The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-22 00:00:00

Canada and

to Canadians,

(From the Times' correspondent.)
QUEBEC, Oct. 2.
The inveterate jealousy of England entertained
in the Northern States of America, the progress
and probable results of the Civil War, together with
the insolent threats of leading American statesmen
and journalists that the conquest or annexation of
Canada will sooner or later be attempted, in re.
taliation for real or supposed injuries on the part
of Great Britain, or simply as a counterpoise for
the loss of the Southern States, have naturally
excited the attention, if not the alarm, of the
Canadians. It is not the first time that they have
asked themselves the question whether they were
earnestly loyal to the British Crown, or whether,
all things considered, it would not be to their ad-
vantage either to declare their independence or to
seek peaceable incorporation with the great Repub.
lie upon their border; but it is the first time that
they have answered it with emphatic unanimity,
and that all classes have come to the conclusion that
their liberty, prosperity, and happiness will be best
secured by the continuance of their connection with
Great Britain; that if this connection should un•
fortunately be severed their duty would be to esta-
blish their independence in union, if possible, with
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's
Island, and Newfoundland; and that under no cir.
cumstances short of absolute subjugation they
would consent to incorporation with the Federal
Republic. baring a journey of upwards of twelve
hundred miles through the towns and cities of
Upper and Lower Canada I have made it my busi-
ness to converse on this subject with all descrip-
tions of people. I have interchanged ideas with
farmers and mechanics, with clerks and shopkeep-
ers, with hack drivers and boatmen, with merchants,
lawyers, and physicians; with members of the Le.
gistature of every political party; with actual or
former members of the Government; with French
Canadians and with Canadians of Anglo-Saxon or
Irish descent, and with new comers of all classes.
In all this intercourse I did not meet with cue per.
son, however prejudiced or ignorant he might be on
other matters, who did not estimate the British con-
nexion at its full value, and express repugnance at
the idea of annexation to the Federal States.
There was a time not very remote when a different
feeling prevailed in Upper Canada;. but the teach•
ings of the American Civil War have wrought a
change, and produced throughout that province an
attachment to the old flag which may be equalled
but cannot be excelled in England or Scotland. In
the Lower Province the loyalty to Great Britain is
not so fervent; but if the French fall short of the
Anglo-Canadians in this respect they entertain
towards the Yankees—or as they sometimes call
them, the Bostonais—a far greater aversion than is
felt or expressed by any portiorr of the English
speaking population. If they love England little,
they hate Federal America much, and are fully
aware of, and resolved to preserve, the benefits of
British protection.
The people of the mother country will be batter
enabled to understand the genuineness of the
loyalty of these noble provinces, and how the
diverse interests of the several races who inhabit
them all converge into this one sentiment, if they
will call to mind the leading incidents of Canadian
history, and separate into its constituent parts the
actual body of the population. For this purpose it
will not be so satisfactory to divide the Canadians
into persons of French, English, Scottish, Irish, and
German descent, as into the three great social and
political sections—first, of French Canadians ;
second, of united empire loyalists and British Cana-
dians ; and third, of recent immigrants and their
descendants. Every Canadian falls under one or
other of these divisions, and if it should appear that
for solid reasons of their own, independently of
those entertained by others, each of these elemen-
tary parts of Canadian nationality clings to the
British Crown as the surest guarantee of its liberty
and advancement, it may be accepted as a fact that
Canadian loyalty is not a thing of light account,
and that Federal America would enter upon a very
dangerous career if it attacked such a people, sup.
ported as they would be, in case of emergency, by
the purse and strength of the British Empire.
The total population of Canada by the last census
amounted to 2,596,755 souls—nearly as many as
the gallant race who,under the leadership of Wash-
ington, established the independence of the thirteen

colonies. Of these 883,943, or slightly upwards of
one-third, are of French descent. They represent
the oldest settlers in the country, speak the French
language, are of the Roman Catholic faith, and are
governed by their own laws, which are not those of
the "Code Napoleon," but those which existed in
France prior to the Revolution. The French Cana-

diens are in effect Frenchmen of the ancien regime,
over whose heads the storm of the great Revolution
did not burst, and who, with the exception that
they have no great feudal chiefs and barons among
them, like their European ancestors, maintain in
the New World a state of society very similar :o
that which existed in the Old in the days of Louis
XIV. They are docile, frugal, and affectionate,
ardently attached to their laws, religion, and lan-
guage, and very much, if not entirely, under the
political control of the clergy. Were it possible to
constitute themselves into a separate province or
colony, under the protectorate of France, they would
no doubt be highly satisfied. At one time they had
such an aspiration, but it has passed away. It re-

ceives no encouragement from the clergy, who know
it to be an idle dream that never can be realised.

The clergy know, moreover, that they have a well.
. _

endowed Church, that they enjoy the utmost liberty
of worship, that the laws which the people inhe-
rited from their ancestors are guaranteed by the
British Crown, and that as long as they retain a
connection of which all the advantages are on one
side, and that their .Avn, no power in the world can
do the French Canadians an injury. On the other
hand, the clergy look with fear as well as dislike
upon the Americans. They are not at heart Repub.
licans (neither Frenchmen nor Roman Catholic
priests of any nationulity incline naturally to that
form of Government), and habitually warn their
youth from the pulpit against " the demoralising
influence and infidel tendencies of the neighbouring
Republic" (l'influence demoralisatrice de la Repub-
lique voisine et ses tendancss infideles). They would
have nothing to hope, but everything to fear, from
the conquest of the country by the Americans; and

though their loyalty to the Imperial Government
does not at present take any active form or assume

any warm expression, the least aggression upon
Canada on the part of the Federal Government would
convert •every priest in Lower Canada, from the
Archbishops down to the humblest cure de paroisee
into a zealous and effective recruiting officer for the
defence of the soil and the honour of the British flag.
If in such a war of aggression on the part of the
American Union, or what is likely to remain of it,

Great Britain and Franco should happen to be allies,
it would not require the exhortations of the clergy

to convert every French Canadian capable of bear-

ing arms into a soldier, and to fan the present small
flame of military ardour into a conflagration that
would trouble the Americana to extinguish, were

they twice as obdurate as they have shown them-

selves in their war against the South.

The "United Empire Loyalists," or "U. E.
Loyalists," as they were often called, were Vir-
ginians, Pennsylvanians, Cirolinians, Georgians,
New Englanders, New Yorkers, and others, who at
the outbreak of the American Revolution considered,

through good and evil repute, that it was the sacred
duty
of the coioniststo maintain their connexion with
the mother country, and who were conscientiously of
opinion that General Washington was a traitor and
a rebel. They affirmed that all who aided and abetted
him were -
guilty of his crimes, and when rebellion
triumphed they
eforsookland, their homes, their property,
and their native and took refuge in Canada in
poverty and misery
ratherlittle
ithan be false to their al-
legiance or lend even
Whose
as their silent aequies-
' cenco to a Governmu
stehprincipics they con.
damned, and whoso practice thd not deem to be
less injwious end trcasanabie because it was success-
ful. The descendants of these
Ahglremsthe bulk of
tr:dxi,n. race.
the native born C3nadians ot the
remain true to the
How many of them
eh
epeltr
The
hns of
their ancestors it is impossible to ascertaignti
census estimates the total number of En
ing Canadians Baru in th 4 two provinces at 1,037,170