The strongest objection against the acknowledgment of Canadian indepen- dence,

consists in the fact, that a large minority of the Canadians are British; who, it is said, settled there in reliance on the protection of the British Govern. meat, and still wish to coutiuue the connexion. It is maintained that the British are regarded with hatred by the French Canadians; who, if the protec- tion of the Mother Country were withdrawn, would oppress them, and probably deprive them of their lands. We are therefore bound in honour to protect our fellow.countryinen and their property ; which can only be done by putting down the insurgents with a strong hand, and effectually vindicating the autho- rity of the Queen's Government.

We admit that this presents a serious difficulty ; but we cannot admit that England is hound, at all hazards, and through all time, to maintain forcible

possession of Canada. Yet if the argument is good for the present day, it will

be good to perpetuity, for there is no prospect of the British and French ceasing to he intermixed in Canada. Is it, then, maintained, that, whatever may lie the wish and determination of the great majority of the population of Canada— whatever may be the cost of retaining the colony—though it should involve us in war with our best customer, the United States—still the English Govern- ment is bound to keep Canada, and that permanently? We deny the obliga- tion. We believe no such obligation was ever contracted by our Government to the settlers, express or implied. If there was an express engagement to this purport, let it be produced. And if it be said that the engagement was implied in the encouragement given to British settlers, wethink It could not be so im- plied ; becauseannly a short time before, our Government had fowled itself com- pelled to admit the independence of neighbouring colonies, and this was per- fectly well known to those who settled in Canada. Therefore, England cannot be regarded as bound in honour to keep Canada under all 'circumstances and through all time. A necessity might arise, that would justify her in giving up the connexion. No nation can be bound to perform impossibilities; nor is England bound to sacrifice the interests of ,her own people at home to the jute• rests of a comparatively small number of settlers across the ocean. Rejecting, then, the assumption that England is bound in honour to .protect the British settlers in Canada under every case, the practical question is, whether such a state of things has now arisen as to.juetify England in leaving the Cana. diens to themselves. If we have rightly judged concerning the disposition of the great majority of the Canadians, and the difficultiesof maintaining our rule over them, that state of things does exist. The event will prove whether we are right or wrong. But be it remembered, our opinion is, that the real hate rests of the British Canadians will be better consulted by acknowlt dging the in. dependence of Canada, in a treaty which should stipulate for the security of -British persons and property, than by entering into a war which will jeopardize, and may destroy, all they possess. Nor do we think it at all probable that the British settled in Canada would be oppressed, unless the hostility between the French and them should be aggravated by a civil war. It may be unpleasant to the British settlers to exchange their own government for an American Re. public; but the same unpleasantness was pleaded as a reason for our resisting the claims of the thirteen United Provinces to independence ; and yet the attempt to prevent it only entailed upon the Loyalists a much greater unplea- santness, namely, banishment and ruin.

