In 1838 President Buren issued a proclamation calling upon all citizens of the United States to observe the neutrality laws; but the difficulty in those days was the indisposition of the federal government to interfere with the states where such expeditions were organised.  The vigilance of the Canadian authorities and the loyalty of the people alone saved the country in these trying times.  A great many of the raiders were taken prisoners and punished with the severity due to their unjustifiable acts.  Von Schoultz and eight others were hanged, a good many were pardoned, while others were transported to Van Diemen’s Land, whence they were soon allowed to return.  The names of these filibusters are forgotten, but those of Lount and Matthews, who perished on the scaffold, have been inscribed on some Canadian hearts as patriots.  Sir George Arthur, who succeeded Sir Francis Head, was a soldier, who had had experience as a governor among the convicts of Van Diemen’s Land, and the negro population of Honduras, where he had crushed a revolt of slaves.  Powerful appeals were made to him on behalf of Lount and Matthews, but not even the tears and prayers of Lount’s distracted wife could reach his heart.  Such clemency as was shown by Lord Durham would have been a bright incident in Sir George Arthur’s career in Canada, but he looked only to the approval of the Loyalists, deeply incensed against the rebels of 1837.  His action in these two cases was regarded with disapprobation in England, and the colonial minister expressed the hope that no further executions would occur—­advice followed in the case of other actors of the revolt of 1837.  Sir George Arthur’s place in colonial annals is not one of high distinction.  Like his predecessors, he became the resolute opponent of responsible government, which he declared in a despatch to be “Mackenzie’s scheme for getting rid of what Mr. Hume called ‘the baneful domination’ of the mother country”; “and never” he added, “was any scheme better devised to bring about such an end speedily”.

SECTION 3.—­Social and economic conditions of the Provinces in 1838.

We have now reached a turning-point in the political development of the provinces of British North America, and may well pause for a moment to review the social and economic condition of their people.  Since the beginning of the century there had been a large immigration into the provinces, except during the war of 1812.  In the nine years preceding 1837, 263,089 British and Irish immigrants arrived at Quebec, and in one year alone there were over 50,000.  By 1838 the population of the five provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had reached about 1,400,000 souls.  In Upper Canada, with the exception of a very few people of German or Dutch descent, and some French Canadians opposite Detroit and on the Ottawa River, there was an entirely British population of at least 400,000 souls.  The population of Lower Canada