Colonies had long outgrown a
state of tutelage, and were not prepared to accept legislation from
the motherland. But as a preliminary measure of offence, the newly
assembled congress determined to detach Canada from the British crown,
and, naturally, they counted most of all upon disaffection among the
French Canadian population. It is not possible to give in full the
letter which George Washington despatched on this occasion to "The
Inhabitants of Canada"; but the following is part of it:--

"FRIENDS AND BRETHREN--The unnatural contest between the
English colonies and Great Britain has now risen to such
a height that arms alone must decide it. The colonies,
confiding in the justice of their cause, and the purity
of their intention, have reluctantly appealed to that
Being in whose hands are all human events....Above all,
we rejoice that our enemies have been deceived with
regard to you. They have persuaded themselves, they have
even dared to say, that the Canadians were not capable of
distinguishing between the blessings of liberty and the
wretchedness of slavery;...but they have been deceived;
instead of finding in you a poverty of soul and baseness
of spirit, they see with a chagrin, equal to our joy,
that you are enlightened, generous, and virtuous; that
you will not renounce your own rights, or serve as
instruments to deprive your fellow-subjects of theirs.
Come then, my brethren, unite with us in an indissoluble
union, let us run together to the same goal....Come then,
ye generous citizens, range yourselves under the standard
of general liberty, against which all the force and
artifices of tyranny will never be able to prevail.

GEORGE WASHINGTON."

The blandishments of the Thirteen Colonies, or "The Provincials," as
they were called, found almost no response in Canada. Sir Guy Carleton
had left nothing undone to foster loyalty in the hearts of the French
Canadians; and the passing of the Quebec Act in 1774, which secured to
them freedom of worship and confirmed their own system of
jurisprudence, held the French fast to their allegiance at a time when
disaffection would have been ruinous to the Empire.

Controversies still rage over the propriety of legalising the French
language in a British dominion; but any one who examines well the
circumstances which induced it must see that not only justice but
mil