TOPICS OF THE DAY.

RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE RISING IN CANADA AND THE REVOLUTION IN AMERICA.

THE Treasury journals say that the insurrection in Canada "must be put down at whatever cost." The Tory and prerogative lawyer Lord MANSFIELD, speaking for the Cabinet of Lord Norms with reference to America, said the same thing—" The questions of original right and wrong were no longer to be con-

sidered ; the justice of the cause must give way to our present situation."

The parallel between Canada and America is so unpleasant, that our Ministerial writers, as Swirl, recommends in similar cases of' embarrassment, would knock us down with the "plump hammer of contradiction," by assuring us that there is no re- semblance at all between the cases. They are not, indeed, iden- tical, because no two human events ever were or can be identical ; but they resemble each other as much as any two human faces or any two green fields resemble each other. The quarrel in both cases is between England and a colony—betweeen England and a North American colony—between an European state essen- tially aristocratic and a colony essentially democratic : in both cases the insurrection has been produced by a long train of op- pression, insult, and provocation, become at length insupportable : in both cases the issue—but we will not anticipate, further than to say that even victory over the Canadians cannot redound to either our advantage or honour. We shall endeavour to make the matter clearer by an enume- ration of some of the principal elements in the two contests. First, with respect to population. It is asserted that the 01(1 Colonies, when the disturbances broke out, contained 3,000,000 of inhabitants ; and it is commonly taken for granted that these were all of English blood. Mr. BURKE, in his speech "on Conciliation with America," in 1775, makes the total population "of our own European blood and colour' 2,000,000, and the remainder 500,000. But of what did Mr. BURKE'S Colonies consist ? Why, besides the territories of the Thirteen Colonies which succeeded ultimately in establishing their independence, of the vast possessions ceded to us by the treaty of 1763,— viz, the Canadas, Floridas, and a great portion of Loui- siana, together with all our present possessions in North America, the Canadas excepted. The persons, then, not of our own blood or our own colour, were the French and Spa- niards, who at the time had been twelve years our subjects, and the Slaves of the Southern States. Even from the two millions, however, we have to deduct the English population which had settled in Canada during the sixteen years which had elapsed since the conquest, with that of Nova Scotia and the other pro- vinces which never joined the insurrection. It is very clear that neither the French, Spanish, Slave, nor English population just alluded to, added to the strength of the insurgent population : on the contrary, they either added to their weakness, by producing internal distraction, or strengthened the enemy by adding to their numbers. This statement of the population of the Old American Colonies is confirmed by a protest of thirty-three Lords in 1776, deliberately recording their opinion that "twelve hundred thou- sand was little more than one half the subjects of the Crown in North America." Two millions, then, was the very utmost number of those who virtually commenced the war with this kingdom in 1775. But the Americans had resisted the Stamp Act ten years before this time; and as population in that part of the world increases at the rate of above 32 per cent, in ten years, it follows that when America first resisted, its population could not have exceeded 1,400,000. Let us now look to the population of the present North American Colonies, In 1830, the population of Lower Canada 'was in round numbers 512,000. If in the last seven years it has increased by 20 per cent. (which is a good deal less than the proportional increase in the States of the American Union,) it must now be above 600,000. But there is not one of our other five North American Colonies that, within the last few years, has not bad its grievances, and threatened resistance, as well as Lower Canada. Previously to the successful intrigues of a Governor whom the British Cabinet has at last been obliged to recal, Upper Canada had a majority in its Parliament equally de- termined on a redress of grievances as the Parliament of Lower Canada, or of Massachussets in 1775. This colony, in 1833, con- tained in round numbers 322,000 inhabitants ; and the increase which has taken place within the last four years will probably make it now about 360,000. Altogether the population of the two Canadas will not perhaps he much overrated at 1,000,000,—or one half the resisting population of the old American States when open war broke out in 1775. We are here supposing that the whole population of' Saxon blood was disaffected to the mother ; which was not the ease, for whole battalions of Loyalists were raised, and fought in the ranks with the King's troops. The population of the remaining four Colonies may be stated as follows —New Brunswick, 90,000; Nova Scotia, 160,000; Prince Ed- ward's Island, 30,000; and Newfoundland, 70,000; making the number of' inhabitants in all our North American Colonies 1,350,000, or nearly the same as that of the Old Colonies when they first resisted the Stamp Act. But now as to the composition of this population. Half a million of the inhabitants of Lower Canada, the principal colony, professes the Catholic religion, and generally speaks the French language. This is the weak point on the side of the colonists in

-s—a weakness not in their cause. but in the: the present conte..,

' of their opponents. The struggle- i prejudices and injustices pronounced to be one between ':st French and English inhabie _

be tween the majority con- tants; while it is in reality a struggle tending for right and liberty, and the mino:::v contending for sni cis ment. despotism and the wrong of which it is in the profitabte

