y influence in the future.

{369}

[Illustration: Sir Louis H. Lafontaine.]

Then occurred an event which had its origin in the rebellion, and in
the racial antagonism which was still slumbering in the bosom of the
State. In the first session of the Union Parliament, compensation was
granted to those loyalists of Upper Canada, whose property had been
unnecessarily or wantonly {370} destroyed during the outbreak. The
claim was then raised on behalf of persons similarly situated in Lower
Canada. The Conservative Draper government of 1845 agreed to pay a
small amount of rebellion losses as a sequence of a report made by
commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject. At a later time,
when Lord Elgin was governor-general, the Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry
brought down a measure to indemnify all those persons who had not taken
part in the rebellion, but were justly entitled to compensation for
actual losses. The Tory opposition raised the cry, "No pay to rebels,"
and some of them in their anger even issued a manifesto in favour of
annexation. The parliament house at Montreal was burned down, a great
number of books and records destroyed, and Lord Elgin grossly insulted
for having assented to the bill. This very discreditable episode in
the political history of Canada proved the extremes to which even men,
professing extreme loyalty, can be carried at times of political
passion and racial difficulty.

[Illustration: L. A. Wilmot.]

The union of 1841 did its work, and the political conditions of Canada
again demanded another radical change commensurate with the material
and political development of the country, and capable of removing the
difficulties that had arisen in the operation of the act of 1840. The
claims of Upper Canada to larger representation, equal to its increased
population since 1840, owing to the great immigration which had
naturally sought a rich and fertile province, were steadily resisted by
the French Canadians as an unwarrantable interference with the {371}
security guaranteed to them under the act. This resistance gave rise
to great irritation in Upper Canada, where a powerful party made
representation by population their platform, and government at last
became practically impossible on account of the {372} close political
divisions for years in the assembly. At the head of the party
demanding increased representation was Mr. George Brown, an able man of
Scotch birth, who became the co