It Will Be Remembered By Most Readers That In 1837 Took Place The
Mackenzie-Papineau Rebellion, Of Which Those Who Were Then Old
Enough To Be Politicians Heard So Much In England.
I am not going
back to recount the history of the period, otherwise than to say
that the English
Canadians at that time, in withstanding and
combating the rebels, did considerable injury to the property of
certain French Canadians, and that, when the rebellion had blown
over and those in fault had been pardoned, a question arose whether
or no the government should make good the losses of those French
Canadians who had been injured. The English Canadians protested
that it would be monstrous that they should be taxed to repair
damages suffered by rebels, and made necessary in the suppression
of rebellion. The French Canadians declared that the rebellion had
been only a just assertion of their rights; that if there had been
crime on the part of those who took up arms, that crime had been
condoned, and that the damages had not fallen exclusively or even
chiefly on those who had done so. I will give no opinion on the
merits of the question, but simply say that blood ran very hot when
it was discussed. At last the Houses of the Provincial Parliament,
then assembled at Montreal, decreed that the losses should be made
good by the public treasury; and the English mob in Montreal, when
this decree became known, was roused to great wrath by a decision
which seemed to be condemnatory of English loyalty.
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