NEW PROVINCES--ESTABLISHMENT
OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

(1792-1812.)

The history of the Dominion of Canada as a self-governing community
commences with the concession of representative institutions to the old
provinces now comprised within its limits. By 1792 there were provincial
governments established in Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. From 1713 to 1758 the government of
Nova Scotia consisted of a governor, or lieutenant-governor, a council
possessing legislative, executive, and even judicial powers. In October,
1758, an assembly met for the first time in the town of Halifax, which
had been the capital since 1749. New Brunswick had been separated from
Nova Scotia in 1784, but a representative assembly did not assemble until
1786, when its form of government was identical with that of the older
province. Prince Edward Island was a part of Nova Scotia until 1769 when
it was created a distinct province, {303} with a lieutenant-governor, a
combined executive and legislative council, and also an assembly in 1773.
The island of Cape Breton had a lieutenant-governor and executive
council, and remained apart from Nova Scotia until 1820 when it was
included in its government. In 1791 the province of Upper Canada was
formally separated from the province of Quebec by an act of the imperial
parliament, and was called Upper Canada, while the French section
received the name of Lower Canada. At that time the total population of
British North America did not exceed a quarter of a million of souls, of
whom at least a hundred and forty thousand lived on the banks of the St.
Lawrence and its tributary streams, and almost entirely represented the
language, institutions, and history of the French regime. In the French
province there was also a small British population, consisting of
officials, commercial men, and loyalists who settled for the most part in
the Eastern Townships. The population of Upper Canada, about twenty-five
thousand, was almost exclusively of loyalist stock--a considerable number
having migrated thither from the maritime provinces. Beyond the Detroit
River, the limit of English settlement, extended a vast region of
wilderness which was trodden only by trappers and Indians.

The Constitutional Act of 1791, which created the two provinces of Upper
and Lower Canada, caused much discussion in the British Parliament and in
Canada, where the principal oppos