The Morning Chronicle tells a story about the Greeks having abandoned their German allies in battle, and applies it to the supposed desertion of the British Canadians by this country. 1Ve will tell the Chronicle quite as true a story, and :ether more to the point. In 1764, the British Parliament, on the recommendation of Mr. George Grenville, passed the Stamp Act to tax our colonies, the then United Provinces of Amerwa, now the United Slates, for the benefit of England. The Americans resisted the impost as tuna nstitutional, rioted, and showed so bold a front, that the same British Parliament, under the advice of the Marquis of Rockingham, whose Administration 1 ad succeeded that of Mr. Grenville, w as wise enough—the Chronicle would Pity " truckling and contemptible" enough—to REVEAL the Stamp .Act. Aftei wards, Lord North renewed the experiment of taxing the Americana; again they rioted anti resisted. Lord North was too manly to " truckle;" he sent an army in 1775; and after a war of seven years, the spending of a hundred millions, and the loss of several armies, Parliament was compelled to acknowle e American Independence. According to the Morning Chronicle, the Mary is of Rock- ingham was the base truckler, and Lord North the great stattem n ! But we would not abandon a single man who has taken up Allis in Canada for the Queen. We would compensate them all to the last rap th-ng, if neces- sary ; only we would not cut the throats of the French, and mat e war on the bulk of the population, either for any feeling of pride or to gratify any vindic- tive party. Another objection that will be strongly felt to the acknowledge ent of Cana- dian independence is, that Upper Canada, which is almost entire y settled by British, and desirous to continue its connexion with England, woo d then have no communication with the Mother Country or the sea except tin • ugh the ter- ritories of independent republics. We do not disguise from ours. ves that this is an objection of weight. But it would be removed by declaring U: per Canada also indeperolent,—an event which must come in the course a .■ few years; and which, come when it may, will be a great relief to the Coe rnment and finances of England. Moreover, we believe it will be fieind that a very large party in Upper Canada—perhaps the majority—concur with r e French of Lower Canada in their demand of substantial independence. that is, of absolute self-government—that they approve of the conduct of M. Papinealt. • • The inhabitants of Upper Canada charge the Governor, Sir 1: antis Head, with having packed the House of Assembly with Tories, by mean, f barefaced corruption and unconstitutional influence at the elections ; anti tli, allege that the two Howes, in league with the Government, have prolonged their own existence for four yearn beyond the time when it ought by la' to ye expired. We du not stay to exandue the truths of these allegations, or propriety of the language we have quoted ; because our obioct is only to :lee., what many of the iiiliabitants of rpper Canada think :11:,1 keel, in order that ii. great hopes may be founded on assistance to the Goverement from that to er, and that UPPer Canada may be seen to be what it really is and always will he, namely, a most troublesome and valueless dependency.

It is assumed by the advocates for coercion, that the French in Lower Canada are extremely ignorant, and utterly incapable of governing themselves; and it is argued that the British cannot in common pity abandon them to their own incapacity. The very same thing was said of the people of the United States, on their revolution. But we distrust these assertions. Is it not a fact that the Canadians have had their Representatives legislating for them since the

year 1791—a period of forty-seven years? Is it tint a fact that the French party have always hail a maturity in the House? Was there not been a steadi• nen, a pertinacious stiffness, a boldness, and a consistency in the demands of

the majority of the Assembly, which at least prove their self-reliance, their Re-

publican spirit, and their possession of some of the important requisites for self-government? The House of Assembly of Lower Canada will not bear

any comparison with our Parliament or the American Congress ; but it con- tains many clever men, and is probably superior to any of the other legislative bodies, except those of the United States, in all the great Republics of North

and South America. It is hazardous to assert that any body of free men are incapable of self-government, or of the effort necessary so secure independence, after we have seen the very Negroes of Haiti expel their civilized (French) masters, and carry 0:1 a popular government, with apparent advantage to the country. Many persons imagine that the demands of the Lower Canadians are only of yesterday, and that their insurrection is a sudden c.Meute, that will die as

quickly as it flashed forth. But both these are serious errors. As long ago as I823—nearly ten years since— we fit V Sir James Mackintosh condemning in the House of Commons the conduct of Lord Dalhousie, the Governor of Lower Canada, in assuming the right of coufirming the election of

Speaker for the House of Assembly, which he had exercised to the exclusion of M. Papineau. This gentleman, therefore, whatever may be his merits, has for many years been the object of confidence to the French Canadians' and to their Representatives; and moreover, be has in very many instances been acknowledged by English statesmen to have had right on his aide.

