of Milton's, which he applied to the English nation at a similar period of hope and aspiration, Canada is like a young eagle: 'Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid'day beam.'

6

There is, indeed, no knowing to what heights she may yet soar. She has just tasted for the first time the honeyed potion of martial glory. She is young and proud, confident of her own strength, and reliant upon her own resources. Her feelings towards the old country are divided between a passionate loyalty and a sensitive independence. She is at that perilous age of youth when impulse may strengthen attachment or lead to sudden division. At such a moment it may be profitable to take some survey of this great country, both in its past history and in its present situation.

Canada, indeed, is essentially a country which can only be understood by those who know its history. Until recently the materials for this knowledge have been sadly lacking, but within the last few months the Cambridge University Press has supplied us with a valuable little handbook, both accurate and brief, by Sir John Bourinot. Sir John has been for many years the Clerk of the Canadian House of Commons. Before the Confederation of 1867 he was a close journalistic observer of the proceedings in the United Parliament. He is not a French Canadian, but of French Huguenot descent, and is thus well fitted to sympathise with both the races which share between them the fat lands of Eastern Canada. There have been many books on the earlier history of Canada, but none more fascinating than those romantic volumes in which the late Mr. Francis Parkman traces the history of the mighty conflict between the Gaul and the Anglo-Saxon in North America. That conflict came to an end in the early morning of September 13, 1759. On that historic dawn General Wolfe, with his little band of Englishmen, drifted down the River St. Lawrence to an unguarded landing-place, and climbed by a rugged and dangerous path, which even Montcalm had thought impregnable, to those level heights where, in a few minutes, the British Army won a new Empire for England. The fruits of this victory were not indeed reaped for four years--not until 1763, when the Treaty of Paris handed Canada over from France to Great Britain. In the interval, indeed, Quebec was nearly recaptured, and an English army under General Murray suffered defeat on almost the very spot where

General Wolfe had died victorious. Quebec was besieged by the French, and Montreal held out against Amherst. The war was only brought to an end by a relieving English fleet, which sailed up the St. Lawrence and saved Quebec. A few weeks later Montreal surrendered, the last town in Canada to give up its dreams of French empire. In 1763 -less than a century and a half ago-the British rule in Canada, which is the theme of Sir John Bourinot's book, really began.

We have dwelt thus on the circumstances of the war which gave us Canada because these events have virtually governed our policy ever since. The French Canadians, we may say, were conquered but never vanquished. Deserted by the French Monarchy, these colonies fought a brave and stubborn fight against the whole power of the British Empire, which the elder Pitt had rallied against them. A combination of naval and military strength finally brought about their submission, but the settlement of Canada after the Treaty of Paris was a recognition of their rights. It was rather a compromise between two brave peoples than a humiliation of one by the other. The nature of the British dominion then set up is aptly figured in a small stone monument which is erected at Quebec behind the Dufferin Terrace. That monument commemorates with one common pillar the deaths of Montcalm and General Wolfe on the same battlefield. 'In death they were not divided,' and we may almost say that by the mingled blood of these two brave men the union of French and British Canada has been cemented.

So far for the conquest; but the real problems of the British rule in Canada, made possible by the work of Wolfe and the elder Pitt, only began with the Treaty of Paris. For ten years Canada was governed under royal proclamation by military men. But even then the Government was far from military. The surrender of the French Canadian had been by no means unconditional. One of the conditions of capitulation, both at Quebec and Montreal, was the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and respect for religious privileges. On the whole these conditions were honourably kept, even during this military period. The communities of nuns were left undisturbed, and, although the priests were debarred from politics, they were not interfered with in their parochial work. The monastic orders were given less grace; but, though the Jesuits were gradually driven away, their estates passed into the hands of the Government for the good of the people. The Sulpitians were still

allowed to continue their work and develope their property. The French customs and laws seem to have been respected even during this period, and the French Canadians were placed on a status of commercial equality with the British. But, on the other hand, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 gave the French Canadians no right to their own civil law, and the small executive council nominated by the Governor under that Act seems to have consisted mainly of English Protestants. Military rule, even under General Murray-a kindly and humane Governor-is admitted by Sir John Bourinot to have been a complete failure, and the British did not obtain any real hold until the passing of the Quebec Act in 1774.

