Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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The
Flood
of
Reforms
in
Britain
245
into
a
desperate position
because
it
could
not balance
the
budget.
To
get
out of the
hole,
the
government
increased
the customs
and
excise
rates
by
5
per
cent,
but
the
revenue did
not
respond;
and so
in
the
spring
of
the
following
year,
1841,
the
Whigs
made
a timid
move
to
raise
the
revenue
by
lowering
the
tariff
on
sugar
and
corn,
or
wheat.
This led to
defeat
in
the
House
of
Commons
and
in the
general
election
that followed. Then
Peel
came into office
as head
of a
protectionist
government.
The
accumulated
deficits of
five successive
years
were
a
challenge
to
him,
and
he
tackled the
problem
boldly, taking
charge
of
the
budget
himself.
Peel
sought
a
solution
in a
careful
revision
of
the tariff
to
make it
yield
more. He
began
where
the
Tory
revision
of
the
twenties
had
left
off,
and so
had
a
good
precedent;
but before
he
knew
it
he
was
moving
pretty
straight
toward free trade.
The
reason
was that
he
was after
revenue,
and the
principle
of
a
revenue
tariff is
quite
contrary
to
the
principle
of a
protective
tariff,
though
many
politicians
and
other
in-
terested
parties
have done
their
best
to confuse
them and
the
public.
The
purpose
of
a
protective
tariff is to
keep goods
out,
goods
that
might
be
taxed
if
allowed
to
come
in;
whereas
the
purpose
of
a
revenue
tariff
is to
collect
as much
money
as
possible,
which
means
encouraging
goods
to come
in
so
that
they may
be taxed.
Any protection
discourages
importation;
and
to avoid
protection
while
raising
a
revenue
by
cus-
toms,
the
same
rates
should
be levied
in the form
of
excise
duties
on
articles
produced
at
home,
so
that
if
a tax is laid
on
any
article it
will
be
collected
equally
on
all that
is
consumed
in the
country
irrespective
of
origin,
foreign
or
domestic.
As
this
was the
system
that
Britain
was
to
adopt,
and
to
maintain
with
slight
modification
until
the
great
de-
pression
of
the
1930's,
it will be
seen
that
she did
not abolish
the
tariff
when
she
abandoned
protection.
She
simply
took
the
protective prin-
ciple
out
of
the tariff
so that
the tariff
would
produce
the
greatest
possible
revenue.
Peel's
first
budget,
that
of
1842,
assured
a
surplus by
reviving
the
income
tax
repealed
at the
end of
the
Napoleonic
war;
under
this cover
it abolished
almost
all
export
duties
and
effected
a
general
reduction
of
import
duties.
The
rates
on
raw
materials,
some
of
which
had been
considerable,
were
cut
almost
to
nothing;
the
new
upper
limit
was
5
per
cent,
while
the
new
maximum
for
partly
manufactured
goods
was
12
per
cent,
and
on
fully
manufactured,
20
per
cent,
in
place
of
the 30
prescribed
in the
twenties.
It
was
frankly
an
experiment
for
three
years,
and
the
result
was
most
encouraging.
Trade
picked
up
and the
246
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
revenue
jumped up.
Therefore,
early
in
1845,
Peel
decided
to
go
further
and,
getting
a
renewal of the income
tax for
another
three
years,
he
vigorously
slashed
away
more duties.
This
budget
of
1845
was
carried
only
after
a
bitter
struggle,
for
the
Anti-Corn Law
League,
now
near its
climax,
had
roused the
protection-
ists
and
there was
grave
uneasiness in
the
Conservative
ranks
over
the
course
their
leader
was
taking. Though
in
theory
still
a
protectionist,
in
practice
Peel
was
abandoning
the
principle upon
which
he
had
come
to
power.
The
malcontents,
who
staged
a
revolt,
were headed
by
a
man
who
had
hitherto
attracted
attention
only
as
a
fop
and
a
fashionable
novelist
and now
leaped
into
political
fame. This
was
Benjamin
Dis-
raeli,
born a
Jew
and
brought up
a
Christian,
who was to be the
most
brilliant
Conservative leader
of
the
century.
