds to despair, or have urged the mere enthusiast to deeds of extravagance that would have led to his destruction. But the piety of puritanism was not altogether of a speculative character; it took cognizance of worldly affairs; and, as the records of our civil wars and of the commonwealth abundantly show, it was scarcely less a political than a religious doctrine. No sooner, therefore, had the emigrants landed on the barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton, than they formed themselves into a society by the following instrument:

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, &c. &c., Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; Do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as shall be

* New England's Memorial. Boston, 1826.