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Modern England From the Reform Bill to the Present Time
Modern England From the Reform Bill to the Present Time Author:Justin McCarthy General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: T. Fisher Unwin Subjects: Great Britain History / Europe / Great Britain Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book... more » you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: IV THE FOUNDATION OF THE CANADIAN DOMINION In the first year of the young Queen's reign serious disturbances, which soon grew into actual rebellion, broke out in Canada. This colony had been the possession of the British Crown since the days of the victories of General Wolfe. The vast colony of Canada was then divided into two provinces, known as Upper and Lower Canada. Lower Canada was inhabited almost altogether by men of French descent who still kept up the ways and the usages of provincial France before the Revolution. Even in the two great cities of Montreal and Quebec, although each had a considerable sprinkling of Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Americans, the character and tone were distinctly those of an almost medieval French society. Upper Canada, on the other hand, was peopled almost entirely by settlers from England and from Scotland, and from the Northern Province of Ireland, who were in origin, in ways, and in accent almost altogether Scotch. At that time the wave of emigration from the other provinces of Ireland had not much affected either of the Canadian UPPER AND LOWER CANADA 77 divisions. The inhabitants of Upper Canada were a go-ahead population, full of energy and activity, eager to set trade and commerce moving, ambitious of a rivalry with the populations of the great American Republic, and devoted to the English connection and the English flag. Lower Canada only asked to be let alone, and to be happy in its picturesque, old- fashioned way. Upper Canada was, roughly speaking, almost altog...« less