He raised a
laugh
at
Peel's
expense
by
declaring
that he
"had
caught
the
Whigs
in
bathing
and
walked
away
with
their
clothes." The
jibe
was
dishonest,
for,
as
we
have
just
seen,
the
downward
revision of
the tariff was
based on
Tory
precedent.
But
desperate
politicians
are
apt
to be
reckless,
and
Disraeli
was
championing
a
lost cause.
The
violence of his attacks
grew
savage,
as he accused
the
prime
minister
of
betraying
parliament
and
called
his
government
"an
organized
hypocrisy."
Meanwhile Peel
was
assailed
from the
opposite
side of
the
house,
particularly
by
Cobden,
for his
adherence to
protection;
and
it
was
obvious that die
Conservative
leader was
on the
edge
of
conversion.
While
listening
to one
of
Cobden's finest
appeals,
his
face
grew
more
and
more
solemn. At
length
he
crumpled up
the
notes
that
he
had
been
making,
and
turning
to
a
colleague
he
said,
"You
must
answer
this,
for
I cannot."
The Corn
Law was
doomed,
and the
end came
sooner
than
was
expected.
Peel
planned
to
get
released from
his
pledge
of
1841
by
holding
a
general
election in
which he
would
appeal
to
the
country
to
support
him
on
a free
trade
policy.
But
he
had no
time
to do it. Nature
intervened and forced him
to act
quickly.
That
very
summer,
after
parliament
had
closed
its
session,
the
potato
blight
brought
Ireland face
to
face
with
starvation,
and
the
protectionists'
hope
that
a
good
English
harvest would alleviate
the
crisis
without
heavy
importations
was
washed
away by
a
month of rain
that left
English
wheat
rotting
in
the
ear.
The Corn
Law
was
"rained
away."
"Open
the
ports!"
the
League
cried,
and
everyone
knew
that
once
they
were
opened
it
would be im-
possible
to
close
them
again.
To
meet
the
emergency,
Peel
opened
the
Irish
ports,
which created
The Flood
of
Reforms
in
Britain
24 7
tremendous
popular
pressure
to
get
similar
relief
for
England
and
Scotland. He
urged
his
cabinet
to
back
him
in
a
repeal
of
the
Corn
Law,
but the
majority
balked.
Then
the leader
of
the
opposition,
Lord
John
Russell,
came
out
openly
for free
trade
and for
a
concerted
public
movement
to make
the
government
yield.
Again
Peel
tried
and
failed
to
budge
his
colleagues.
Their
obstinacy
forced
his
resignation
early
in
December. But
a
fortnight
later,
Russell
having
attempted
without
success
to
form a
government,
Peel
was
back
in
power
with his
old
cabinet,
now broken
to
his
will.
Parliament
was
called for
January
1846,
and
a
furious battle
ensued
over two bills
introduced
by
the
government.
One
was
a
customs bill
that
practically
eliminated
protection
from the
general
tariff,
and
the
other
was
a
bill to
repeal
the
Corn Laiv. The
protectionists
fought
with
all
the
exasperation
of
men
who
believed
they
were undone
by
the
treachery
of their
chiefs. It
was the last
desperate
stand of the landed
interest.
Only
with
the
aid of Liberal
votes
was Peel able
to
get
these
measures
through
the
Commons,
and
he
needed
all the
great
influence
of
the
Duke of
Wellington, government
leader in the
Lords,
to
per-
suade
the
peers
to
pass
them. The old
soldier,
now
nearly eighty,
was
still
a
protectionist
he could never be
anything
else and
believed,
as
he
said
to
a
friend,
that
"rotten
potatoes
have
done
it
all;
they
put
Peel
in his
damned
fright."
But
he
knew
that free trade
was
inevitable;
and
as in 1829
during
the storm over
Catholic
Emancipation,
he
was con-
vinced
that
it
would be
dangerous
to
resist
a
reform which
he
personally
detested.
