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at their growth in trade and industry, and the progress of internal improvements, which have accompanied this political emancipation, will amply show. The 4th of July, 1776, marks an epoch for the States of British America as well as for the United States. The same thing, indeed, may be said of many other and more distant nations. France, Constitutional Germany, the States of South America, may all date from the 4th of July, for the revolution, certainly one of the most fruitful events in history, furnishes a point of historical departure for every one of them. But of the Canadas, this is especially true. Their political and material development began with our own. Although their external political relations remained the same, the northern colonies entered with us upon a new career at the revolution. A brief review of colonial history will show how. And here it may be interesting to go a little further back and more fully into details than Mr. Andrews has done.

One of the first measures of Congress, at the beginning of the war, when the fearful odds impressed upon them the necessity of strengthening their position in every quarter, was to issue an address "To the oppressed inhab itants of Canada," calling upon them to make common cause with their brethren of the United Colonies. The address, which was issued on the 29th of May, 1775, produced some effect. But the British government had already foreseen this danger, and the disastrous consequences of losing so 'important a basis of military operations as the northern provinces afforded. Simultaneously, therefore, with the system of coercive measures-beginning with the Boston Port Bill-adopted towards the United Colonies, began a policy of concession and indulgence towards the Canadas, the first measure being the famous Quebec Bill. That bill, if it drew the Canadas closer to England, and saved them to the crown, only served to widen the breach with the United Colonies, and, to add to political animosity, the bitterness of religious feeling. The bill was directly framed to catch the French and the Catholic sympathies and interests of Canada. The population at that time was of almost unmixed French descent. In fact, of the present population of the Canadas, about 600,000 are of French origin, and nearly unmixed French blood. Wolf's triumph on the Hights of Abraham relieved them of the despotism of the Intendant of Louis XIV., Bigot, but little or nothing had been done to provide them with a regular form of government, until policy prompted such measures as the Quebec Bill. This policy will account for what otherwise seems inexplicable, that the Canadians, a people of French blood, of Catholic faith, were precisely those colonists whose fidelity to their heretical rulers was least shaken. The Quebec Bill made political concessions amply sufficient to satisfy men instructed in no higher principles of political liberty than their fathers brought with them from the France of Louis XIV. But what was of most consequence, the act, at the same time that it restored the Coutume de Paris, the French system of proceedure, and the French language in civil matters, made ample concessions to the religious opinions of the French, abolished the oaths of abjuration and supremacy, and substituted a modified oath of allegiance.

This is a Catholic chapter in the history of the United States, which may be read without bitterness or regret. But the bitterness of feeling, which this measure at the time caused in the Protestant hearts of America, found its lightest expression in caricature, which represented Quebec sitting in triumph on its hights, on one side, and on the other Boston in flames, while, in the foreground, a Roman Catholic priest is kneeling with uplifted crucifix

in one band and gibbet in the other, apparently presenting to an honest American yeoman, armed only with a club, an alternative which John Bull is enforcing with a blunderbuss.* The bill was entitled a bill "For making more effectual provision for the government of the Province of Quebec, in North America." It established a Legislative Council, with every power but that of levying taxes, the members of which were to be appointed by the crown. Canadian Catholics were entitled to sit in the Council. The Catholic clergy, with the exception of the regular orders, were secured in the exercise of their religious duties, and in the enjoyment of their tithes. Colonel Barré thought he detected in the scheme a plan "to raise a popish army to serve in the colonies," and from his place in the House of Comn.ons warned the ministry that in such case all hope of peace in America will be destroyed. The Americans will look on the Canadians as their taskmasters, and, in the end, their executioners." Intrinsically just as these concessions, religious and political, doubtless were, it was the motive of policy lurking beneath which led Congress to denounce the Quebec Bill in the Declaration of Independence, as an attempt to abolish "the free system of English laws in a neighboring province," and which led the people of the colonies to brand the ministry as papists and enemies to the Constitution.

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Whatever the motive, the concession was made; and it was the fruit of American resistance. The first step in colonial freedom was gained through the American Revolution, which in fact began to bear its fruits for Canada sooner than for ourselves. Independence came: political separation from England brought with it, of course, political separation from the colonies on the north of our great Mediterranean lakes. They became to us foreign States; and all laws, including those of trade and navigation, in force between foreign nations, controlled our relations with the colonies. The same prohibitory navigation system, the same restrictive tariff, weighed down our Commerce with them as with England.

And yet, at this moment of almost utter separation, we were, in one sense, nearer having entire reciprocity of trade than we ever were since.

