After The American Revolution, Considerable Numbers Of Loyalists
In The United States Voluntarily Relinquished Their Homesteads And
Property, And Came To Canada, Which Then, Even On The Shores Of
Lake Ontario, Was A Perfect Wilderness.
Lands were of course granted
to them by the government, and very naturally these settlers were
peculiarly favoured by the local authorities.
These loyalists were
generally known by the name of "tories," to distinguish them from
the republicans, and forming the great mass of the population. Any
one who called himself a reformer was regarded with distrust and
suspicion, as a concealed republican or rebel. It must not, however,
be supposed that these loyalists were really tories in their
political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally
crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole
construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly
republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a
misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican
party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered
that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave
them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government
in Canada. Thus the name of U.E. (United Empire) Loyalist or Tory
came to be considered an indispensable qualification for every
office in the colony.
This was all well enough so long as there was no other party in the
country. But gradually a number of other American settlers flowed
into Canada from the United States, who had no claim to the title
of tories or loyalists, but who in their feelings and habits were
probably not much more republican than their predecessors. These
were of course regarded with peculiar jealousy by the older or
loyalist settlers from the same country. It seemed to them as if
a swarm of locusts had come to devour their patrimony. This will
account for the violence of party feeling which lately prevailed
in Canada.
There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give
point and pungency to party feeling. The British immigrants, who
afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course
brought with them their own particular political predilections.
They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the
ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more
early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful
and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the
old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as
republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the
original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government
became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation
of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the
peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious
dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added
to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now
beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk
of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these
U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the
descendants of republican settlers from the United States.
As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the
mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they
now considerably out-number the conservatives. While the mass of
the people held tory, or, I should rather call them, CONSERVATIVE
principles, our government seemed to work as well as any
representative government may be supposed to work without the
necessary check of a constitutional opposition. Favouritism was, of
course, the order of the day; and the governor, for the time being,
filled up all offices according to his will and pleasure, without
many objections being made by the people as to the qualifications
of the favourite parties, provided the selections for office were
made from the powerful party. Large grants of land were given to
favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with
commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters
the people certainly possessed the external form of a free
government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an
ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to
carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in
consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and
executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from
the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the
majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as
systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was
kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst
these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country,
and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As
matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had
the colony been ruled by a governor and council; for, in that case,
beneficial measures might have been carried into effect. Such a
state of things could not last long; and the discontent of a large
portion of the people, terminating, through the indiscretion of an
infatuated local government, in actual rebellion, soon produced
the remedy. The party generally most powerful in the Legislative
Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so
unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the
government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled,
and the people being thus given the power of governing by their
majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily
advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and
contentment have increased in an equal proportion.
Had the first settlement of Canada been conducted on sound and
philosophical principles, much hardship and privation, as well as
loss of capital in land speculations, would have been saved to its
first settlers, and the country, improved and improving as it now
is, would have presented a very different aspect at the present
time.
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