The
triumph
of
free
trade in 1846
was
completed
by
the
repeal
of
the
navigation
laws
in
1849,
and
the
country
entered
upon
an era
of
prosperity
such
as
it
had
never
known. This
confirmed
the faith of
those
who
had
preached
the new
doctrine
and
caused
the
scales to
drop
from the
eyes
of
those
who had
opposed
it.
Thus free trade became a
British
religion,
and
it
was
much more of
a
religion
than
protection
later
became
to
America,
for
the
British
gospel
embraced
all mankind
and held out
the
promise
of
establishing
international
peace
and
good
will
by
knitting
the
world
together.
CHAPTER
XV
The
British
North
American
Revolution
WHEN
BRITAIN
threw
protection
overboard,
she
was
consciously
throwing
out the old
colonial
system,
which had
been
so
modified
that,
on
balance,
it
had
come
to
benefit
the colonies at the
expense
of
the
mother
country. Commercially
speaking,
she
was
casting
off the
colo-
nies that
she
might
have
economic
freedom
for
herself;
she
was
making
her
own declaration of
independence.
The
logical
sequel
was
the
aban-
donment of
her
effort to control
the
governments
of
her
maturing
colo-
nies,
and it followed almost
immediately.
But such
prompt
obedience
to
simple
logic
seems
too
good
to be
true,
especially
in
Britain,
and
closer examination
suggests
that this
sequence
was
fortuitous.
Though
the free
trade movement
undoubtedly
contributed
to the
concession of
colonial
autonomy,
it
did not
give
rise to
the
colonial
demand
for
autonomy,
and
that
demand
was
already
so
strong
that
London
could
no
longer
resist
it.
Indeed,
the
concession
of colonial
autonomy
might
well have
preceded
the
victory
of free trade if there
had
then
been no
rotten
potatoes
in
Ireland
or
excessive
rain
in
England.
It
was in North
America
that
the British
Commonwealth
of Nations
began
to
emerge
from the
British
Empire.
There the
policy
of
colonial
self-government,
which
was later
applied
to
other
parts
of
the
empire
as
a matter of
course,
was first
worked
out.
There
conditions
forced
it,
conditions
peculiar
to
North
America,
and the most
compelling
of
these
was
the
American Revolution.
There,
at
long
last,
Britain
found
the
solution
to the
colonial
problem
that
had once
wrecked the
best
part
of
her
empire,
but she did
not know
she
had found
it
until
many years
afterward.
Meanwhile
she
regarded
the
granting
of
colonial
self-
government
as
the
dissolution
rather
than the
regeneration
of
the
empire.
The
British
North American
Revolution
249
In
the
history
of
the
empire,
this
British
North
American
Revolution
stands
next
in
importance
to
the American
Revolution,
with
which
it
is
more
closely
connected
than most
people
realize.
As
observed
in
an
earlier
chapter,
the
fear
of
another
American
Revolution
that
would
tear
away
still more
colonies as
they
grew
up
had
dictated
a
reactionary
colonial
policy.
This
policy, designed
to
keep
the
remaining
colonies
in
leading
strings,
relied
upon
a more
careful
application
of
the
traditional
methods
of
controlling
them. Their
trade
was
to
be
confined
to
the
empire
and
their
governments
were
to
be
guided
from
London.
Here
we
can dismiss
trade,
for
it had
nothing
to
do
with
creating
the
demand
that
led
to
the British
North
American
Revolution.
It
was
the
mother
country,
not
the
colonies,
that
wanted
to
end
the
imperial
trading
system.
They
would
much
rather
have
kept
it for
the
sake
of
the
com-
mercial
privileges
it
gave
them,
and
they
resented
the
loss
of
these
privileges.
The demand
of
British
North
America
was
for
political
emancipation
from
a
system
of
government
that
these
colonies
had
once
accepted
without
question
but
now
found
more
and
more
objec-
tionable.
They
found
it
so
because
neither
it nor
they
had
remained
the
same.
It had
degenerated
and
they
had
developed.
