ment could
be held; and in this great object he succeeded. It must at once be
perceived that, by this regulation alone, all British residents were
excluded, and that if possessed of capital to any amount, whatever their
stake in the colony might be, they were ruled and dictated to by the
French party. No person could be an officer in the militia unless he
was a landowner. The wealthy English merchant had to fall into the
ranks, and be ordered about by an ignorant French farmer, a man who
could not write or read, but made his cross to any paper presented to
him for his signature.

By another enactment the grand juries were to be selected from those who
were land-owners, and the consequence was, that in two grand juries
selected in two succeeding years, there was only one man who could write
or read out of the whole number, and the others fixed their cross to the
bills found.

What was still more absurd was, that the office of trustee for the
schools could only be held by the same tenure, and in the Act passed, it
is provided, that the trustees for national education may be permitted
to affix their _cross_ to the school reports, a more convincing proof of
the state of ignorance in which the Canadian French population have been
held and acknowledged to be so by the French party, by the making such a
proviso in the statute. I had a convincing proof myself of the
ignorance of the French population during the rebellion in Lower Canada.
I handed a printed circular to about four hundred prisoners who were
collected, for one of them to read aloud to the rest, and there was not
one who could read _print_.

Having secured the party in the province, the next object of M.
Papineau and his adherents was, to blind the Government at home: they
sent home a list of grievances which required redress, and in this they
were joined by the English republican party. Among other demands, they
insisted upon the right to the Lower Assembly having the control of the
colonial revenues. So earnest was the Government at home to satisfy
them, that every concession was made, and even the last great question
of controlling their own expenditure was consented to, upon the sole
condition that the civil list, for the payment of the salary of the
governor and other state officers, was secured.

What was the conduct of M. Papineau and his party as soon as they had
gained their point? They immediately broke their faith with the
Government at home