Executive and Legislative Councils, as those
bodies were entirely made up of persons either selected from among them
or entirely subservient to their influence. No man, whatever his
abilities, could hope to succeed in any profession or calling in Upper
Canada if he dared to declare himself in opposition to them. A few made
the attempt, and failed most signally.

Such was the Family Compact. "For a long time," says Lord Durham,[46]
writing in 1838, "this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its
members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of
which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the
powers of Government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by
means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of
the large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the
Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in
their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence,
or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this
well-organized party the conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy,
the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal
profession, are filled by the adherents of this party: by grant or
purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the
Province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till
lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust
and profit."

The influences which produced the Family Compact were not confined to
Upper Canada. In the Lower Province, as well as in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, similar causes led to similar results, and the term "Family
Compact" has at one time or another been a familiar one in all the
British North American colonies. But in none of them did the
organization attain to such a plenitude of power as in this Province,
and in none of them did it wield the sceptre of authority with so
thorough an indifference to the principles of right and wrong. Its name
is a rather indefinite, but not inapt characterization. Lord Durham
refers to the term "Family Compact," as being not much more appropriate
than party designations usually are; "inasmuch as," he writes, "there
is, in truth, very little of family connexion among the persons thus
united.[47]" "Much" is a saving clause, but if his Lordship had thought
it worth his while to enquire minutely into the relations s