Either
of
these
changes
would
have
been
enough
to cause
serious
friction,
and
together
they produced
such
an
intolerable
strain
that
some
kind
of
revolution
was
inevitable.
The
degeneration
of
the
governmental
system
was
quite
different
from
what
had
been
allowed
to
occur
in
the
"old
thirteen"
colonies.
Then,
by
a
neglect
that
was
not
to be
repeated,
the
assembly
had
got
out
of
hand.
Now
it
was
something
else,
and
the
resulting
condition
was
much
less
healthy.
There
was
an
ossification
in
the
executive
department.
The
disease
had
appeared
in
the old
colonies
before
the
American
Revolution,
which
eradicated
it
there,
but
it became
much
more
pronounced
in
the
remaining
colonies
afterward.
Its
seat
was
the
council,
whose
members,
other
than
the
ex
officio
ones,
were
appointed
by
London
on
the
nomination
of
the
governor.
Like all
other
colonial
officials,
even
the
judges,
they
were
removable
at
will but
were
per-
mitted
by
a
hardening
custom
to
hold
their
places
during good
be-
havior.
In
practice
this
meant
permanent
tenure
for
them
as
well
as
for
all
other
officials
save
one
the
most
important
of
all
in
each
colony.
It
was
almost
impossible
for
the
governor,
who
was
then
regularly
picked
from
the
senior
ranks
of the
armed
services,
to
be
much
more
than
a
temporary
sojourner.
If
his
administration
was
a
failure,
he
was
recalled;
if
it
was
a
success,
he
was
rewarded
by pro-
250
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN:
motion
to a
more
important
command
elsewhere.
As
each
new
gover-
nor
was
thus
a
stranger
to
the land
and
its
people,
he
naturally
leaned
on
the
permanent
officials,
who had
acquired
the
necessary
local
knowl-
edge
and
experience,
for advice
on
how he
should
rule
in
other
words,
on
how he
should
carry
out
his orders
from
London.
These
orders,
moreover,
had to
be
based
on
some
definite
information
about
the
colony,
and
this was secured
from
him
and
his
predecessors,
who
in
turn
had
got
it
largely
from
this
very
group
of advisers.
So it came to
pass
that
the
government
of each
colony,
though
theo-
retically
controlled
by
the mother
country
through
the
governor
aided
by
the
councilors,
whom he could select
and
remove,
slipped
gradually
and
almost
imperceptibly
into
the
hands of a
close little
oligarchy
in
each
provincial
capital:
the
members of the
council,
who,
with
their
friends and
relatives,
filled
every important
office
except
that
of
the
chief executive.
Legally
they
were
responsible
to
him
and
through
him
to
the home
government,
but
practically
they
were
not,
because
he
was
a
stranger
and London was
afar
off;
and
neither
legally
nor
practically
were
they responsible
to
the
assembly.
To
whom,
then,
were
they
responsible?
In
other
words,
the
council
got
out
of
hand,
with
the
result
that
it
prevented
the
struggle
for
self-government
from
being
a
straight
con-
flict between
the colonies and the
mother
country.
The
struggle
was
rather a
three-sided
affair
between the
home
government,
the
local
oligarchy,
and the
assembly;
therefore the
issue
was
commonly
con-
fused. As the
people
in the
colonies
discovered that
they
were
really
ruled
by
a
favored few
individuals
in
their
midst,
the
demand
for
self-
government
arose and
party
strife
became
endemic in
the
political
life
of British North
America.
The
members
of
each
ruling
clique
of
course
clung
to
office and
power,
but their
motives were
by
no means
wholly
selfish.
They
held
two honest
convictions
which,
being
shared
by
many
others in
the
community
and
by
the
home
government,
made
them the
leaders
of a
sizable
Tory
party
and
gave
them
the
support
of
the
author-
ities
in
Britain.
One of
these
convictions was
that
self-government
would be
bad
government
because
the
majority
of the
people
could
never be
entrusted
with the
control of
public
affairs,
and to
prove
this
the
contemporary
antics
of
American
democracy
were
freely
cited.