"Immediately after the conclusion of the preliminary articles of peace in November, 1782," says Mr. Andrews," Mr. Pitt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into the House of Commons (March, 1783) a bill for the regulation of trade and intercourse between the people of Great Britain and of the United States, which, had it been adopted, would have laid a broad foundation for a perpetual peace and harmony between the two countries.

"This bill, after declaring in the preamble that the thirteen United States of North America had lately been solemnly acknowledged by the king to be free, sovereign, and independent States, proceeded first to repeal all the statutes of regulation or prohibition of intercourse which had been theretofore enacted. It then recited that the ships and vessels of the people of the United States had, while they were British subjects, been admitted into the ports of Great Britain with all the privileges and advantages of British built ships; that, by the then existing regulations of Great Britain, foreigners, as aliens, were liable to various commercial restrictions, duties, and customs, at the ports of Great Britain, which had not been applicable to the inhabitants of the United States.

"The following remarkable language is contained in the bill :

"And whereas it is highly expedient that the intercourse between Great Britain and the United States should be established on the most enlarged principles of reciprocal benefit to both countries, but, from the distance between Great Britain and America, it must be a considerable time before any convention or treaty

• Lossing's Pictorial Revolution, where the caricature may be found engraved.

for establishing and regulating the trade and intercourse between Great Britain and the United States of America upon a permanent foundation can be concluded: Now, for the purpose of making a temporary regulation of the Commerce and intercourse between Great Britain and the said United States of America, and in order to evince the disposition of Great Britain to be on terms of the most perfect amity with the said United States of America, and in confidence of a like friendly disposition on the part of the said United States towards Great Britain,' &c., &c.

"The bill then proceeded with a clause to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and the island of Great Britain only, and it was precisely the same system of regulations which, after a lapse of more than thirty years, was established by the convention of 1815, and which is still in force.

"With respect to the intercourse with the colonies, that was to be settled on principles equally liberal.

"The following were the provisions of the proposed bill with respect to the colonies :

"And be it further enacted, That during the time aforesaid the ships and vessels of the subjects and citizens of the said United States shall be admitted into the ports of his Majesty's islands, colonies, and plantations in America, with any merchandise or goods of the growth, produce, and manufacture of the territories of the aforesaid United States, with liberty to export from his Majesty's islands, colonies or plantations in America, to the said territories of the said United States, any merchandise and goods whatsover; and such merchandise and goods which shall be so imported into, or exported from the said British islands, colonies or plantations in America, shall be liable to the same duties and charges only as the same merchandise and goods should be subject to if they were the property of British natural-born subjects, and imported or exported in British-built ships or vessels, navigated by British seamen.

"And be it further enacted, That during all the time hereinbefore limited there shall be the same drawbacks, exemptions, and bounties on merchandise and goods exported from Great Britain into the territories of the said United States of America, as are allowed in the case of exportation to the islands, plantations or colonies now remaining or belonging to the crown of Great Britain in America.'"

Had the same wise Whig councils which terminated the war, prevailed, the revolution would thus have immediately brought about results which we have since seen gradually effected. Almost entire reciprocity would have been at once established. But the times were not yet ripe.

While the British cabinet clung, with a tenacity made a little obstinate, perhaps, by the event of their belligerent policy, to a system of restrictions upon colonial navigation, and to the exclusion of foreign shipping from colonial ports, the success of the revolution was deemed anything but a reason for abandoning the political policy of the Quebec Bill. The Provinces had as yet nothing like representative government. Parliament, eager to repair the mistakes committed in the southern colonies, made haste to supply the deficiency, and Mr. Pitt's Act, or the Constitution of 1791, as it was called, was more successful than his proposition for "equal reciprocity" in 1782. The system of government thus organized remained in force until 1840. By this act the division into Upper and Lower Canada was first made. The executive power was vested in a governor named by the crown, an executive council appointed for life and a legislative council, which was not elective, and was legislative only in name. The legislative assembly was elected by a restricted suffrage.

In July, 1840, by chapter 35 of the 3 and 4 Victoria, the division of the Canadas was done away, and a government of the united provinces of East and West Canada established. The leading features of the new government

are much the same as those of the old, so far as the formal arrangements of government go. Within a few years, governments have been organized in all the provinces on very much the same basis. The assembly is elective, the suffrage being restricted by a property qualification. But in a country like Canada, where land is very cheap and very plenty, there is little in this restriction that is practically exclusive, or undemocratic in practice, however offensive to American ways of thinking, in principle.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, have in like manner their governors appointed by the crown, their executive councils, their legislative councils, and legislative assemblies. Cape Breton sends its quota to the Assembly of Nova Scotia; and in Newfoundland, under the government organized in 1832, something very like universal suffrage prevails. Every tenant of a dwelling, even for one year, is a voter, according to the scheme of suffrage which Mr. Hume has the honor to annually propound to the laughing Senate of England.

