The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-28 00:00:00

LONDON :
THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 28, 1837.

We cannot admit that the grievances complained of
by the people of Lower Canada—even were they not,
as we know them to be, grossly exaggerated—would
justify an appeal to arms against the power of Great
Britain. Had the Canadians only the justice of the
cause in which they have madly embarked to support
them, hopeless, indeed, would be their prospect of the
termination of such a struggle. It is not the oppres-
sive, but the vaccillating policy of the British Govern-
ment, spreading over a period of fifty years, that has
encouraged the French party in Lower Canada, to un-
furl the standard of rebellion. That vaccillating po-
licy commenced in 1763, when by the treaty of Paris,
Lower Canada, conquered by Wolfe in 1659, was
formally ceded by France to England. The first act
of the British Government at that time was to abo-
lish the Civil and Criminal Laws of the Colony, which
were modelled upon those -of monarchical France ;
and to replace them by the Laws of this coun-
try. For a time, the Colonists were delighted
at the change ; but the wealthier inhabitants
complaining that their rights were infringed by the de-
privation of seignorial privileges and other immunities,
secured to them by the French law of tenure, the
British Cabinet very foolishly yielded to what was then
merely a clamour, and re-established the whole of the
civil and criminal code, which only ten years before it
had formally abolished. By this change a cruel wrong
was inflicted upon the British settlers, who had emi-
grated to Canada in the confidence of enjoying there
the blessings secured to them by the British Constitu-
tion ; and the consequence was, that, as many of them
as could, moved in the direction of the Upper Pro-
vince, that they might not be subject to a jurisdiction
which they did not understand, but against which they
had conceived the strongest anti-national prejudices.
The French Canadians were not insensible of the ad-
vantage they had thus gained, and their easy
victory over the Government encouraged them to
multiply and reiterate their demands. These became
so high in 1791, that Mr. PITT granted them a Con-
stitution which secured to them, as far as was then
practicable, the same rights, civil, religious, and poli
tical, as the people .of England. By this measure
Canada was divided into two Provinces, each subject
to the jurisdiction of a Governor-General nominated
by the KING. In each Province a Legislative Coun-
cil and a House of Assembly was established, bearing
as close an analogy as possible to the Estates of the
Lords and Commons in England. To answer to our Privy
Council, the Governor was authorized to appoint cer-
tain Members of the Legislative Council and the law
officers of the Crown, to form an Executive Council, to
whose judgment he might refer the decision of questions
with the details of which he might not be familiar. This
concession did not satisfy the Canadians, who dated
from its establishment a new list of grievances. As
there was no aristocracy of either wealth or blood in
Canada, the British Government, in regulating the
the working of the Constitution, ordered that the
thirty-four Members forming the legislative Council