her external defences against the encroachments or the pleasing chance of a couple of wars for her protection, aggressions of America or France. She would leave us but not a jot more.

we think it right to lay before the public, as Lord John not only did not allude to them, but seems to have endeavoured to turn our attention in another and less important direction. Our readers will see that, 'Resolved, That the neighbouring STATES have a form of government very fit to prevent abuses of power, and very throughout a long web of inconsistency and rigma-effective in repressing them; that the reverse of this order of things has always prevailed in Canada under the present form of government; that there exists in the neighbouring States a stronger and more general attachment to the national institutions than in any other country, and that there exists also in those States a guarantee for the progressive advance of their political institutions towards perfection, in the revision of the same at short and determinate intervals, by conventions of the people, in order that they may without any shock or violence be adapted to the actual state of things.'-ibid. p. 54, § 41.

role, there may be traced the rogue's yarn of a design to establish the American constitution in lieu of British connexion:

'Resolved, That this House is nowise disposed to admit the excellence of the present Constitution of Canada, although his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies has unseasonably and erroneously asserted, that it has conferred on the two Canadas the institutions of Great Britain; nor to reject the principle of extending the system of frequent elections much further than it is at present carried; and this system ought especially to be extended to the Legislative Council, although it may be considered by the Colonial Secretary incompatible with the British Government, which he calls a Monarchical Government, or too analogous to the institutions which the several States, composing the industrious, moral, and prosperous confederation of the United States of America, have adopted for themselves.'-Resolutions, 21 Feb. 1834, § 14. We pause here for a moment to observe, that throughout these discussions the disrespectful and hostile tone of the House of Assembly against the two Secretaries of State under Lord Grey's administration-Lord Ripon and Lord Stanley-but particularly against Lord Stanley-are the highest testimony to the official merits-towards the British empire-of these two noblemen.

A proposition had been made before these resolutions (March, 1833), by the Assembly, conceding that if the legislative council should be made elective, a high property qualification of eligibility should be addedthat poor concession they now retract:

'Resolved, That the constitution and form of government which would best suit this colony are not to be sought solely in the analogies offered by the institutions of Great Britain, where the state of society is altogether different from our own; and that it would be wise to turn to profit the information to be gained by observing the effects produced by the different and infinitely varied constitutions which the Kings and Parliament of England have granted to the several Plantations and Colonics in America, and by studying the way in which virtuous and enlightened men have modified such colonial institutions when it could be done with the assent of the parties interested.'-ibid. p. 51, § 43.

'Resolved, That the unanimous consent with which all the AMERICAN STATES have adopted and extended the ELECTIVE system, shows that it is adapted to the wishes, manners, and social state of the inhabitants of THIS CONTINENT.'-ibid. p. 51, § 44.

Here, we think, are pretty pregnant instances of a very different and much higher kind of pretension than could be gathered from the expressions (however just in minor respects) with which Lord John Russell so inadequately characterized these Resolutions.

When the Canadians found that these first theories of treason were received without reproof, they grew bolder; and in the next year, enforced them in the fol

'Resolved, That in requiring the possession of real property as a condition of eligibility to a Legislative Council, chosen by the people, (which most wisely and hap-lowing paragraph of an address to the King: pily has not been made a condition of eligibility to the House of Assembly,) this House seems rather to have sought to avoid shocking received opinions in Europe, where custom and the law have given so many artificial privileges and advantages to birth, and rank, and fortune, than to consult the opinions generally received in America, &c.ibid. p. 42, § 13.

'Resolved, That the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in granting to his Majesty's Canadian subjects the power of revising the CONSTITUTION under which they hold their dearest rights, would adopt a liberal policy, free from all considerations of former interests and of existing prejudices; and that by this measure, equally consistent with a wise and sound policy, and with the most liberal and extended views, the Parliament of the United Kingdom would enter into a noble rivalry with the United States of America, would prevent his Majesty's subjects from seeing any thing to envy there;-and would preserve a friendly intercourse between Great Britain and this province, as her colony so long as the tie between us shall continue, and as her ally whenever the course of events may change our relative position!—ibid. p. 44, § 21.

'As a colony' forsooth!-why, if these propositions were granted, she would have been no more a colony of ours than New York or Pennsylvania. She would have been in every possible view as independent as they; unless, indeed, out of her great bounty she might still vouchsafe to us the expense, risk, and responsibility of

'When we solemnly repeat, that the principal object of the political reforms, which this House and the people of this province have for a great number of years used every effort to obtain, and which have frequently been detailed to your Majesty, is to extend the elective principle to the Legislative Council, a branch of the Provincial Legislature which, by its opposition to the people, and by reason of its imperfect and vicious constitution, has proved insufficient to perform the functions for which it was originally created; to render the Executive Council directly responsible to the representatives of the people [of Canada], conformably to the principles and practice of the British Constitution as established in the United Kingdom;-to place under the wholesome and constitutional control of this House the whole public revenue raised in this province, from whatever source derived;-to obtain the repeal of certain Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in which the people of this province are not represented, with regard to the internal affairs of this province, making its territory and best resources the subject of unfair speculation and monopoly, and which we hold to be a violation of the rights of the Legislature and of the people of this Province. When we say we respectfully repeat to your Majesty these our demands, and to declare our FIRM INTENTION TO PERSEVERE IN asking them, as being ALONE calculated to ensure the liberty, peace, and welfare of this Province, and the confidence of the people in the Government, and to cement their political

union with the United Empire, we can scarcely fear that | March, 1834, and communicated to the public in the we should not be understood by your Majesty.Address, Times of the 16th July following: 1836, pp. 25, 26.

