rench origin, prostrate under {58} the effects of the
Rebellion, overawed by the power of Great Britain, and excluded from
all share in the government, had resigned themselves to a sullen and
reluctant submission, or to a perverse but passive resistance to the
government. This temper was not improved by the passing of the Act of
Union. In this measure, heedless of the generosity of the Imperial
government, in overlooking their recent disaffection, and giving them a
free and popular constitution, ... they apprehended a new instrument of
subjection, and accordingly prepared to resist it. Lord Sydenham found
them in this disposition, and despairing, from its early
manifestations, of the possibility of overcoming or appeasing it,
before the period at which it would be necessary to put in force the
Act of Union, he determined upon evincing his indifference to it, and
upon taking steps to carry out his views, in spite of the opposition of
the French party.... They have from that time declared and evinced
their hostility to the Union ... and have maintained a consistent,
united, and uncompromising opposition to the government which was
concerned in carrying it into execution."[59]

To describe the French in politics, it has been {59} necessary to
advance a year or two beyond 1839, for the Rebellion had terminated one
phase of their political existence, and the characteristics of the next
phase did not become apparent till the Union Assembly of 1841 and 1842.
It was indeed an abnormal form of the national and racial question
which there presented itself. French Canada found itself represented
by a party, over twenty in number, the most compact in the House of
Assembly, and with _la nation Canadienne_ solidly behind them. In La
Fontaine, Viger, Morin and others, it had leaders both skilful and
fully trusted. Yet the party of the British supremacy quoted Durham
and others in favour of a plan for the absorption of French Canada in
the British element; and the same party could recount, with telling
effect, the past misdeeds, or at least the old suspicions, connected
with the names of the French leaders. Misunderstood, and yet half
excusably misunderstood; self-governing, and yet deprived of many of
the legitimate consequences and fruits of self-government; without
places or honours, and yet coherent, passionately French, and
competently led, the French party stood across the path of Canadian
peace, menacing, and with a raci