Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 | Page 9

of the good people of
Amherstburgh, and erect a monument in the capital of Upper Canada to
the memory of those who died in consequence of the folly, the
hardihood, and the presumption of this man.
There may have been some excuse pleaded for the Canadian French.
Misled by designing men, these excellent people of course fancied that,
contrary to all possible reason and analogy, a population of about half a
million was strong enough to combat with British dominion. Their
language, laws, and religion, they were told, were in danger.
But what excuse could the Upper Canadians have--men of British birth,
or direct descent, who had grievances, to be sure, but which grievances
resolved themselves into the narrow compass of the Family Compact
and the thirty-seven Rectories? Quiet farmers, reposing in perfect
security under the Ægis of Britain, were the mass of Upper Canadians.
The "Family Compact" is still the war-cry of a party in Upper Canada;
and one person of respectability has published a letter to Sir Allan
Macnab, in which he states that, so long as the Chief Justice and the
Bishop of Toronto continue to force Episcopalianism down the throats
of the people, so long will Canada be in danger. This gentleman, an
influential Scotch merchant of Toronto, in his letter dated Hamilton, C.
West, 18th November, 1846, says, that the Family Compact, or Church
of England tory faction, whose usurpations were the cause of the last
rebellion, will be the cause of a future and more successful one, "if they
are not checked;" and, while he fears rebellion, he dreads that, in case
of a war, his countrymen, "the Scotch, could not, on their principles,
defend the British government, which suffers their degradation in the

colony."
This plainly shows to what an extent party spirit is carried in Canada,
when it suffers a man of respectability and loyalty coolly to look
rebellion in the face as an alternative between his own church and
another.
A Church of England man, totally unconnected with colonial interests
and with colonial parties, is a better judge of these matters than a
Church of Scotland man, or a Free Church man, who believes, with his
eyes shut, that Calvinism is to be thrust bodily out of the land by the
influence of Dr. Strachan or Chief Justice Robinson.
It is obvious to common sense that any attempt on the part of the clergy
or the laity of Upper Canada to crush the free exercise of religious
belief, would be met not only with difficulties absolutely
insurmountable, but by the withdrawal of all support from the home
government; for, as the Queen of England is alike queen of the
Presbyterian and of the Churchman, and is forbidden by the
constitution to exercise power over the consciences of her subjects
throughout her vast dominions; so it would be absurd to suppose for a
moment that the limited influence in a small portion of Canada of a
chief justice or a bishop, even supposing them mad or foolish enough
to urge it, could plunge their country into a war for the purposes of
rendering one creed dominant.
The Church of England is, moreover, not by any means the strongest,
in a physical sense, in Upper Canada, neither is the Church of Scotland;
nor is it likely, as the writer quoted observes, that it would be at length
necessary to sweep the former off the face of the country, in order to
secure freedom for the latter.
The Kirk itself is wofully divided, in Canada, by the late wide-spread
dissent, under the somewhat novel designation of the Free Church. One
need but visit any large town or village to observe this; for it would
seem usually that the Free Church minister has a larger congregation
than the regularly-called minister of the ancient faith of Caledonia.
Now, the members of the Free Church have no such holy horror of Dr.

Strachan, Chief Justice Robinson, or Sir Allan Macnab, as that
exhibited in the above-mentioned letter; nor is it believed that the
Church of England would presume to denounce and wage internecional
war against their popular institution. But a person who has lived a great
part of his life in Canada will take all this cum grano salis.
The Scotch in Upper Canada are not and will not be disloyal. On the
contrary, if I held a militia command again, I should be very glad, as an
Englishman, that it should consist of a very fair proportion of
Highlanders and of Lowlanders.
The British public must not be misled by the hard-sounding language
and the vast expenditure of words it may have to receive, in the perusal
of either the High Church, or the Presbyterian fulminators in Canada
West.
The whole hinges on what the writer calls "the