This
attitude
of mind is
not
surprising
if
we
remember
that,
in the
awakening
and
triumph
of
democracy,
the
colonies
lagged
behind the
United
States
but
anticipated
the
mother
country,
where
the
mass
of
the
people
did not
get
the
vote
until
the
latter
part
of
the
nineteenth
The
British
North
American Revolution
251
century.
The other
conviction was
that colonial
self-government
would
lead
straight
to
colonial
independence
the
breakup
of
the
empire.
Here
was the
greatest
obstacle
in the
path
of
the
Reformers,
as
the
members
of the
other
party
were
generally
called.
They
had to
fight
the
invulnerable
ghost
of the American
Revolution.
The constitutional
struggle
in British
North
America
was
also
in-
tensified,
quite unconsciously, by
the United
States,
which
stiffened
the
demand
for
self-government
as well
as the
resistance
to
it.
The
people
living
right
next door in the
former
colonies
were
fully
self-
governing,
and
this
ever-present contagious
example greatly
stimulated
political
discontent
among
their cousins
in
British
North
America.
It
could
not be
otherwise,
particularly
in
that
age
of
exuberant
Jacksonian
democracy.
This is worth
emphasizing
because
the
British
tradition
in
Canada
and
the rise of Canadian
nationalism
have
since
conspired
to
cover
up
the
infection
of British
North
America
by
Jacksonian
democ-
racy
just
as
nationalism
in
the
United
States
has
drawn
a
veil
over
the
fact
that
Jacksonian
democracy
was
an
American
expression
of
a
general
movement
that
was
stirring
in
western
civilization.
The
awak-
ening
of
political
democracy
in
British
North
America
also
derived
some
inspiration
from
contemporary
developments
in
the Old
World,
especially
from
British
radicalism;
but
this
inspiration
from
across
the
ocean
was
much
less
than that
which
came
from
across
the
neighboring
border.
Though
immigrants
from
the
mother
country
began
to
pour
into
British
North
America
about
1825,
the
motives
that
impelled
them
were
economic
and
social
rather
than
political,
and
as
a rule
they
be-
came
politically
conscious
only
after
they
had
spent
a
generation
estab-
lishing
themselves
in
the
new
land,
by
which time
the
British
North
American
Revolution
was
over.
On
the
other
hand,
it would
be
a
great
mistake
to
suppose
that
the
constitutional
struggle
in these
colonies
was
chiefly
the
product
of
the
Jacksonian
ferment.
The
spirit
of
democracy
was
fostered
by
conditions
that
were
North
American,
not
just
Ameri-
can
in
the
narrow
sense
of
the
word;
and
as
these
British
colonies
approached
what
might
be
called
the
adolescent
stage,
the ancient
traditions
of
political
liberty
that
they
had
inherited
from
the
mother
country
urged
them
to
demand
self-government.
Here
it
is
well
to
glance
at
the
development
of
these
colonies,
for
it
explains
much
in
the
coming
of
the
British
North
American
Revolu-
tion.
By
the
middle
of
the
century,
when
the
mother
country capitu-
lated
to
their
demand,
their
total
population
was
multiplied
to
approximately
2,500,000,
five
times
what
it
had
been at
the
time
of
252
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN:
the
War
of
1812,
and
nearly
as
large
as
that
of
the United
States
when
the
Declaration of
Independence
was
signed.
Prince Edward
Island
had
about
63,000,
Newfoundland
nearly
150,000,
New
Brunswick
a
little
over
180,000,
Nova
Sc9tia
275,000,
Lower Canada
890,000,
and
Upper
Canada
950,000.
Of the
maritime
group,
Newfoundland
was the least mature.
Its
people
dwelt
along
the
coast,
chiefly
in and near
St.
John's,
and
the
fisheries
provided
their
only
means of livelihood.
Prince
Edward
Island,
the
"Garden
of
the
Gulf,"
was well
settled
with a
solid
agri-
cultural
population.
