The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is satisfactory to learn from one who has had excel-
lent opportunities of knowing the prevailing ways of think-
ing both in Canada and the adjoining States of America,
whose communication will be found under the head
" Canada," that there is every reason to believe the troops
stationed on the borders by the American Government will
effectually prevent the disaffected in Canada from receiving
aid from the States of the Union. There is, he affirms, no
disposition on the part of the people of the United States to
attempt prematurely to obtain what would only at present
embarrass them, and which they count on obtaining as a
master of course hereafter. That the neutrality was not
strictly enforced during the recent disturbances he attri-
butes to motives connected with the election ; but as
the election is over, the Government has no longer
a fear of having its activity turned against it. If
our Peers are not always influenced by the purest
motives, and do not hesitate to hazard the dis-
memberment of the empire merely for the sake
of giving annoyance to Lord Durham, we can hardly be
surprised if our brethren of North America occasionally
suspect each other of a disposition to foul play. This
die
position on the part of the North Americans to abstain
from interfering with the affairs of Canada is a cheering
circumstance in the present state of affairs in that colony.
There is more than enough of matter for serious appre-
hension without the addition of foreign interference. If
the Habitant are animated with a furious hatred of the
British, it may easily be supposed that there is no love lost
on the part of the latter, who naturally enough blame the
French for the interruption of their trade, and the enor-
mous losses they have thereby sustained. Where such a
feeling prevails it will be fortunate if exasperating collisions
do not take place. The merchant or farmer smarting
under losses is not likely to be a merciful ally to the
soldier should his services be in requisition as a militia
man. The Standard tells us that in the picture
we yesterday gave of Canadian discord we prudently
omitted one tint, the influence of the implacable hostility
of Romanism. We omitted nothing—we do not believe
Romanism has anything whatever to do with the quarrel in
Canada which led to te insurrection. The agitation had
no reference whatever to religion. The agitators were a
gang of hungry notaries and doctors who for years had
crammed an unsuspecting, credulous population with tales
of British rapacity and of designs to rob Jean Baptiste of
his inheritance, and drive the Enfans du Sol into the un-
trodden wilderness. They are in every respect the oppo-
site of their British neighbours. Without enterprise the
Frenchman lived happy and contented on the produce
of his patch of ground, his ambition not extending be-
yond the hurdle fence which environed his little
property. Bad as his laws were, and offering al-
most insurmountable obstacles to improvement, they
were the laws to which he bad been accustomed,
and the attempts to change them gave a powerful handle to
those who wished to fill him with hatred of his English fel-
low subject. It is admitted on all hands that in no coun-
try were crimes less frequent, that violence was utterly un-
known, and that no feature in the character of the people
was more remarkable than their peaceable disposition.
Romanism did not substitute for the kind feeling long en-
tertained towards the English their present hatred. By
our inconceivable folly we allowed a state of things to con-
tinue which afforded but too good a handle to the agitators,
who ultimately succeeded in driving the poor people into
an insurrection. At one time great faults committed by
the Tory Governments of this country, who, by opposing
the reform of unquestionable abuses, by want of tact
in adopting proceedings which, while they were of no be-
nefit,
were exceedingly offensive, created the opposition
which, when a disposition was ultimately evinced to act with
fairness, burst through all reasonable limits, and would be
satisfied with nothing short of national independence.
What the priests had to do with all this we cannot per-
ceive, though we can easily conceive that in a quarrel be-
tween two races the priests of the French will be forced,
whether they will or not, to take part with the men of their
own blood and language. So much is the dispute one of
race and not of religion, that the Irish Catholics, of whom
there are many in the Canadas, are as hostile to the French
as the British Protestants. It is quite clear that the lead-
ers of the French Canadians are men by no means equal
to the situation in which they are placed. If they had
possessed anything like common sense, they would have
availed themselves of the opportunity of Lord Durham's
arrival among them to recommend to the Habitant to
meet him half way, and second his views. After the cur-
tain bad fallen upon the first act of civil war, they should
have shown a disposition to consider him as an impartial
umpire in the dispute. Lord Durham was anxious above all
things to reconcile the parties in the hope of averting the evils
to the Habitant, as well as to the best interests of the
empire, which would result from a renewed struggle for
the mastery. But they kept at a sulky distance from him ;
they hung back in a spirit of indifference or hostility. As
if determined not to be gained over, they even gave their
confidence to the greatest enemy of Lord Durham in this
country, Lord Brougham, to whom they gave a brief to
enable the Noble and Learned Lord to effect his removal
from Canada. The leaders of the French have, in short,
shown themselves utterly inadequate to the demands of the
existing emergency. The meeting at St. Rosh's suburbs,
held for the purpose of addressing the grateful sentiments
of the French party to Lord Brougham, for his efforts in
bringing about the retirement of Lord Durham, was, no
doubt, a shabby affair ; but what an idea of imbecility does
it give, that any body of men should have been permitted
to meet for such a purpose at a moment so critical in their
affairs, and when they were on trial, as it were, be-
fore the world ! What can they possibly gain by prov-
inc, to the world that a disposition to conciliate is
thrown' away on them, that the only reward a sin-
cere disposition to adopt healing measures can expect
from them is insult? Do they wish to justify the more
severe course to which the removal of Lord Durham will
probably lead? The time, however, calls for decision.
