It is not for me to dispute the point with free-traders, when they allege that all parts of the Empire are suffering from the effects of free-trade, and that Canadians must take their chance with others.  But I must be permitted to remark, that the Canadian case differs from others, both as respects the immediate cause of the suffering, and still more as respects the means which the sufferers possess of finding for themselves a way of escape.  As to the former point I have only to say that, however severe the pressure in other cases attendant on the transition from protection to free-trade, there is none which presents so peculiar a specimen of legislative legerdemain as the Canadian, where an interest was created in 1843 by a Parliament in which the parties affected had no voice, only to be knocked down by the same Parliament in 1846.  But it is the latter consideration which constitutes the specialty of the Canadian case.  What in point of fact can the other suffering interests, of which the Times writes, do?  There may be a great deal of grumbling, and a gradual move towards republicanism, or even communism; but this is an operose and empirical process, the parties engaged in it are full of misgivings, and their ranks at every step in advance are thinned by desertion.  Not so with the Canadians.  The remedy offered to them, such as it is, is perfectly definite and intelligible.  They are invited to form a part of a community, which is neither suffering nor free- trading, which never makes a bargain without getting at least twice as much as it gives; a community, the members of which have been within the last few weeks pouring into their multifarious places of worship, to thank God that they are exempt from the ills which afflict other men, from those more especially which afflict their despised neighbours, the inhabitants of North America, who have remained faithful to the country which planted them.

Now, I believe, that if these facts be ignored, it is quite impossible to understand rightly the present state of opinion in Canada, or to determine wisely the course which the British Government and Parliament ought to pursue.  It may suit the policy of the English free-trade press to represent the difficulties of Canada as the consequence of having a fool for a Governor-General; but, if it be permitted me to express an opinion on a matter of so much delicacy, I venture to doubt whether it would be safe to act on this hypothesis.  My conviction on the contrary is, that motives of self-interest of a very gross and palpable description are suggesting treasonable courses to the Canadian mind at present, and that it is a political sentiment, a feeling of gratitude for what has been done and suffered this year in the cause of Canadian self-government, which is neutralising these suggestions.

Again, on December 29,1849, he writes as follows:—­

[Sidenote:  Free navigation.]