The British colonists of Canada speaking the French language e.. no more French, than the American inhabitants of Louisiana speaking the French language are French. It is very near eighty years since France ceased to rule over Canada. There are not' perhaps ten Canadians living who were born under the Govern- ment of France ; not one man who was educated under it exists. As long as the Canadians were French in principle and conduct, they were the ready and servile tools of Tory and Whig Cabinets. They refused to join the American Republicans who invaded Canada in 1775 ; they joined BURGOYNE, and surrendered with him at Saratoga. For almost thirty years they were content to live without a constitution, and submitted to the arbitrary rule of the Colonial Office. In a fit of fear, or of liberality, a Tory Minister gave them a constitution, forty-seven years ago ; and for twenty • years they made no use of it. The American Republicans once more invaded the Canadas; and by the assistance of the Canadians they were once more defeated. Every one knows that it is simply because the Canadians were French in spirit down to 1814, that the Canadas are now British colonies. Had they been English, they would in 1783 have been the fourteenth state of that Union that secured its independence. The Americans bad included them in their declaration of independence, and sent an army to their rescue ; but they, being then Frenchmen, refused to obey the call. About seventeen years ago, the Canadian leaders, having acquired the spirit and knowledge of their own rights which cha- racterize freeinen,—having, in short, become practically English colonists,—they began to make a practical instrument of that constitution which had been heretofore a dead letter. From that day to this, they have been denounced as a mischievous faction. For sixty years that they were obedient slaves, they were the pets of the English Aristocracy ; now that they are Englishmen in poli- tical feeling, although not indeed in phrase, Whig and Tory alike proscribe them as "aliens in blood, aliens in language, and aliens in religion." In the Tories this is natural enough ; but in the Whigs it exhibits to our minds the most scandalous example of political dishonesty that can be found on the records of history. With the Whigs, in so far as this case is concerned, political principle seems to be an affair of physical geography. It is one thing on the Eastern shore of the Atlantic, and the opposite thing on the Western. In Ire- land, the majority, professing the Catholic worship and speaking the Celtic language, is " the People," and the Saxon and Protestant minority an "odious faction." In Canada, their political alphabet is to be read backwards: the Catholic majority, speaking the French language, is the "odious faction "—a Protestant minority of Orange- men, placeholders, and monopolists, is" the People" par excellence. O'CONNELL is a patriot in Dublin, while PAPINEAU is a rebel in Quebec. But who are the alleged English minority ? A great number are Americans by birth; and many are the descendants of American Loyalists, most of them turned Republicans. Even. among the English, Scots, and Irish, there are many who have attached themselves to the side of the Canadian Reformers; and of this description of persons, there have been of late years always from 6 to 10 Representatives of the People in an Assembly short of 90. The alleged English party consists almost exclusively of Tories,—merchants, shipowners, and functionaries; the two first • fleecing the people of this country in the shape of' the timber- monopoly, and the last the people of Canada io the form of places and sinecures. Precious representatives of the British nation and its interests !

The Canadian population has been represented as poor, igno- rant, and simple. We believe that, if compared with the masses in the United States, they are all three ; but we are also confi- dent, that if compared with the masses of the three sections of the population of this kingdom speaking the Celtic language, they are neither the one not the other. But the business of poli- ticians in a matter of this sort, is not so much with the people, as

with diose who have the power to move and lead the people. The leaders of the Canadians, it will be readily admitted by all who have watched the progress of the existing contest, have exhibited a distinguished intelligence, spirit, discretion, and foree.ist, which scarcely leave them behind the old American colonists themselves. In sound argument and good English, there is not the least doubt but that these alleged Frenchmen have signally beaten the rhe- torical Chief of the Colonial Office and his subalterns, his Com- missioners, and his Governors.

Before blows were struck, we were most confidently assured

that the Canadians were eminently deficient in personal courage —were in fact a parcel of poltroons. One great Canadian Seigneur, a Member of the British Parliament, who voted in favour of coercion, is said to have assured the Executive, that a couple of companies of light infantry would be sufficient to suppress any revolt of halts million of " habitans !" It was necessary that the actions of Lexington and Bunker's Ilill should be fought to disabuse our forefathers, who gave heed to similar gabble. The affairs of St. Dellis and St. Charles have already served the same purpose for the Canadians ; and indeed the bitterest of theeneinies of the latter admit that they fought, as they express it," like tigers." Before we • This gentlentau went round toall the friends of CAnada, and to the :Demo berg of the Government, reiterating the expression, " The C..naillaus will not fight."

