do it.' 'And I,' replied Davison, 'am resolved you shall
not.' Nelson, however, on this occasion was less resolved than his
friend, and suffered himself to be led back to the boat."[37]

[Illustration: SAMUEL CHASE
(One of the four American Commissioners to Canada in 1776)]

It is not clear why Nelson's utter ruin should "inevitably follow" his
marriage with Mary Simpson. Was it on account of his youth? Or was the
statement due to Davison's distrust of marriage in general? If this
was the reason, it is evident that Nelson was not greatly moved by his
friend's pessimism; for not much more than a year later we find him
making an unsuccessful proposal of marriage to Miss Andrews, the
daughter of an English clergy-man at St. Omer, France, a rebuff for
which, in the following year, he found consolation in an alliance with
Mrs. Nesbit.

[Footnote 37: Southey's _Life of Nelson_, chap. i.]

[Illustration: BREAKNECK STEPS TO-DAY]

The settlement of the United Empire Loyalists in Canada greatly
altered the political complexion of the conquered country. The terms
of the Quebec Act of 1774, though necessary in the circumstances,
were distinctly opposed to the views of the English minority, who
strongly resented the employment of French civil law. And now these
newcomers greatly increased the strength of this English faction, the
peculiar conditions under which they chose to throw in their lot with
Canada giving them a claim upon the Home government which could not be
disregarded. The continuous agitation for parliamentary government
which marked the years from 1783 to 1790, was not confined to the
English section of the population. With the English, however, it took
the special form of a demand for a separate province west of the river
Beaudette, the capital of which should be Cataraqui,[38] "with the
blessings of British laws, and of British Government, and an exemption
from French tenures."

In the midst of this political turmoil, Sir Guy Carleton, who, for his
distinguished services, had been raised to the peerage with the title
of Lord Dorchester, returned to Canada as Governor-General; and on the
23rd of October, 1786, Quebec welcomed her former deliverer at the
landing-stage, the whole population, French and English, uniting to
give him an honourable and joyous reception. Every one felt indeed
that Dorchester was the man to solve the political difficulty of the
period; and with these omens of success he set to work for