New
Brunswick was
less
dependent
on
its
timber
than
it had been.
The
southern
third of
the
province
was
pretty
well
occupied
by
farms,
and there
was
continuous settlement
up
the
main
river
valleys
and
around the
coast.
On
the last there was
considerable
fishing
and
not
a
little
shipbuilding,
while
the
port
of
St.
John
had
a
thriving
commerce.
In none
of
these three
colonies
did the
actual
struggle
for
self-government
amount to much. Newfoundland was
too
backward;
politics
in Prince Edward Island were obsessed
by
the
old
problem
of the
absentee
proprietors;
and
until the
Webster-Ashburton
Treaty
of 1842 terminated
the
long
and bitter
dispute
over
the
location
of
the
boundary
between Maine
and New
Brunswick,
the
people
of
New Brunswick
would not
shake a
finger
at
the
mother
country,
whose
active
support
they
might
need
at
any
time.
Nova Scotia
was different.
Its
life was more mature
than
that
of
any
other
colony.
Around
the
much indented
coast,
fishing villages
flour-
ished;
the
land,
though
not so
good
as that
of
its
little
island
neighbor,
was
quite
productive;
and rich coal
deposits
supported
a
prosperous
mining
industry,
the
only
one
in
British North
America.
But the
golden
age
of
Nova
Scotia,
which
was then
well
begun,
was
based
chiefly upon
shipping.
Like
New
England
of the
same
time,
Nova
Scotia had
developed
into one of the
principal
shipbuilding
centers
of
the
world.
The
vessels that came off
its
stocks
included
many
of
the
finest
clippers
that
plowed
the ocean
in
the era of
wood and
sail,
and
they
carried
a
goodly
share of
the
world's
commerce.
When
steam
began
to
supplant
sail,
it
was an
enterprising
Halifax
merchant,
Samuel
Cunard,
who
in 1840
inaugurated
the
first
line
of
transatlantic
steam-
ships.
Nova
Scotia
had
also
produced
in
Joseph
Howe,
a
native
son
whose
parents
were
Loyalists,
the most
intelligent
and
effective
British
North
American
champion
of
self-government.
The
two
Canadas,
which became
Canada
East and
Canada
West on
their
reunion
by
an
act
passed
in the
same
year
as
the
Cunard Line
was
The
British
North
American
Revolution
253
founded,
could
also boast of
a
large
commerce
and
an
extensive
ship-
building
industry,
centered
in Montreal
and
Quebec
respectively,
and
controlled
by English-speaking
people.
Montreal,
now
one
third
Eng-
lish
and
approaching
the
60,000
mark,
had
greatly
outgrown
every
other
British
North
American
city;
for
its
strategic
position
at
the
head
of ocean
navigation
made
it the commercial
capital
of
the
two
Canadas,
which
contained
three
quarters
of
the
population
of
British
North
America.
But
the
shipbuilding
and
trading
activity
of
the
St.
Law-
rence,
which
winter closed
for
five
months
out
of
every
twelve
while
it
never
locked
up
the
ports
of
the
Maritime
Provinces,
played
a
relatively
smaller
part
in
the much
larger
life
of the
Canadas,
which
was
over-
whelmingly
agricultural.
Lower
Canada,
whose
population
in
1815
outnumbered
that
of
all
the
other
British
North
American
colonies
combined,
had
fallen
behind
Upper
Canada
by
1850.
The older
colony
had
much
less
good
arable
land,
and
most of
this
had
long
been
occupied.
The
one
exception
was
in
the Eastern
Townships,
the
settlement
of
which
had
been
only
begun
by
Americans
from
across
the line
in
Vermont
and
New
Hamp-
shire
before
the
War
of
1812
pioneer
farmers
like
those
then
pressing
into
Upper
Canada
and
was
completed
after
the
war
by
British
people
from
across
the
ocean
at
the
very
time
when
the
French
Can-
adians
were
begining
to need
this
space
for their
own
expansion.
