residents of its Branch Leagues
will form an executive body for district business; and all these
officers, together with those first named as the general executive, will
constitute the Central League. Protection to home industry, with
the view of encouraging the establishment of domestic manufactures;
retrenchment in the expenditure of the government, or the better
apportionment of that expenditure to the existing means of the province,
and an extension of our home market, and the consolidation of British
interest, by the union of the colonies--these present specific objects
worthy the employment of our highest efforts for their attainment."

This was the last act of the convention. The demonstration was on the
whole loyal, contrary to the expectation of both its promoters and
government. That the general public of British birth or extraction did
not meditate rebellion at this juncture was evinced by the following
record in a Montreal journal, of an occurrence which took place on
the very day that the parliament was prorogued, and the British League
adjourned its sittings:--"A public meeting of the citizens of Montreal
was held on the 31st ult., at which it was all but unanimously agreed
to lend the credit of the city to the extent of five hundred thousand
dollars to the completion of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway,
which will connect Montreal with Portland (Maine), and open out the
splendid intermediate county. This, with two hundred thousand dollars
from other sources, it is expected will execute one-half the work, and
then the guarantee of the legislature under a general act comes in; and
an expectation is entertained that the other half may be borrowed in
England, on the joint security of the railroad and the province."

A very large party, however, contemplated the peaceable separation of
the Canadas from the mother country; others supposed that Great Britain
would consent to the union of all the North American provinces, and,
after a time, recognise the independence of the new province thus
formed. These agitations showed how deeply laid, and how extensively
prevalent was the discontent among the most industrious, enterprising,
and respectable colonists. Religious animosities amongst the colonists
themselves embittered the social condition of the country. At a place
called Bytown, during the autumn, there were repeated conflicts between
Protestants and Roman Catholics, which left lasting acrimony and
dissa