overnment and the legal profession, their own superior energy, skill
and capital secured to them in every branch of industry. They have
developed the resources of the country; they have constructed or
improved its means of communication; they have created its internal and
foreign commerce. The entire wholesale, and a large portion of the
retail trade of the province, with the most profitable and flourishing
farms, are now in the hands of this numerical minority of the
population.

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Note 2. "Nor does there appear to be the slightest chance of putting an
end to this animosity during the present generation. Passions inflamed
during so long a period, cannot speedily be calmed. The state of
education which I have previously described as placing the peasantry
entirely at the mercy of agitators, the total absence of any class of
persons, or any organisation of authority that could counteract this
mischievous influence, and the serious decline in the district of
Montreal of the influence of the clergy, concur in rendering it
absolutely impossible for the Government to produce any better state of
feeling among the French population. It is even impossible to impress
on a people so circumstanced the salutary dread of the power of Great
Britain, which the presence of a large military force in the province
might be expected to produce. I have been informed, by witnesses so
numerous and trustworthy that I cannot doubt the correctness of their
statements, that the peasantry were generally ignorant of the large
amount of force which was sent into their country last year. The
newspapers that circulate among them had informed them that Great
Britain had no troops to send out; that in order to produce an
impression on the minds of the country-people, the same regiments were
marched backwards and forwards in different directions, and represented
as additional arrivals from home. This explanation was promulgated
among the people by the agitators of each village; and I have no doubt
that the mass of the inhabitants really believed that the government was
endeavouring to impose on them by this species of fraud. It is a
population with whom authority has no means of contact or explanation.
It is difficult even to ascertain what amount of influence the ancient
leaders of the French party continue to possess. [The name of M.
Papineau is still cherished by the pe