The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-23 00:00:00

state now, that it is our intention, in the first place, to pro-
duce to-morrow all the information that can be produced,
without injury to the public service, collected from the dis-
patches and information received from Lord Gosford.
( Cries of " Hear, hear.") That information being laid be-
fore Parliament, will necessarily require some time before it
can be read and considered. It is further our intention, con-
sidering that Parliament cannot be immediately brought to-
gether directly after Christmas in sufficient numbers to con-
sider matters of such importance, yet at the same time, consi-
dering that we should not be justified in so long an adjourn-
ment as till the Ist day of February next—(Hear)—it is our
intention to move that Parliament do re-assemble on Tuesday
the 16th of January nett.—( Hear and cheers.) I therefore
think it right to inform the Honourable Gentleman who
proposes to make a motion on this subject to-night, that I
certainly don't think it would be useful or expedient to
enter, in any answer which I might give him, into a state-
ment of the affairs of Canada upon which any definitive
resolution could be come to by the House, thinned as it is by
absence. At the same time, I may add, that we do not wish to
withhold any information from Parliament on matter so grave
and important, but that in the middle of January we propose to
meet Parliament, with a view to call on them for such measures
as may be deemed necessary ; but whether the country
is with us, aye or no, whether it will agree with us in our de-
termination remains to be seen ; but our resolve is, that the
well-affected to the Crown in that country should be protected—
( Cheers)—and we are anxious that in any measure we adopt we
should be not only acting by command of her Majesty, but with
the full assent and concurrence of Parliament and the country.

Mr. LEADER said that the Noble Lord had stated thai
be should lay all the official documents on the table of the
House, and he had further stated that in answer to
any questions of his, he should not consider it necessary
to enter into the subject, looking at the state in
which they were at present placed. The Noble Lord was at
perfect liberty to take any course in the discussion he might
think advisable : but he thought the importance of the Ca-
nada question, and the great interest at stake justified him in
pressing the subject on the attention of the House, and rendered
it an imperative duty on his part to lay the statements he was
about to do before the attention of the House, for the purpose
of enabling them to decide on the course they would take,
and to mark their sense of the course adopted by Govern-
ment.—( Hear.) He also wished the House to decide upon
what course they would adopt consistent with the best interests
of Canada and Great Britain. As things as present existed,
the interests and liberties of Canada and the honour rind peace
of England were in imminent danger. Such being the case,
he now asked the Representatives of the people, and in (loin, so
the Noble Lord could not consider his question ill-timed, how
it was that a colony like Lower Canada had been driven into
rebellion, by what means the evils might be mitigated, and in
what manner a general war might be prevented throughout
Europe ? It might be advisable, in the first instance, to give
a brief sketch of the present uneasy state of Canada, and
the cause of it.—( Hear, hear.) The Canadians were a
weak people, contending against a rsiost gigantic
power. For many years past the Canadians had been com-
plaining of many grievances ; they had year after year peti-
tioned the Colonial Office, and lastly Parliament for re-
drese.--( Hear, hear, hear.) But although every com-
plaint that they had made was acknowledged to be well-
founded, their prayers had been neglected. It had been
felt that they were too weak to eefore redress, and therefore
their prayers had been unheeded. Finding at last that their
petitions were in vain, and that they could expect no justice
from the Colonial Office or the British Parliament, they had
recourse to the legal right which their Constitution gave them,
and they refused to grant any money to the Govern-
ment, that had positively refused to grant them any
redress. This, in his (Mr. L.'s) opinion, was a just, wise,
and Constitutional course—they had a right to stop the sup-
plies ; and in exercising that right, they only exercised that
which they had the Constitutional power to do, which Con-
stitutional power. it was to be remembered, had been
given them by the Government of this country. It might
be said that they had chosen the improper time—if
such were the case, he would ask whether the Government
were to be the parties who were to tell them when that time
r a ? NI hat was the course pursued by the Government when
the Canadians took the step they had done ? hy, they had
determined that the Canadians should be coerced, and
they had coerced them by the resolutions which
had been passed in that House during the last Session of
Parliament. The Canadians asked for redress, and the
Government of this country, instead of giving them it, had
sent over the Coercion Bill. —( Cries of " Hear, hear.")
