deavouring to tax the non-resident owners of the greater part of the island, that it may compel them to improve or sell the land, which they are at present holding in waste to the great detriment of the colony. The owners being mostly men of wealth and influence in England, and the colony small, the former have been able till of late to make their representations pass current at the Colonial Office. An arrangement, however, as to the sale and taxation of these lands, is now in progress, we believe, indeed, completed, by which the question will be satisfactorily settled as regards the colonists. The Bureaucratic quarrel has never risen to any height in this little island.

Nova Scotia has been the scene of a long and tolerably warm dispute between the official and popular bodies. In strength the two for a time were nearly equal; the Bureaucratic party at the outset having in some respects more than the usual quantum of local influence. Though the party hostile to it are a majority in the House, the minority siding with the officials is still respectable in numbers. The urgent representations of the House have gained for its party some most decided advantages; and, though changes are not yet made to the extent demanded, it is clear, that, if the popular party can maintain its hold on the Assembly, every thing will shortly follow that it requires. The question of highchurch has been already spoken of, as respects this colony. It has had more influence here, perhaps, than in New Brunswick.

some

The adjoining province of New Brunswick was years ago very violently agitated by the Bureaucratic dispute; but the complete triumph of the popular party has for some time made the state of things quite different. The leaders of the majority in the House now act in harmony with the Councils, in consequence of the changes made in the composition of the latter. In Nova Scotia, these changes did not go far enough to produce this result, and the Councils are not at one with the House, though their disputes are now far from violent.

Indeed, as a general remark, we may observe, that in these three provinces there has never been a manifestation made by any party, however small, of the feeling of disaffection, as contrasted with that of temporary dissatisfaction. The present lieutenant-governors are all esteemed; and those of

New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Island are decidedly popular, and have every prospect of continuing to be so. Even in Newfoundland, the most violent of the opposition strongly disclaim every thing like disaffection to the mother country.

Of the six provinces, Lower Canada is in every respect in the worst position. Her Bureaucracy were at first naturally of English origin; the conquered French population being then of necessity excluded generally from office. For years, however, the national element of the dispute remained in the shade, though the office-holders were still mostly of the origin of the minority, and their conduct in office was any thing but unobjectionable. The French majority were not the material for displaying political activity; and their representatives, therefore, though from the earliest period rejecting all demands for change urged by the English minority, were not for a long time found arrayed in active hostility to those individuals of that minority, who stood before as "de par le Roy." When the transition to active hostility took place, the more efficient popular leaders were generally English,* who acted with the French against the officials, and hoped to induce the French to abandon their inert opposition to all improvement, so soon as the incubus of the Bureau should have been thrown off. A great portion of the English took the same side with the same view. Others leaned to the officials, from an opposite impression. In process of time, however, as the officials lost ground, these English allies of the majority party became disgusted at the unequivocal manifestations which were made, of a determination on the part of those French leaders, who always carried the great body of their countrymen with them, to adhere to the cherished project of French nationalité; and the English leaders, one by one, fell off from the side of the Assembly. The official party, now weakened and in fear for their craft, sought to throw themselves into a semi-alliance with the English minority; and thus the dispute gradually changed its real character, while in form, and professed objects, it remained much the same as ever. Not aware of the true nature of the contest, the English Liberal government sought, by yielding, in sub

Under this term we include here (and elsewhere in speaking of Lower Canada) all who use the English tongue; Americans, Scotch, and Irish, and their descendants born in Canada.

stance, every claim urged by the French party, as a popular demand against a Bureau oligarchy, to stay the controversy. But this was oil, not water, to the flame. The French were only emboldened; the English only exasperated. The former, throwing off the mask, daily more and more, put forward demands that could not have been granted, without the consequence of driving the latter to absolute desperation. Revolt, indeed, began to be threatened, by many of the English, as inevitable, on their part, if such demands were granted. The government, as it could not but do, refused to yield further. The French leaders openly declared revolution to be their object. Suspicious alike of the Bureaucracy, the Home government, and the French, the English generally held back for a time, as though doubtful what course to take, in a dilemma so perplexing. After a time, the instinct of self-defence forced from them an uncertain note of preparation, as against the soi-disant revolutionists of the other origin. And in November, 1837, when the arrest of a few of the French leaders threw the party into insurrection, a few weeks sooner than the time at which they had proclaimed their determination to resort to it, the whole English population was in arms on the instant for its suppression. The consequences are well known.