The interests of two fine Provinces and of the whole Em-
pire, compromised by delay, call for the speedy adoption
of efficacious measures. To conciliate the French Cana-
dians is impossible ; to benefit them, as well as the inhabi-
tants of British descent, by measures suited to the crisis, is
possible.—Morning Chronicle.
Nothing can be imagined more tame and twaddling than
the tone and language of the morning organ of the Go-
vernment concerning Lord Durham's appeal to the people
of British America. To defend his Lordship's address is
impossible, but to offend his Lordship himself might be
impolitic, and hence the Ministerial writer is in what is
familiarly called a quandary, and we dare say very de
voutly wishes that Lord Durham and his proclamations
had gone to the bottom of the Saint Lawrence, rather
than have produced so much inconvenience here. Oh !
if it were but possible—if it could by any means be
reconciled with the preposterous and nauseous flat-
teries of the last ten months—how gladly would
the Morning Chronicle now fall upon the rash,
ridiculous, and irritated Lord, and tear to pieces the repu-
tation which it has absurdly (because in the teeth of
events) been labouring to uphold ! a
The Whigs and the
e
Whig press can very well manage merely vain man
whom the gross flatteries of to-day will soothe after the
cool affronts of yesterday, which circumstances had ren-
dered necessary; but a man like Lord Durham, who adds
fiery irritability to insatiable vanity, is too much for them.
Nothing but a resolute support of his wrong-doing will
avert his wrath, and resolution in any cause, whether good
or bad, is a quality foreign to the present Administration,
and not to be expected from any of its hacks. That they
are angry with Lord Durham is almost as evident as that
they ought to be so, and that they do not dare to be se,
openly and unreservedly—
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
They hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
This is most contemptible, but the explanation is, that it
is Ministerial. Can the Ethiopian change his colour, or the
leopar‘ll his spots ? By way of apology for his Lordship
—who is nevertheless reminded that he would have done
better to has held his tongue for the present—the cuckoo
note is repeated of the " despotic" authority with which
Lord Durham was invested. His Lordship's words are
reiterated that "
When Parliament. concentrated all legis-
lative and executive power in Lower Canada in the same
hands, it established an ,authority which in the strictest
;sense of the word was despoix." Anticipating that the
which professes an extraordinary devotedness to
lournal
odar rwbert would,
viol with its usual consistency, eagerly
dump' 1 thisY excuse for the Governor of Canada,
we have already shown in the Morning Post (an
itthat it is sheer ignorance on
easy 11.
Lord Durham, or of any one, to ima-
the parttas:k' Des:wasd at any time entrusted
gine
• that
Parliament ha at
Lordship
any time created, a des-
with, or that
Whether it would not have been
potic power in Canado.-
tionthoacvoencsrideeartaetdiona
more politic in the Parlirencta—natdaaksin_g
the rebellious state of t e
It Is enough for the dis-
temporary despotic power for the suppression of rebellion,
it is not now necessary to argue.
, eussion of Lord Durham's conduct to be well aware
that the Parliament did not make the
wooer
Conada a despot, that it did not make Governor re
doe!
d as
peul/44ent of the law, and to know also that Lord Durham,
in the, execution of' his office of such G. overnor, acte
thotlgh Parliament had done that which it did not do.
Lord. Da:ham, by his own account. of what. he understands
.t to have done, proves his very ignorance of the
his office was created, and thereby
the pithy expression of thest, Duk
ha
e
use of Lords lasi Augu tt
ie Noble Earl was not fit all
,itij." That was just the cast ;
was acting with an authority
" in the strictest sense of the
fact, hp was acting upon an au-

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