TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL, HER MAJESTY'S SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, I BEG leave to address to your Lordship's consideration some remarks upon the value, interests, and prospects of her Majesty's North American Provinces, which may, at the present moment, repay the trouble of a perusal; and, more especially, an attempt which I have made to call the earnest attention of Parliament, and of this country, to the nature and probable consequences of the measure relating to the future government of Canada, which was introduced into the House of Commons at a late period of the last session. Your Lordship's official connexion with the colonies makes me desirous that what I have ventured to state thus openly and freely, at a crisis of peculiar interest, may engage your consideration; and I have an additional motive, in the belief that your Lordship will be disposed to examine with care all that may be urged in respect to the important measure to which I refer. I will add, that whatever difficulties your Lordship, as a member of the Government, may find in dealing with the Canadian question, I am persuaded there are few whose individual opinions upon it are less likely to be influenced by the mere personal importunities, or the prejudices, of others. These, I think, are the first pages, except so far as I have been publicly connected with official documents, that I have ever printed with, or without, my name, upon a political question; and if it be an advantage to those who are chiefly responsible for a public measure, that all who are to share in the decision should have an opportunity of considering the arguments against it, as well as in its favour, your Lordship will probably not regret that I have made this exertion. If the course, which has always appeared to me to be on several accounts inexpedient, should be adopted, and should produce those unfortunate results which are apprehended by me, and not less by persons of better judgment and of more experience, I should have to consider hereafter, and perhaps under painful circumstances, upon what satisfactory ground I had suppressed the public declaration of my sentiments at so critical a moment, when my accidental presence in England had enabled me to state them with convenience, and possibly not wholly without effect. I could only account for the omission by acknowledging an apprehension that by openly expressing my opinions upon a public question, however respectfully, I might incur the displeasure of the Government, and that I had therefore been silent; a reason which, if it should have become necessary to give it, would not have done honour to the Government, or to myself. To those persons who may feel so much interest in the subject as to read what I have written, it will be very likely to occur, that instead of stating in a public manner, and at this late period, my strong objections to the union of the provinces, it would have been more natural and proper that I should have taken an early opportunity of submitting to the consideration of the Government such opinions as I entertained, apprising them not only of what I may have believed to be injudicious in the suggestions of others, but offering unre servedly, at the same time, such suggestions of my own as my experience and observation in the colonies might have prompted. Your Lordship, however, will do me the justice to acknowledge that in this respect I have not been wanting. I refer to the letters addressed by me to her Majesty's Secretary of State for the colonies, on the 23rd of February, and on the 9th and 29th of March last, for the purpose only of observing that as the explanations of my views which are contained in them have not been in fact made the foundation of any measure or proposition of the Government, it has not appeared to me, that the circumstance of my having thus communicated with your Lordship's predecessor upon the public questions referred to, should preclude me from discussing openly the same points of general policy, if it seemed to me that any important advantage might arise from my doing so. It has been stated in public debate in strong terms, and I think by your Lordship, that the difficulties which have occurred in Canada, including the late calamitous insurrections, and the whole train of evils which led to them, have flowed from the unfortunate separation of the provinces in the year 1791. Nevertheless that measure, like the present, was recommended to Parliament by a Royal message; and if the opinion just referred to be correct, then that person would have rendered an inestimable service to his country, who by a timely warning could have saved the Government from falling into the supposed error. But, My Lord, having been an inhabitant of Canada during the whole period of the separation which has been thus lamented, I have ventured to form a different opinion of the effect of that measure. I ascribe to other causes the difficulties which have arisen in Lower Canada; and I believe that the reuniting the provinces would prove to be, in fact, a much more unfortunate policy than the separation of them is even supposed to have been. However this may be, infallibility in the measures of the Government is not assumed to be an attribute of the present age any more than of the last; and I am anxious that while there is yet time, those considerations which her Majesty's Government have thought it safe to disregard should, at least, pass in review before those by whose judgment the future destinies of the Canadas must soon be decided, for good, or for evil. There were different methods of accomplishing what I wished. If I had conveyed my opinions upon these public questions through the pages of a review, or of an anonymous pamphlet, or the columns of a newspaper, I should have done on this occasion, what I have on all others studiously and wholly abstained from, throughout the twenty-seven years which I have spent in the service of the Crown. case, Having determined not to make an exception in the present I have thought it the most open and proper course not to confine what I intended to offer to the view of persons taking one side or the other in the political affairs of this country; but to submit my opinions equally to the consideration of all who may imagine that they have any claim to attention. It is quite unimportant that I should add, what may nevertheless not be improper, that if in the manner in which I have declared these opinions, or in declaring them at all, I shall, in your Lordship's judgment have erred, the error is one for which I am alone answerable, for until the moment when this book shall reach your Lordship's hand, its contents will have been unknown to any one; the intention even to write it has been known only to myself, and was, in fact, not formed until very recently. To your Lordship I need not speak of the vast importance of |