Lord Durham's Report goes at great length into the subject of this war of races, and shows most conclusively, by a variety of considerations, that the grand features of the case are as we have just stated them. That a few English names should be found on the revolutionist side, proves nothing against it. The names so found, are none of them names of the rank and file. The community, speaking the English tongue, suppressed (or by their support enabled the government promptly to suppress) the insurrection. It stands aloof from the officials still; and from the Home government too; from the former, as much as ever; from the latter, with a little less of distrust, now that the French and it are openly at variance. With all this, however, the attachments of English, Scotch, and Irish, almost without exception, are, to all appearance, as warm as ever to their country and the connexion with Great Britain. The coolness of their feeling towards the government is purely a result of the French struggle, and the recollections and suspicions it keeps alive. The French and their feelings, it is not so easy to describe

in few words. As the English are united in nothing but hostility to what is French, so are the leading men of the French in nothing but hostility to what is English. There is, however, this marked contrast between the two. Of the former, nearly all take sides and express opinions of their own, and hence arise differences of sentiment, which extend to all classes; among the latter, it is the few, only, who attempt this, and the great body simply follow the lead of those from among that few, who are most French Canadian and antiAnglican. Those of the few who are more moderate, are without followers. The character and position of the race, however, we cannot here describe, further than we have already done incidentally. The subject requires much more space than we can here give, to explain it fully.

The contest, in Upper Canada, has been of a less equivocal character, than in Lower; although, here, too, (as Lord Durham's Report conclusively shows,) there has been a strong under-current of semi-national controversy. The tide of immigration has been strong from the old world; and the feelings of the old and new residents of the province have been, on several accounts, the reverse of cordial. Besides this circumstance, which has divided the population of Upper Canada everywhere, the form and size of the province are such, as to cut it up into a number of separate localities, each with its own little centre of party feeling and opinion. This, again, has tended to divide the party which might else have acted in concert against the dominant faction. The Clergy reserve question has embroiled matters, and divided parties further. And, lastly, the extent of the country, by the facilities it has given the Bureaucracy, for the multiplication of offices of petty trust, profit, or distinction, in all quarters, and for land and other jobbing in general, has still added fresh strength to that faction. The same causes have thrown more than ordinary temptations in the way of the Assembly; and it cannot be denied, that it has often yielded to them. The consequence has been, that, for a length of time, the rival parties have had alternate sway in the Assembly; one election going for the one, and the next, almost always, for the other. The struggle was thus necessarily longer, and, in its effects on the legislation and general welfare of the province, as well as on the temper of all the parties to it, far more mischievous, than in any other province, Lower Canada excepted.

When Sir Francis Head came out, in 1835, as LieutenantGovernor, the popular party were in the ascendant. Sir John Colborne had just been recalled, on their representations; and his successor came with instructions to concede almost every thing they had asked. These instructions were made public, and gave satisfaction to most of the reform party. The Executive Council was remodelled, as an earnest of their approaching fulfilment. But Sir Francis quickly got himself into trouble with his new Council, by performing important acts, not only without its knowledge, but against the known principles of its new members. The Council complained, and demanded to be consulted on the whole business of the administration, or not at all. They were dismissed, and Sir Francis appointed a new Council. The Assembly took part with the disinissed Councillors, and stopped the supplies. The Governor dissolved the House; the chances of a general election were tried; and the result was the return of a great majority of members hostile to the party lately in the ascendant. A numerous body had seceded from its ranks, some convinced from the tenor of Sir Francis's instructions, that, if allowed his own course, he would, in the end, do all that the province really needed, and others alarmed at what they thought the precipitancy of a portion of their old associates. Sir Francis, too, had entered the lists openly as a partisan. His liberal instructions had been appealed to, and the designs of the majority in the late Assembly declared revolutionary. The candidates in opposition to them, stood forward on the hustings in the garb of Constitutional Reformers, as opposed to Revolutionists. The real cause of the quarrel (the question of a responsible Executive Council, an old demand of the popular party,) was thus almost wholly overlooked; and the result, a great many at the time imagined to be a defeat of a grand revolutionary project.

But the "sheep's clothing" was not slow to fall off. The new House, with the old Legislative Council, took ground against the "instructions," under cover of which they had just conquered; and Sir Francis, intoxicated with the notion of his having gained a "mighty moral triumph," and surrounded by a Council too well pleased with the gifts of office to be troublesome under their dispensation, became, from that day to the day he left the province, the devoted partisan