Sir James Mackintosh said—" I observe that in 1827 the Lower House of Assembly passed twenty-one bills, not one of which was ai■proved by the Upper House. I say the Governor is responsible for this. The Ginned is nothing better than the tool of the Government. [This is just what 11. Pee pineau has been saying. and complainiug of.] It is the Goverument Council. Of this Council, consisting of twenty-seven members, seventeen held places during the pleasure of the Governor. These seventeen divide 15,000/. of the public monies I" Will it be pretended, after this, that the grievances of the Canadians have not been real ; or that their complaints are the sudden outbreak of unreasoning faction? But the authority of Sir James Mackintosh is continued by one which tnay have more weight with the Tories. Lord Stanley said, in " The Council was the root of all the evils which had taken place in the wind- filtration of Lower Canada during the last ten or fifteen years." In the same year, a petition was sent from Canada to the House of Commons, praying for redress of grievances, bearing 87,000 signatures, and one front the city of Quebec with 18,700. The Council has since been reformed in some degree; but all its members are *till appointed by the Government, of course out of its own partisans, and many of them consist of officials ; and the Council has gone on rejecting the bills of the House of Assembly fur several years, so as to gain the hatred of the Lower House and its constituents, without having any title to their respect. The sore, therefore, is old, and we fear incurable. Tu deny that the Canadians feel their grievances as oppressive, would be absurd, when they have given the strongest poseible proof of their sincerity, by hazarding their lives to obtain redress. The Canadians contrast their Legislature with the entirely popular Legislattires of the United States—their own slow advances in prosperity with the rapid strides of their neighbours—their irresponsible and highly-paid hosts of officers with the responsible and moderately-paid executive of the United States—their dependence on a Government three thousand miles off, with the proud independence of the Republic on their frontier ; and—whatever Englishmen may think—the Canadians feel the contrast to be grievous and degrading, and they burn to put au end to it. We are no Republicans, as is very well known; but it wouhtbe sheer blindness not to ree the course and tendency of things ou the other side of the Atlantic, and we do not think it is wisdom to stake our national honour on resisting it.

Many persons, perhaps most persons in England, imagine that the rebellion in Canada will be easily quelled. The merchants connected with Canada say so, and they ought to know best. But, unfortunately, the merchants connected with the United States, when they were British Colonies, said the very same thing : they held out the strongest assurances of success to the Government; and they were in fact the principal means of deludiug the Government, by their false iutiwmation, into that disastrous war. In the present case, the merchants are connected with the British minority in Canada, many of whom bold the Canadians in the greatest hatred. We think the merchants entitled to the sincerest sympathy ; but, from their position, we do nut attach confidence to

their information. • • •

There are several grounds to fear lest a war with the Canadian, may bring us into collision with the United States. Not only will the political sympathies of the Americans be on that side, but their manufacturers and merchants will long exceedingly to have the Canadians as their customers, and to detach them from commercial dependence on England. If the war continues, privateers will be fitted out in the ports of the United States, and will cruize under Cana- than colours against merchantmen. Men and arms will certainly be seat from the States into Canada. The Boundary question will become a source of tenfold greater importance and delicacy. And the claim advanced by Eng- land and resisted by America, of British ships of war to seize British seamen in a foreign service, may possibly again lead to a mitiunderetending. It is true, the real interest of the United States is peace, and above all, peace with Eng- land ; but her manufacturers may not be quite of that opinion : and moreover, we see too many instances of nations being betrayed by their feelings and pre- judins into acts of gross impolicy, to wake it safe for us to trust to continued peace with America when a political conflict is raging on her frontiers. Such a war seems to us to be much the same thing as an Ameticau mode of duelling, namely, by firing with bluuderbuses over a barrel of gunpowder. There is in

each case about the same danger of an explosion. • • • It is manifest, that our only chance of retaining Canada, recording to the Tories, consists in utterly destroying the liberties and proscribing the persons of the old inhabitants—of the bulk of the population. We cannot live there, they tell us, as constitutional and friendly governors; we must become tyrants, and govern by the sword! • • • e again remind our readers that Canada is now, at the very best, and has always been, a heavy burden to England. Even Tory statesmen admit this fact. • •

Our view, then, is, that England would act wisely, as well as magnani- mously, to make Canada independent ; but in doing so, to as ail hereelf of her former rights and her great power to act as " Judge•Paciticater" between the British and French parties; and, in quitting a country vouch she can uo lenge govern with advantage either to the inhaIntanta ur herself, to stipulate for a commercial treaty on her own part, and fur security to the persona, property, and rights of tl.e British settlers.