And lest this should run any risk of being misunder-speeches are best measured by space-without any alstood, another address to Lord Gosford of the 3d of October, 1836, urges the same claims in language equally determined:

That our construction of all these minatory passages after appearing to destroy the Knave of Clubs, could is not strained, and that they all meant and were un-produce him at the next moment as whole and sound derstood to mean nothing short of the assertion of na- as if nothing had happened. What miserable pusiltional independence, is further proved by a letter of lanimity and falsehood!-because a few shots are fired Mr. Joseph Hume's to Mr. Mackenzie so early as by an excited mob in an attempt to rescue two prisoners,

these gigantic measures are produced, while the solemn peculiarly applicable, and most peculiarly when that and reiterated manifestoes of rebellion by the House of civil war is announced by progressive symptoms, Assembly, an authorized and authoritative power, are which symptoms are certain to become, by neglect, for several years wholly neglected, and at last slurred the substantial disease. A sudden outbreak, caused over as if they had been only such a peevish exhibition by practical grievances, cannot be guarded against; of folly and nonsense as the Queen's minister himself but the fermentation of theoretic treason would have made last autumn!-When Lord John Russell accuses been corrected by an early display of determination the leader of the Canadian House of Commons of and power on the part of the government. Two making charges, 'some of them of violence-some of them of vituperation-some of them against individuals -some of them against governors-some of them against government in general;' he seems to forget his own speech at Stroud, of which this description of Mr. Papineau's resolutions is but a faint sketch, and which would just as much have justified the suspension of the constitution of England and the appointment of a dictator, as—according to his lordship's version-the proceedings in Canada.

We trust we may not be misunderstood-we are so far from denying the right of this country to interfere I with a high hand, that we think the right-the duty of doing so, occurred long ago—that the right accrued in 1832, when the House of Assembly refused to perform its constitutional functions of providing for the government of the province-but that it became the imperative duty of ministers, when the House of Assembly informed the Governor by its address of the 3d of October, 1836, that it would adjourn its deliberations @till its unconstitutional demands were complied with. These the overt acts of the theories of treason by which they were preceded and accompanied are the real grounds of our interference, and not the smaller and 1 ancillary circumstances on which the ministers now rest their measures.

regiments-one regiment—a gunboat-anything that
would have convinced the Canadians that England
saw their design, and was resolved to defeat it, would
have dissipated that design and averted the lamentable
consequences which have followed the contrary policy.
We entirely concur in the Duke of Wellington's
admirable aphorism-'A great country cannot make a
little war'—but we think his Grace would also agree
with us that small but early indications of resolution
and strength, will often avert great calamities. Pre-
vention is better than punishment; and, by shutting
their eyes and ears to the hostile menaces of the Cana-
dians, the Government only encouraged the poor
wretches to precipitate themselves on destruction.
Why then, we ask again, this incomprehensible apathy?
It may be very well for Lord Brougham to say that
Lord Glenelg was asleep,'-but if he was, the sleep
was infectious, and extended itself to both the Cabinet
and the Senate; Lord Melbourne had fallen asleep over
the petitions to the English Treasury from the starving
functionaries of the colony-and Lord Palmerston over
a précis of the Boundary-line discussion;-Lord Minto
was asleep over the purser's accounts of the single sloop
of war in Halifax Harbour; and Lord Howick over the
non-effective returns of the garrisons in Nova Scotia-
Lord John Russell and the House of Commons were
dozing away a speech of Mr. Hume's on the reduction
of our forces by sea and land; and, most wonderful of
all, that mercurial magistrate, the Lord High Chancellor
of the day-must himself have been―somno, vinoque
sepultus-fast asleep by the side of his noble 'FRIEND'
the Colonial Secretary-in short-
Lost was the nation's sense, nor could be found,
While the long solemn unison went round:-
Wide and more wide it spread through all the realm;
The vapour mild o'er each Committee crept;
Unfinished Treaties in the office slept;
The chiefless Armies dozed out the campaign;
And Navies yawned for orders on the main

Even Palinurus nodded at the helm:

Why then this long apathy? Why, when ministers saw the mine a-digging-why, when they saw the train a-laying-why when they saw Guy Fawkes preparing his matches and lighting his lanthorn, they were perfectly quiescent-not to say acquiescent! but when an unlucky accident caused a partial explosion, they cry out gunpowder plot!' and punish not only a whole class, but a whole country for conniving at a treason, at which they themselves for half-a-dozen years appear to have connived-why was this? Why, when it was openly declared that the American constitution was the object of the malcontents-an object which could not be attained without an insurrection-why This would be bad enough; but we heartily wish were not the British forces adequately increased, and the loyal Canadians adequately encouraged? Why, we had so comparatively innocent an excuse for miniswhen the House of Assembly had annulled the Constitu- ters as to believe their sleep, real. It was, we are tion by suspending its proper functions and disorgan-convinced, only a fox's sleep, to conceal their incapacity izing the government,-why were not measures imme- and pusillanimity: for here is the true solution of the diately taken to restore the Constitution and to restore enigma. The 92 resolutions conclude with the followthe government? Was there ever a case in which the ing passages: general maxim were more just 'si vis pacem, para bellum?—True in all wars, it is to a civil war that it is

that Daniel O'Connell, Esq., had given notice in the 'Resolved, That this House learned, with gratitude, House of Commons in July last, that during the present

The Articles in this Index are arranged under the first Letter, and the first Vowel which follows it.