The grievances of the habitants were not mitigated, moreover, by the way in which the authorities of the province gave lands to the United Empire Loyalists.  These exiles from the revolted seaboard colonies came by thousands during the years following the war, and they were given generous grants of land.  And these lands were not made subject to any seigneurial dues.  They were given in freehold, in free and common socage.  The new owners of these lands paid no annual dues and rendered no regular services to any superior authority.  Their tenure seemed to the habitants to be very attractive.  Hence the influx of the Loyalists gave strength to a movement for the abolition of seigneurial tenure—­a movement which may be said to have had its first real beginning about 1790.

It was in that year that the solicitor-general of the province, in response to a request of the legislative council, presented a long report on the land-tenure situation.  The council, after due consideration of this report and other data submitted to it, passed a series of resolutions declaring that the seigneurial system was retarding the agricultural progress of the province and that, while its immediate abolition was not practicable, steps should be taken to get rid of it gradually.  But nothing came of these resolutions.  The Constitutional Act of 1791 greatly complicated the situation by its provisions relating to the so-termed ‘clergy reserves,’ or reservations of lands for Church endowment, and it was not until 1825 that the Canada Trade and Tenures Act opened the way for a commutation of tenures whenever the seigneur and his habitants could agree.  This act was permissive only.  It did not apply any compulsion to the seigneurs.  Very few, accordingly, took advantage of its provisions.

This was the situation when the uprising of 1837-38 took place.  The seigneurial system was not a leading cause of the rebellion, but it was one of the grievances included by the habitants in their general bill of complaint.  Hence, when Lord Durham came to Quebec to investigate the causes of colonial discontent, the system came in for its share of study.  In his masterly Report on the Affairs of British North America he recognized that the old system had outlived its day of usefulness, and that its continuance was unwise.  But Durham outlined no plan for its abolition.  He believed that if the province were given a government responsible to the masses of its own people, the problem of abolition would soon be solved.  One of Durham’s secretaries, Charles Buller drafted a scheme for commuting the tenures into freehold, but his plan did not find acceptance.

For nearly twenty years after Durham’s investigation the question of abolishing the seigneurial tenures remained a football of Canadian politics.  Legislative commissions were appointed; they made investigations; they presented reports; but none succeeded in getting any comprehensive plan of abolition on the statute-books.  In 1854, however, the question was made a leading issue at the general election.  A definite mandate from the people was the result, and ’An Act for the Abolition of Feudal Rights and Duties in Lower Canada’ received its enactment during the same year.