The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-31 00:00:00

STATF OF FEELING IN CANADA.

We give insertion to the following letter, from our
private correspondent in Canada, distinctly repudiating
however, any participation in the very strong language
he uses. When we say that the writer does not belong
to the usual class of correspondents of the press, and that
he mingles extensively with the most respectable British
inhabitants of both provinces, the tone of his letter may
serve, to some extent, as an exponent of the excited state
of feeling prevailing amongst them, which is very imper-
fectly made known by the press to the British public.
FRELIGHBURG, CANADA EAST, JULY 13TH.
The policy of England towards this country seems to
be characterised by fatality, at least it is so if a policy
which has the direct tendency of alleviating the affections
of the loyal inhabitants, and pandering to those who have
all their lives tried to sever the connexion with the mother
country may be called such. Nothing can exceed the
feelings of indignation with which the debate in parlia-
ment on the " affairs of Canada," as the phrase now goes,
has been read in this country ; and nothing can exceed
the insults to the loyal inhabitants of this country, that
are contained in the letter of Mr. Hawes to Sir Allan Mac
Nab, in answer to the petitions signed by hundreds of
thousands, of which Sir Allan was the bearer to the
Queen.

It is needless to enter at any length into discussion of
either the debate or the letter of Mr. Hawes, as like the
Times,—" ohe jam salis,"—we have had enough. The
main argument of the majority in the former was, that it
was impossible, either to " frame a bill to exclude rebels"
from compensation, or to disbelieve the word of Lord Elgin,
that it was never the intention of his ministry to pay rebels.
It is enough of answer to the first argument to say, that in
Upper Canada five or six acts have been both " framed"
and passed, which have excluded rebels, and compensated
the losses of the loyal alone. And as regards disbelieving
the word of Lord Elgin, it is needless to be namby pamby
in choosing words with which to characterize his veracity,
at a time like the present, when for the furtherance of his
owu selfish ends, and those of a party which have always
hated British connexion, as its chief hatred, he has so far
debased the high station of the representative of the men
of England, and his own character as a nobleman and a
gentlemen, as to lie. It, is a hard word, but not more
hard than is the proof clear, and as one of the Montreal
morning papers observes, " it would be a lie to call it by
any other name." Up to the passing of the bill, none
ever attempted to deny in this country that rebels were
going to be paid ; the ministry, I have heard again
and again say, on the floor of the assembly, that it was
impossible to exclude rebels. Seeing the storm they had
raised in the country, they changed their cry—said they
did not mean to pay rebels, and Lord Elgin has more than
once uttered their falsehood. This brings me to Mr.
Hawes's letter. Mr. Hawes points Sir Allan M`Nab to
Lord Elgin's reply to the address of the county of Has-
tings. In that reply Lord Elgin says, " that he did not
believe that it was the intention of the Canadian parlia-
ment to compensate the losses of those guilty of the
heinous crime of treason." Every circumstance connected
with this measure—the measure itself as interpreted by
the Attorney-general of England—the words of the minis-
try here, and Lord Elgin's own despatches, all go to prove
that when he penned the phrase cited above he uttered a
felsehood. The bill, as first introduced, did not even ex-
clude convicted rebels, and only did so after the adoption
of the amendment of the Hon. Mr. Boulton, of Norfolk,
to that effect. The act excludes none now, but convicted
rebels : and in face of facts of this kind, the loyal inhabi-
tants of Canada are to be referred to the lie contained in
the reply to the Hastings' address. It is more than the
loyal have been able to bear, and after due consideration
of all the facts which I have observed, and the tone of all
the newspapers which were once loyal par excellence, I
am led to the conclusion that loyalty is one of the things
which were in this country. Those who were once loyal
advocate either annexation or independence, and those
who were once rebels, and are so still in their hearts, advo-
cate loyalty.
The letter of instructions to the commissioners has been
pnblished. It contains nothing new, and is of a piece
with the rest.

The weather has been for some time past hot and dry,
to the injury of the grass crops. There have been some
cases of cholera, but it bas not been very bad.