This
particular
development
added
not
a little
to
the
domestic
political
strife,
for
the
rise
of
a
new
English-speaking
and
Protestant
block
in
the
old
French
and
Catholic
colony
was
highly
offensive
to
the
ancient
in-
habitants
and
it
was
a most
welcome
reinforcement
to
those
whom
the
French
regarded
as
intruders
the
racial
minority
who
were
en-
trenched
in
power,
economic
as
well
as
political.
But
the
most
important
development
in
Lower
Canada
was
not
physical.
It
was
psychological.
It
was
the
inflation
of
the new
French
Canadian nationalism,
whose
political
principles
were
as radical
as
its
ultimate
object
was
the
reverse.
The
French
Canadians
strove
to
get
control
of
the
government
in order
to
preserve
their
society,
which
was
intensely
conservative,
from
contamination
by English
influences,
Their
fears
were
not
wholly
imaginary,
for
the
government
in
Quebec
was
directed
by
men
who
would
undermine
the
position
of
their
church,
substitute
freehold
tenure
for
their
antiquated
seignioral
system,
purge
their
equally
antiquated
legal
code
of
its
anticommercial
bias,
make
them
as landholders
shoulder
the burden
of
taxation
borne
by
die
traders
in
the
towns,
increase
this
burden
by
a
program
of
ex-
254
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN:
pensive
public
works
in
which
they
were
not
interested,
train
their
children in
lay
schools
to
speak
a
strange
tongue,
and
generally
hustle
their
country
into
a new
way
of life.
Small
wonder
the
French
were
frightened
into
being
fanatical
reactionaries
in
everything
save
the
principle
of
self-government,
and
into
being just
as fanatical
in
their
pursuit
of this
principle!
Small
wonder the
constitutional
struggle
began
in
Lower Canada
much
earlier
and
there
grew
much
bitterer
than
in
any
other
colony,
for in
this old
French
country
the
issue
was
much more than constitutional!
It
was
primarily
a
question
of
whether
the
English
would
dominate
the
French,
or the
French
the
English.
The
phenomenal
growth
of
Upper
Canada
its
population
increased
about
tenfold
between
the
War
of
1812
and
the middle of
the
cen-
tury
together
with
the conditions
under which
it occurred
made this
the one
English-speaking
colony
in
which the
struggle
for
self-govern-
ment
developed
an
explosive
intensity.
Here
the
American
influence
was
most
felt.
Indeed,
Upper
Canada
had less
in
common
with
any
other
part
of
British North
America
than it
had with
the
neighboring
states of
the American
Union,
then
filling
up
with a
rush. It
shared
with
them the rich soil of
the continent's
interior
plain,
it had
much
the same
kind of
life
as
they
had,
and
it was
more
than half
surrounded
by
them.
The
war that saved this
province
for the
empire
retarded the
progress
of
its
settlement for
a
decade or
more,
by
damming
the
old
tide of
immigration
from the United
States
before the new
tide
from
the British Isles
began
to
flow
in
any
volume. Meanwhile the
settle-
ment of
the
neighboring
states was
accelerated
by
this
diversion of
the
human
flood;
and the contrast in
development
naturally injected
into
Upper
Canada
a
feeling
of frustration and
envy,
fruitful
seed of
political
discontent.
This
feeling
was
all the
more
natural because the war
had
only
dampened,
not
quenched,
the
predominantly
American
character
of
the
people
there,
and
the
resumption
of
peaceful
intercourse with
the
land
of
their
origin
tended to
preserve
this
character.
Except
in
mat-
ters
of
trade,
which was
relatively
small,
and of
government,
from
which
they
were
excluded,
almost their
only
external ties
were
with
the United States.
By
far the
largest
and most
vital
religious
body
in
Upper
Canada
was the
Methodist,
and
until
well
on in
the
twenties it
was
an
integral
part,
not
just
an
offshoot,
of the
church south
of
the
border.
Its
clergy,
who were
itinerant,
came
from
the
United
States
and returned
to
the
United
States. There
was
their
home,
as
well as
in
heaven,
and
they
were not
always
careful to
distinguish
between
the