But it is not so much in the formal arrangements of the governments, that the political progress of the Provinces is to be sought, as in the principles of administration now recognized, in the spirit and character of the people, in the vital changes that have gradually been brought about with regard to the control of finances, and of the supplies and the control of trade.

The growth of the British Provinces has been a growth of the people. Every new farm cleared and gained from the wilderness has been so much added to the strength of the popular element of legislation. So long as the popular will and the executive will, as expressed through the council which derived its power from the crown, were in harmony, all was well. But in case of collision, which was to yield? How to accommodate the popular element to an executive power independent of the people, without compromising their liberties; how to shape the executive authority so as to conform to the popular will, without breaking down the colonial relation, has been the great difficulty in the British Provinces, ever since growing wealth and population have given them the feeling and pride of a State. It must be the difficulty with all colonies that pretend to free government, for the colonial relation is itself pro tanto an infringement of the principle of free government. It is something very different from the monarchical element in a mixed government like the English. The executive in Canada means a legislative as well as executive control outside of the country-not an integral portion of the domestic constitution. It is this difficulty which has been at the root of all the internal troubles of Canada.

The new organization contains no formal provision that we are aware of, to meet it; but it is understood to be now a settled rule of State, that the ministry and chief officers of government are to conform to the rule of the legislative majority, in analogy to the change of ministry in England. This, we believe, is what is termed in Canadian politics the principle of responsible government. If faithfully carried out, it is obvious how great an advance upon the narrow control of executive cliques and "family compacts" this principle must prove, although it would hardly satisfy our American predilections for written guaranties.

But our topic is now the commercial, rather than political progress of the Provinces. It is often among the affairs of trade that the progress of modern liberty is most distinctly traced. Modern revolutions turn oftenest upon questions of taxation and public economy, and the rule is the same whether the revolutions are sudden and by the sword, or gradual and without the rupture of formal relations.

The English Navigation System, a system, in effect, as harsh towards British colonies as foreign powers, was at its hight, when Pitt made his heroic but unsuccessful attack upon it.

The Navigation Act, in effect, closed the ports of the Provinces to American, now become foreign shipping. The Provinces themselves could import only in British ships, only from British territory.

Another effort for reciprocity was made soon after the failure of Mr. Pitt's Bill; the overture, destined often to be repeated by us in vain, came from the United States. It was made in 1785 by Mr. Adams, our Minister at the Court of St. James. He proposed to place the trade and navigation between all the dominions of the crown and all the United States on the basis of entire reciprocity.* The British Government declined this and any other proposition. "You may depend upon it," wrote Mr. Adams from London, in October, 1785, "the Commerce of America will have no relief at present, nor, in my opinion, ever, until the United States shall have generally passed navigation acts. If this measure is not adopted, we shall be derided; and the more we suffer, the more will our calamities be laughed at."

But those were the days of the confederation, of union only in name, when there were thirteen sovereignties, not one federal government to make itself felt and respected abroad. So long as each State could enact its separate navigation and tariff law, there was little danger of an effective retaliation. If one State excluded, its neighbor might admit, and thus not only would the effect of the policy be weakened, but the difficulty of carrying it out be greatly increased through the multiplied facilities of evasion. So reasoned the merchants of America; so concluded the convention of Annapolis. And the Constitution arose, a beautiful form, from the scattered limbs of the confederacy.

There was all the difference in the world in the reception which the overtures of the United States now received. As early as September, 1789, (the year of the adoption of the Constitution,) a committee was appointed in the House of Lords, which was instructed to report what "proposals of a commercial nature it would be proper to be made" to the United States. In January, 1791, (the year of Pitt's Constitution for Canada,) this committee submitted a report, drawn up by Lord Liverpool. In regard to navigation, the only proposition recommended by the report was that "British ships, trading to the ports of the United States, should be there treated with respect to the duties on tonnage and imports, in like manner as the ships of the United States shall be treated in the ports of Great Britain."

But "if Congress should propose," adds the report, "(as they certainly will,) that this principle of equality should be extended to the ports of our colonies and islands, and that the ships of the United States should be there treated as British ships, it should be answered that this demand cannot be admitted even as a subject of n gotiation."

But even the degree of liberality exhibited in the report failed to influence the commercial intercourse of the two countries, and from 1783 to 1815 the exclusive system was kept up. There were, however, some interruptions. From 1783 to 1788, trade with the United States was placed by orders in council on the footing of foreign Commerce and trade between the United States, and the colonies was restricted to a small number of articles, and confined to British ships exclusively. In 1788 these regulations were con

• Macgreggor's America, vol. 2, page 1313.

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