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The Father of British Canada (Large Print Edition)
The Father of British Canada - Large Print Edition Author:William Wood Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Empire Loyalists and the growth of the Maritime Provinces on the other side, Quebec could have entered Carleton's proposed Confederation in the nineties to her o... more »wn and every one else's best advantage. On the other hand, the delay of fourteen years after the Capitulation of 176o and the unwarrantable extension of the provincial boundaries were cardinal errors of the most disastrous kind. The delay, filled with a futile attempt at mistaken Americanization, bred doubts and dissensions not only between the two races but between the different kinds of French Canadians. When the hour of trial came disintegration had already gone too far. The mistake about the boundaries was equally bad. The western wilds ought to have been administered by a lieutenant-governor under the supervision of a governor-general. Even leasing them for a short term of years to the Hudson's Bay Company would have been better than annexing them to a preposterous province of Quebec. The American colonists would have doubtless objected to either alternative. But both could have been defended on sound principles of administration ; while the sudden invasion of a new and inflated Quebec into the colonial hinterlands waslittle less than a declaration of war. The whole problem bristled with enormous difficulties, and the circumstances under which it had to be faced made an ideal solution impossible. But an earlier Quebec Act, without its outrageous boundary clause, would have been well worth the risk of passing ; for the delay led many French Canadians to suppose, however falsely, that the Empire's need might always be their opportunity ; and this idea, however repugnant to their best minds and better feelings, has persisted among their extreme particularists until the present day. CHAPTER IV INVASION 1775 C...« less