SECTION II., 1900. [ 29 ] Trans. R. S. C. 
IIl.—Social and Economic Conditions of the British Provinces after the 
Canadian Rebellions, 1838-1840. 
By Str Jonx Bourtnot, K.C.M.G., LL.D., D.C.L., Lit.D., (Laval). 
(Read May 30, 1900.) 
In 1838 the population of the five provinces of Upper Canada, Lower 
Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, was 
estimated at about one million four hundred thousand persons. In 
Upper Canada, with the exception of a very few people of German or 
Dutch descent, and a number of French Canadians opposite Detroit and 
in the Ottawa Valley, there was a large British population of at least 
four hundred thousand souls. The population of Lower Canada had 
increased six times since 1791, and was estimated at six hundred 
thousand, of whom hardly one quarter were of British origin, living 
chiefly in Montreal, the townships, and Quebec. Nova Scotia had 
nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom probably sixteen 
thousand were French Acadians, resident in Cape Breton and in western 
Nova Scotia. In New Brunswick there were at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand people, of whom some fifteen thousand were descendants 
of the original inhabitants of Acadie. ‘The island of Prince Edward 
had thirty thousand people, of whom the French Acadians made up 
nearly one-sixth. The total trade of the country amounted to about, in 
round figures, five millions of pounds sterling in imports, and generally 
less in exports. The imports were chiefly manufactures from .Great 
Britain, and the exports were lumber, wheat and fish. Those were days 
when colonial trade was stimulated by differential duties in favour of 
colonial products, and the building of vessels was encouraged by the old 
navigation laws which shut out foreign commerce from the St. Law- 
rence and Atlantic ports, and kept the carrying trade between Great 
Britain and the colonies in the hands of British and colonial mer- 
chants, by means of British registered ships. While colonials could not 
trade directly with foreign ports, they were given a monopoly for their 
timber, fish and provisions in the profitable markets of the British West 
Indies. 
Since the beginning of the century there had been a large immigra- 
tion into the provinces except during the war of 1812. The large Scotch 
population which now exercises such large influence in Nova Scotia 
owes its origin chiefly to the immigration which came from the isles and 
northern parts of Scotland in 1801, and had brought in upwards of thirty 