The consequence of those resolutions vies, that the Canadians
seeing they could not hope for justice from the Government—
seeiag that they must trust to themselves and themselves alone,
and seeing it was utterly impossible to get even an acknow-
ledgment of their constitutional rights in this country_
and finding themselves in this dilemma, that they must either
submit to the resolutions, and be slaves, or resist the resolu-
tions at the risk of a civil war—they took that alternative
which every people that enjoyed any portion of freedom would,
and determined on resistance. He must say they would have been
despicable, and the people of England would have been the first
to despise them, ic t.king the other alternative, they had basely
submitted to the slavery the Government sought to impose on
them. As soon as the resolutions were known in Canada,
measures acre taken for resisting those resolutions, and as
the Canadians of course anticipated the Government would
endeavour to enforce the resolutions ; measures were concocted
for armed resistance. Those measures were well taken and
well executed. Public meetings were called. Speeches
were made, indignantly denouncing the resolutions, and
the Government that proposed them. Societies were
formed in the country for the purpose of organizing the young
men, that they might be mustered and drilled, and accus-
tomed to military evolutions. Those who took their differences
to the regular courts of justice were denounced, and provisional
local courts were established in their stead, to which every good
Canadian was required by the Canadian Committees to take his
differences to be adjusted ; and every man who, instead of
going to the provisional local comes, applied to Vie regular
courts of justice, was denounced as a traitor to his country._
(Loud cries " Hoer, hear" from the Radicals, and Counter-
cheers from the Ministerialists and Conseil atives. ) A regular
system of commercial non-intercourse with great Britain
was established, in order that, by not using taxed articles,
they might injure the revenue ; and that by not using any
article of British produce they might show their strong sense
of the injustice inflicted on them. All those measures were
to be enforced by Committees of vigilance, but those Com-
mittees of ilia:lnce had little or nothing to do, for 9- leths of
the peeple were so exasperated against Government that he
was considered the patriot who most resisted the detested ty-
rannical Government. Those measures had all been decided
upon, and carded into execution. lie thought, therefore,
any one might safely say, even if they had not the recent ac-
counts of to day, that Lower Canada was in a state of open
revolt.—( Hear.) There was (ne point in those mea-
sures to which he must call the attention of the Hon.
Members—it was the subject of commercial nos-intercourse.
This was precisely the course taken by the Americans at the
commencement of their struggle for independence. The
British Ministers at that time thought they could not
exist without articles of British produce. But he had no
doubt the Noble Lord (Lord John Russell) remembered
the evidence of Dr. Franklin, given on that occasion,
who stated that the Americans would soon be able to supply
themselves with the articles which they procured from Eng-
land, by their own manufactures; and that was precisely the
feeling that now existed in Lower Canada. The Canadians,
let it be recollected, had this advansage—they were
met, as the Americans were, when they struggled for inde-
pendence, alone, upon that Continent—they had a powerful
and friendly neighbour, anxious to profit by any struggle
that might take place between Canada and England.
There would be an extensive system of smuggling
established, and in fact had already been established, along the
American frontier, by which the Canadians could easily be
supplied with articles which they now obtained from England.
The Hon. Member wont on to refer to the riot at Montreal
in respect of which great exaggerations had been circulated ;
and it was pretended that the party called the " British," or
the " Ascendancy " (for they were not British) party, could
controul the great body of the Canadian population ; just as
in Ireland, the Orangemen said they could put
down the Catholics. The facts were, that a Society of
young men at Montreal, called " the Sons of Liberty,"
had met a Tory club, and an encounter ensued—the Tories
being compelled to leave the field. They returned, however,
reinforced by large numbers, but finding their opponents
quietly dispersed, they showed their courage by attacking
the office of a Liberal paper, called the Vindicator, in
which there was at the time only an old woman, whom
they gallantly dragged out and then set fire to the office.
It might be asked why did they not come back and defend the
premises ? What use would that be ? for they knew well
that they were burned, and they knew also the temper of
the British Magistracy and the troops too well to doubt that if
they did return the Tories would have been backed by
them.—(Loud cries of " hear, hear," from the Opposition
benches.) What! would they have the Magistracy and the
troops to act as partizans in such a quarrel. This would
certainly have been the case, for in Montreal there was as-
sembled a large number of troops, and it would aot have
been merely the triumph of the Tories over the Liberals,
but that of large and numerous military bands acting
as partizans for the Tories and against the people. In the
account of the recent collision which had taken place between
the troops and the people, the same feeling of unfairness
and partizanship bad been manifested. It seemed the
last Governor had represented that Lower Canada was
not generally disaffected, but that portions only of it were
disturbed, and that the disturbances in those parts were
headed by factious demagogues. Now he would take the
statement of one of their own papers, and he would ask
whether they were of opinion the province was only dis-
affected in part, or whether it did not extend to the
entire population? It seemed that a party of the Montreal
cavalry went out to seize certain disaffected persons,
and having secured them they were escorting them back,
when they were attacked by a large body of the peasantry
who were assembled behind a breast-work, on the road-
side, composed of trees. A skirmish ensued, the cavalry were
put to flight, and the prisoners rescued. Now, he would ask
whether this did not resemble the disaffection of the entire po-
pulation ? It was precisely the state of a country in open in-
surrection. The houses were shut up, the women and chil-
dren carried to a place of safety, and the men were in open
arms against the authorities. In order that it might not be
supposed that he was overstating the case, he would read
the statement of a paper, generally supposed to be favour-
able to the Government. [The Hon. Member then proceeded
to read the account of the rescue of the two prisoners from
the Montreal Herald; the extract being one which has ap-
peared recently in all the London newspapers.] Now he would
ask any military man in the House whether those Canadians
had shown military skill or not ?—( Hear, hear.) It was
generally the fault with young soldiers to fire low ; but the