la lutte qui s’en suivit entre Papineau et Dalhousie. La brèche alla s’élargissant jusqu’au rappel de ce dernier, en 1827. Sous Kempt, qui ne fut que deux ans à la tête des affaires, il y eut accalmie, mais peu après l’arrivée d’Aylmer, en 1830, la lutte reprit de plus belle.
Le vicomte Goderich avait remplacé, le 30 avril 1827, lord Bathurst qui avait dirigé le bureau des colonies pendant quinze ans, mais il n’avait fait qu’y passer. Remis en charge de ce ministère, le 22 novembre, lord Goderich se mit à la besogne et décida enfin d’accorder à l’Assemblée législative à peu près tous les privilèges que celle-ci réclamait. Garneau, qui était un grand admirateur de Papineau reconnaît pourtant que celui-ci eut le grand tort de ne pas accueillir les propositions fort acceptables de lord Goderich. Papineau était devenu intraitable ; il voulait tout ou rien. De ce moment, il n’a plus le beau rôle. Il continua de soulever la province contre le gouvernement, et l’on connaît le résultat de l’élection de 1832 et l’incident regrettable qui eut lieu à Montréal cette année. Papineau somma
large — nothing remains, therefore, for the Government but to create for itself the strength, derived from the possession of publick opinion — it is my constant aim, and study to obtain for it the advantage of this powerful lever, and I am rejoiced in having the opportunity which the contents of your Lordship’s Despatches affords me, to observe, that the wise, the enlightened, and I must add, the noble views, taken by His Majesty’s Government of the Affairs of this Province, afford every prospect of rendering the execution of my publick duty a delightful and easy task for the time to come.
I will only intrude one more observation on your Lordship whose time I am well aware must be most fully & anxiously occupied. I myself partake of all that parliality which so particularly distinguishes Englishmen in favor of their own Laws and Institutions, and should be most happy to see them universally established in all Btilish Colonies ; but in the case of this particular Colony it well becomes all those who are so eager to ANGLIFY the French Canadians, to consider what those French Canadians would become on ceasing to be what they are : Would the change make them Englishmen, or Americans ? At present the French Canadian is moral, religious obedient, to the authorities placed over him ; and desirous of nothing but of not having his habits and prejudices invaded. Such is the Character of the French Canadian of the present day ; but if this to be re-modelled, I much fear that he would look, not across the Atlantick to a distant land, but over an imaginary line at the threshold of his own door, for the forms which his character and principles are then to assume.
The Lord Viscount Goderich
