o the hands of speculators and
jobbers, who bought farms of two hundred acres for prices ranging from
a gallon of rum to L5. "The greater part of these grants," said Mr.
Hawke, a government official whose evidence is given in the appendix
to Durham's Report, "remain in an unimproved state. These blocks of
wild land place the actual settler in an almost hopeless condition; he
can hardly expect during his lifetime to see his neighbourhood contain
a population sufficiently dense to support mills, schools,
post-offices, places of worship, markets or shops, without which
civilization retrogrades. Roads, under such circumstances, can neither
be opened by the settlers nor kept in proper repair. In 1834 I met a
settler from the township of Warwick, on the Caradoc Plains, returning
from the grist mill at Westminster, with the flour and bran of
thirteen bushels of wheat. He had a yoke of oxen and a horse attached
to his wagon, and had been absent nine days and did not expect to
reach home until the following evening. Light as his load was, he
assured me that he had to unload, wholly or in part, several times,
and after driving his wagon through the swamps, to pick out a road
through the woods where the swamps or gullies were fordable, and to
carry the bags on his back and replace them in the wagon."

It is unnecessary here to discuss differences of opinion as to the
interpretation of the law, attempts to divide the endowment among
various denominations, or other efforts at compromise. The radical
wing of the Reform party demanded that the special provision for the
support of the Church of England should be abolished, and a system of
free popular education established. With this part of their platform
Brown was heartily in accord; on this point he agreed with the Clear
Grits that the Baldwin-Lafontaine government was moving too slowly,
and when Baldwin was succeeded by Hincks in 1851, the restraining
influence of his respect for Baldwin being removed, his discontent
was converted into open and determined opposition.

Largely by the influence of Brown and the _Globe_, public opinion in
1851 was aroused to a high degree, and meetings were held to advocate
the secularization of the clergy reserves. The friends of the old
order were singularly unfortunate in their mode of expressing their
opinions. Opposition to responsible government was signalized by the
burning of the parliament buildings, and the mobbing of Lord Elgin in
Montrea