MISCELLANEOUS. 1205 



public estimation, its chief value; and though Great Britain had quietly 

 possessed it for about seventy years, the emigration to it of loyalists 

 from the United States, in a single year, more than doubled its popula- 

 tion. By causing the expatriation, then, of the adherents of the Brit- 

 ish crown, among whom were the well-educated, the ambitious, and 

 the well- versed in politics, we became the founders of two British colo- 

 nies, for it is to be remembered that New Brunswick formed a part of 

 Nova Scotia until 1784, and that the necessity of the division then 

 made was of our own creation. In like manner, we became the found- 

 ers of Upper Canada. The loyalists of our Revolution were the first 

 settlers of the territory thus denominated by the act of 1791 ;* and the 

 principal object of the line of division of Canada, as established by Mr. 

 JPitt's act, was to place them, as a body, by themselves, and to allow 

 them to be governed by laws more congenial than those which were 

 deemed requisite for the subordination of the French on the St. Law- 

 rence. The government for which they had become exiles was liberal 

 to them; it gave them lands, tools, materials for buildings, and means 

 of subsistence for two years, and to each of their children (at the age of 

 twenty-one) two hundred acres of land. And besides this, of the 

 offices created by the organization of a new colonial government, they 

 w r ere the chief recipients. 



Should it be replied that Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada 

 West, without accessions from the United States, would have risen to 

 importance ere this, I answer, that there is good reason to doubt it; 

 because, in the first place, of the many thousands who annually come 

 from Europe to America, but a small proportion land on the shores of 

 these colonies, and because the most of those who do, soon leave for 

 "the States," notwithstanding the inducements held out to emigrants 

 by the colonial and home governments to settle on the territories of the 

 crown. But were it otherwise, the force of the remark is in no degree 

 diminished, for the obvious reason, that, had we pursued a wise course 

 at the peace of '83, people of American origin would not have become 

 our rivals in ship-building, in the carriage of our great staples to Eu- 

 rope, in the prosecution of the fisheries, and in the production of wheat 

 and other breadstuffs. Nor is this all. We should not have had the 

 hatred, the influence, and the talents of persons of loyalist descent, to 

 contend against, in the long and vexed controversy relative to our 

 northeastern boundary, nor continual difficulty about, and upon, the 

 fishing gounds. It is to be observed, moreover, that the operation 

 of these causes has been, and will continue to be, no slight obstacle in 

 the way of adjusting such questions, since the children and kinsmen 

 of the loyalists have no inconsiderable share in determining colonial 

 councils, and in the shaping of remonstrances and representations to 

 the British ministry. And whoever takes into view the fact that the 

 sufferings and sacrifices of the fathers are well remembered by the 

 descendants, and that, under the monarchial form, hereditary descent 

 of official station is very common, will agree with me in the belief, 

 that evils from this source are far from being at an end. There are 

 still those in the colonies, who, remembering only that they are de- 



*It was in a debate on this bill, that Fox and Burke severed the ties of friendship 

 which had existed between them for a long period. The scene was one of the most 

 interesting that had ever occurred in the House of Commons. Fox, overcome by his 

 emotions, wept aloud. Burke's previous course with regard to the French revolution 

 had rendered a rupture at some time probable, perhaps certain. 



