The judiciary was more or less under its influence while judges were appointed during pleasure and held seats in the councils.  This governing class was largely composed of the descendants of the Loyalists of 1784, who had taken so important a part in the war with the United States and always asserted their claims to special consideration in the distribution of government favour.  The old settlers—­all those who had come into the country before the war—­demanded and obtained greater consideration at the hands of the government than the later immigrants, who eventually found themselves shut out of office and influence.  The result was the growth of a Liberal or Reform party, which, while generally composed of the later immigrants, comprised several persons of Loyalist extraction, who did not happen to belong to the favoured class or church, but recognised the necessity for a change in the methods of administration.  Among these Loyalists must be specially mentioned Peter Perry, who was really the founder of the Reform party in 1834, and the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, a Methodist minister of great natural ability.

Unfortunately creed also became a powerful factor in the political controversies of Upper Canada.  By the constitutional act of 1791 large tracts of land were set aside for the support of a “Protestant clergy”, and the Church of England successfully claimed for years an exclusive right to these “clergy reserves” on the ground that it was the Protestant church recognised by the state.  The clergy of the Church of Scotland in Canada, though very few in number for years, at a later time obtained a share of these grants as a national religious body; but all the dissentient denominations did not participate in the advantages of these reserves.  The Methodists claimed in the course of years to be numerically equal to, if not more numerous than, the English Episcopalians, and were deeply irritated at the inferior position they long occupied in the province.  So late as 1824 the legislative council, composed of members of the dominant church, rejected a bill allowing Methodist ministers to solemnise marriages, and it was not until 1831 that recognised ministers of all denominations were placed on an equality in this respect.  Christian charity was not more a characteristic of those times than political liberality.  Methodism was considered by the governing class as a sign of democracy and social inferiority.  History repeated itself in Upper Canada.  As the Puritans of New England feared the establishment of an Anglican episcopacy, and used it to stimulate a feeling against the parent state during the beginnings of the revolution, so in Upper Canada the dissenting religious bodies made political capital out of the favouritism shown to the Church of England in the distribution of the public lands and public patronage.  The Roman Catholics and members of all Protestant sects eventually demanded the secularisation of the reserves for educational