The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-24 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1849.

Canada is unhappily affording the mother country
serious cause for disquietude. The attitude recently
assumed by her Colonial Government is at once dis-
loyal to the SOVEREIGN, insulting to her Parliament,
and calculated to provoke endless agitation through-
out that portion of her North American dominions.
Although it was declared last evening by the Home
Secretary, in the absence of the Honourable Repre-
sentative of Kinsale, that no officio communications
have yet been received from the Governor, Lord
ELGIN, in reference to the late proceedings of the
Administration at Montreal, those occurrences are
already so notorious as to require no remarks on our
part by way of apology for their consideration.
Seeing that the transatlantic journals have contained
copious reports not only of the decisions but
also of the discussions of the Legislative Assembly ;
seeing that those discussions are fraught with dis-
loyalty to her MAJESTY, and with discourtesy to her
MAJESTY'S advisers ; seeing that those decisions
have excited extraordinary indignation amongst the
worthier inhabitants of the province, insomuch that a
public meeting of nearly four thousand individuals
protested against the conduct of the Canadian Cabinet,
and that consequently the effigy of one of the most
obnoxious representatives was burnt and decapitated
in the streets of Montreal—there is surely no reason
for preserving an ineffectual silence upon the question
at issue, simply because Earl GREY has not received
a bundle of corroborative documents from Quebec.
Notwithstanding the importance of these disturb-
ances among the Canadians, there are, doubtless, many
still ignorant of their real origin and of their pernicious
character. It will not, consequently, be superfluous
if, for their information, we briefly and simply relate
the nature of the anxieties felt by England respecting
the position of affairs in her North American posses-
sions. To abbreviate our explanation to the compass
of a single sentence, we may observe that
the excitement in Canada arises from a pro-
ject of the Ministry—a project confirmed by
the Legislative Assembly—to compensate rebels as
well as loyalists for any losses incurred during the
period of the rebellion. The outrageous injustice, as
well as the injurious influence of such a
scheme, require no exposition they are un-
fortunately too glaringly visible in them-
selves. Besides which it is impossible not to
perceive that the effect of this atrocious act of indis-
eximinate indemnity will be, if carried into operation,
a flagrant insult to the Supreme Government of the
British Empire, a monstrous and practical incitement
to insurrection, and an expression of disloyalty to
our Gracious MONARCH BO bold and indecorous, as,
if allowed to pass unpunished and even unreprobated,
must act most prejudicially upon the ,
wnole working
of our colonial policy.
It is pretended by the promoters of this scheme of
compensation that a measure of a similar character
was at one time projected by Lord METCALYE himself.
its it would be far from difficult to disprove the as-
sertion by labb-wing ihat that statesman restricted his
intentions solely to tho indemnification of the sup-