The Quebec Act is the real Magna Charta of the French Canadian, and it should be studied carefully by those British Canadians of Ontario who at the present hour are urging that the French language should be suppressed and the French civil law abolished. The Quebec Act was, in fact, drawn up by the lawyers of the time on the basis of the compromise agreed on at the capitulation of Montreal. It translated into law the terms of the battlefield. It sanctioned the free exercise' of the Catholic religion by the French Canadians subject to the King's supremacy. It confirmed the Roman Catholic priests in the possession of their rights and dues. It established the use of the French civil law as regulating all matters of controversy relative 'to property and civil rights,' while setting up the criminal law of England in matters of conduct. It placed the government of the Province of Quebec under a Governor and Legislative Council appointed by the Crown, though it made no provision for an elective assembly. Finally, it extended the Province of Quebec to the Ohio and Mississippi, thus embracing an immense tract of territory beyond the Alleghanies and confining the old American colonies to the seaboard. The addition of this country to Quebec, based on a logical endeavour to unite the old French possessions in one British province, was the cause of bitterness to the American colonies, and perhaps contributed somewhat to the War of Independence. This part of the Act was bitterly opposed by Lord Chatham, and was the only blot in a law which laid broad and deep the foundations of Canadian loyalty. Though the Act did not contain any provision for constituting a Canadian Assembly, the first legislative council appointed was by no means wholly British. It contained eight French Canadians amongst its twenty-two members.

This, of course, in no way represented the proportions of the population. At that time the 60,000 French Canadians taken over by the British Government in 1763 had increased to at least 80,000, while the British population of Canada was limited to some 400 souls. But it seemed to the statesmen of the day impossible to grant self-government to a country where the British population was still so small and where the vast mass of the French population still cherished such very recent memories of French rule.

These proportions of population between the two races were soon to be greatly altered by events beyond the border. The steady resistance of Canada to American pressure during the War of Independence, from 1775 to 1783, is, no doubt, one of the most remarkable features of Canadian history. The Americans naturally expected that a colony so recently conquered and still so overwhelmingly French in its sympathies would join them in their secession from the British Crown. But they were entirely disappointed. The French Canadians not only held aloof, indifferent to the appeals of the American revolutionists, but when General Montgomery invaded Canada and attacked Quebec they repulsed and slew him. Even when France joined the revolting colonies, Canada showed no sign of rebellion. The conciliatory policy of the Quebec Act doubtless inclined the French Canadians to loyalty, but it is more probable that they were alienated from the colonies by the long and bitter memories of the earlier wars, when the Americans proved the backbone of the English invading forces. Washington himself passed through his baptism of fire in an unsuccessful attack on Fort Duquesne. The French Canadians hated the near Americans far more than the distant English. There was also a deep religious cleavage between the peoples. The Protestant denunciations of the revolting colonies made every French Canadian priest an active ally of the British connection. Lastly, the French Canadians had never cherished any very deep love for the home country, which had always treated their wishes with a capricious mixture of despotism and neglect.

The final result of the War of Independence presents, indeed, a paradox. While the British colonies broke loose, the French colony became more British. So far from joining in the rebellion or being weakened in its connection, Canada emerged from the war a far more loyal and assured possession of the British Crown.

This result was brought about by that extensive immigra

tion of American loyalists after the war, driven from the now independent colonies, which resulted in the settlement of large districts, hitherto unpeopled, by a new and distinct class of colonists who have ever since clung to the name of United Empire Loyalists.' Whatever may be said of the action of these colonists during the War of Independence, they at any rate proved as by fire their loyalty to the British connection, and were not likely to feel less loyal after their expulsion from the States. It is difficult to estimate the precise number of these immigrants. But Sir John Bourinot, who has had access to the State documents, fixes it at 35,000 men, women, and children, in addition to many thousands of negroes and servants, most of whom were afterwards deported to Sierra Leone. Of these, at least 25,000 went to the maritime colonies and founded the Province of New Brunswick, where self-government was instituted as early as 1784. The remaining 10,000 settled in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and formed townships along the banks of the great river, while many settled on the shores of Lake Erie, and helped to build up the great modern town of Toronto, settling westward as far as the Niagara district. The immigration of this great population, passionately attached to the British connection in virtue of what they had suffered on its behalf, opened up a second period in the British government of Canada. It strengthened the racial hold of Great Britain, and thus enabled the Home Government to expedite that period of responsible rule which Lord North had postponed to a distant future. The United Empire Loyalists,' as the new emigrants were called, were presented with generous grants of land by the British Government, and, being unable to return, proved the best type of settlers. Their descendants still form the backbone of Canadian loyalty.

The agitation for self-government now took a much more serious form, as the British immigrants, with all their loyalty, were not inclined to put up with the loss of the political power which they had possessed in the southern colonies. The result, after seven years of pressure, was seen in the Constitutional Act of 1791. By that Act the younger Pitt divided Canada into two provinces-Upper and Lower-each possessing the right of electing one chamber for self-governing purposes. Over these assemblies there were still to be legislative councils nominated by the King for life, and retaining large powers of veto. Thus the gift of responsible Government was not complete.

But the