No concourse of atoms could be more fortuitous than the gathering of ’traders, sailors, deserters from the army, outcasts, convicts, slaves, democrats, and fanatics,’ who have been the first, and sometimes the only ingredients of society in our so-called colonies.  French Canada, on the contrary, was an organism complete in itself, a little model of medieval France, with its recognised gradations of ranks, ecclesiastical and social.

It may, indeed, be doubted whether the highest forms of social life are best propagated by this method:  whether the freer system, which ’sows itself on every wind,’ does not produce the larger, and, in the long run, the more beneficent results.  But if reason acquiesces in the ultimate triumph of that busy, pushing energy which distinguishes the British settler, there is something very attractive to the imagination in the picture presented by the peaceful community of French habitans, living under the gentle and congenial control of their coutumes de Paris, with their priests and their seigneurs, their frugal, industrious habits, their amiable dispositions and simple pleasures, and their almost exaggerated reverence for order and authority.  Politically speaking, they formed a most valuable element in Canadian society.  At one time, indeed, the restless anarchical spirit of the settlers around them, acting on the sentiment of French nationality, instigated them to the rebellion of 1837; but, as a rule, their social sympathies were stronger than their national antipathies; and gratitude to the Government which secured to them the enjoyment of their cherished institutions kept them true to England on more than one occasion when her own sons threatened to fall away from her.

By the legislative union of 1840 the barriers which had separated the British and French communities were, to a great extent, broken down; and the various elements in each began gradually to seek out and to combine with those which were congenial to them in the other.  But there were many cross currents and thwarting influences; and there was great danger, as Lord Elgin felt, lest they should form false combinations, on partial views of local or personal interest, instead of uniting on broad principles of social and political agreement.

Such were the antecedents of the party which now, for the first time, found itself admitted to the counsels of the Governor.  Well might he write to Lord Grey, that ’the province was about to pass through an interesting crisis.’  He was required, in obedience to his own principles, to accept as advisers persons who had very lately been denounced by the Secretary of State as well as by the Governor-General, as impracticable and disloyal.  On the other hand he reflected, with satisfaction, that in these sentiments he himself had neither overtly nor covertly expressed concurrence; while the most extravagant assertors of responsible government had never accused him of stepping out of his constitutional position.  He felt, therefore, that the onus probandi would rest on his new councillors if they could not act with him, and put forth pretensions to which he was unable to accede.  At least he was determined to give them a fair trial.  Writing on the 17th of March he says:—­