d that been his only misfortune, it
would have been well. He was, evidently, something worse, in being only
that which might emphatically be expressed in a single word. A few
grains of common sense in one or two Governors of colonies would have
saved England some millions of pounds. Sir Robert Shore Milnes having
ruled, or having been ruled, for a period of six years, set sail for
England, on the 5th of August, in H.M.S. Uranie, leaving Mr. Dunn, the
Senior Executive Councillor of Canada, to administer the government.

Lower Canada, however politically insignificant, with only some L47,000
of revenue, was yet gradually rising into something like commercial
importance. In the course of 1805, one hundred and forty-six merchant
vessels had been loaded at Quebec, and another newspaper, the _Quebec
Mercury_, still existing, and published in the English language, was
established by Mr. Thomas Cary. Montreal, only second in commercial
importance to Quebec, had also its newspapers, and already began to
exhibit that energy for which it is now preeminently conspicuous.
Toronto, the present "Queen City of the West," was yet only surrounded
by the primeval forest, and thirty years later could boast of but four
thousand inhabitants, although, in 1822, "Muddy Little York" was not a
little proud of its "Upper Canada Gazette," and Niagara of its
"Spectator." Kingston had only twenty wooden houses, while Detroit was
the residence of but a dozen French families. Upper Canada, indeed,
contained scarcely a cultivated farm, or even a white inhabitant, sixty
or seventy years ago.

Allusion has already been made to the division of Canada into two
provinces. A more particular allusion to that circumstance will not be
out of place. Already, General Simcoe, the Hon. Peter Russell, and
Lieut. General Hunter have ruled over the Upper, and not the least
interesting of the two provinces. The object of the separation may have
been to keep the Lower Province French as long as possible, to prevent
the consummation devoutly anticipated by Montcalm, and the Duc de
Choiseul, and to raise up a conservative English colony in the Far
West, to counteract the growing power of the now United States. By the
Union, constitutions very distantly related to the British constitution
were conferred upon the two provinces. The 31st Act of George the Third
constituted a Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly for each
province. The Council was to be composed of at