The political condition of the Canadas brought about a union much sooner than was anticipated by its most sanguine promoters.  In a despatch written to the colonial minister by the Canadian delegates,—­members of the Cartier-Macdonald ministry—­who visited England in 1858 and laid the question of union before the government, they represented that “very grave difficulties now present themselves in conducting the government of Canada”; that “the progress of population has been more rapid in the western province, and claims are now made on behalf of its inhabitants for giving them representation in the legislature in proportion to their numbers”; that “the result is shown by agitation fraught with great danger to the peaceful and harmonious working of our constitutional system, and, consequently, detrimental to the progress of the province” that “this state of things is yearly becoming worse”; and that “the Canadian government are impressed with the necessity for seeking such a mode of dealing with these difficulties as may for ever remove them.”  In addition to this expression of opinion on the part of the representatives of the Conservative government of 1858, the Reformers of Upper Canada held a large and influential convention at Toronto in 1859, and adopted a resolution in which it was emphatically set forth, “that the best practicable remedy for the evils now encountered in the government of Canada is to be found in the formation of two or more local governments to which shall be committed the control of all matters of a local and sectional character, and some general authority charged with such matters as are necessarily common to both sections of the provinces”—­language almost identical with that used by the Quebec convention six years later in one of its resolutions with respect to the larger scheme of federation.  Mr. George Brown brought this scheme before the assembly in 1860, but it was rejected by a large majority.  At this time constitutional and political difficulties of a serious nature had arisen between the French and English speaking sections of the united Canadian provinces.  A large and influential party in Upper Canada had become deeply dissatisfied with the conditions of the union of 1840, which maintained equality of representation to the two provinces when statistics clearly showed that the western section exceeded French Canada both in population and wealth.

A demand was persistently and even fiercely made at times for such a readjustment of the representation in the assembly as would do full justice to the more populous and richer province.  The French Canadian leaders resented this demand as an attempt to violate the terms on which they were brought into the union, and as calculated, and indeed intended, to place them in a position of inferiority to the people of a province where such fierce and unjust attacks were systematically made on their language, religion, and institutions generally.  With much justice they pressed the