came to an open rupture with the Old Colonies, Bur -

bad served with distinction in America and „,:.- %taus libelled. is said to have declared in his -' ...sn the very men he morn;, (he was an officer of es^ ' ...piece In the House of Conr-

of dragoons, he would — -.airy,) that with a couple of troops territory to the wareh from one extremity of the American

marro,

_... other. About three years thereafter, he tried to with 10,000 men °vet a very small part of it,—namely, rrom the Canadian frontier to New York ; and before he had got half way, was obliged to surrender, almost at discretion, to an American army composed wholly of militia. This, no doubt, was sufficient to satisfy Sir JOHN BURGOYNE of his error in regard to American military prowess ; but we are bound in justice to a gallant and accomplished officer to state, that he lived to repent

him of some other errors on the question of America. In the debate on the motion against the American war, on the 12th of December 1781, he honestly avowed, "that be was now convinced the principle of the American war was wrong, though he had not been of that opinion when he engaged in the service. Passion, and prejudice, and interest, were now no more ; reason and obser- vation had led him to a very different conclusion; and he now saw that the American war was only one part of a system levelled against the constitution of this country and the general rights of mankind."

If the Ministerial journals are to be relied on, Sir JOHN COL- BORNE, who has about 2,500 regulars with him, writes to assure her Majesty's Ministers that he wants no more to put down an insurrection, which in his public despatches he admits to be ex- tensive. This is very considerate on the part of Sir JOHN, seeing that a barrier of ice and snow, more impenetrable than the ram- parts of Quebec, must prevent him from getting a single recruit until the month of May next. But let the Government take heed how it listens too confidently to the prophecies of military martinets and amateur soldiers touching national revolts.

One of the constant assertions made by the Ministerial, backed of course by the Tory party, is, that the Americans had a great and glorious cause to defend,—that they fought for a principle, and that their struggle was crowned with merit and success ; whereas the Canadians have no grievance worth naming, but were happy, contented, moderately taxed, and only stirred up to revolt by wicked demagogues. Precisely the same language was held towards America by the Aristocracy of the eighteenth, that is now held regarding Canada by the Aristocracy of the nineteenth century. "When I proposed to tax America," said Mr. GREN- VILLE, the author of the Stamp Act, "I asked the House if any gentleman would object to the right. I repeatedly asked it, and no man would attempt to deny it? The Stamp Bill passed both Houses with less trouble than any Turnpike Bill of the same session. When, two years after, it was repealed, thirty-three Lords'entered their protest. They made light of the tax; it was but b0,000/., or at the rate of 6d. a head on each colonist. To tax the Old Colonies to the amount of 60,000/. was, then, the original source of a contest which, in the shape of suspension of commercial inter- course or of actual hostilities, lasted more than twenty years, and cost this nation the loss of an empire, accompanied by a mulct on posterity equal to a perpetual annual burden of six millions and a half sterling. When the Stamp Act was repealed, taxation took another direction ; it was directed to glass, painters' colours, paper, and tea. The three first were then abandoned ; and the matter in dispute between a great country and its great colony was 3d. a pound duty on tea ! The Americans, like the Canadians, had many other grievances ; but the matters involving principle are those we have named. The Canadians have been driven to open revolt, by a vote of the Imperial Parliament sanctioning the seizure of the money in their exchequer. Where is the difference in principle between this and the immediate cause of the American Revolution ? The money, it is clear, is seized arbitrarily in both cases. In the one case, the government of the Mother Country is at the trouble and expense of making the collection : in the other, it puts the trouble of collection on the colonists, and unceremoniously helps itself from the net proceeds in the strong-box. In both cases, the money is taken without consent ; but in the last case, it is taken in a manner the most convenient, expeditious, and econo- mical for the plunderer. It seems to us to be a distinction very much like that between collecting another man's rents and pocketing them without leave asked or given, and breaking open Ins strong-box and walking off with its treasures.

The other principal grievance of the Canadians is the possession of a Legislative Council that is the patron of every job, and the opponent of all good and popular measures.* They feel that, as Jong as it continues, their constitution is a mockery ; and they therefore require that their Second House of Parliament should be brought into harmony with that of the Representatives of the People. They demand, in short, that it should be made elective. The Whigs and Tories declare the proposition to be monstrous— they never heard of the like before ! America made no such demand. Now let us see. The life and soul of the American Revolution was New England, and especially the State of Massa- chusets. Before America became independent, Massachusets and Rhode Island had the Elective Council which Canada now demands; and therefore had no need to ask what they already

• Be it remembered, that this Council, even during the presence of the King's Commissioners in Canada, rejected, with the exception of a railway bill, every bill passed by the House of Assembly for the internal improvment of the country : among them the Annual School Bill, the luss of IA Lich was fol- lovred by the closing of schools, and the ',deprivation of nearly 40,000 children of the means a instruction.

possessed. The British Parliament took it away from Massachn- se% and gave the nomination of the members of the Council to the Crown ; and then in New England, as now in Canada, the want of an Elective Legislative Council became a leading grievance. In our next number, we shall probably take a view of the mili- tary position of Canada compared with that of the Old Colonies at the period of their Revolution; and offer an opinion on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the commerce of both to the Mother Country.