History of the settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario,) with special reference to the Bay Quinté. William Canniff
Читать онлайн книгу.
three or four hundred families. This Fort and others around the lakes yet held by the French were surrendered to Major Rogers, a person again to be spoken of. The population according to the Governor, left of French origin, was 70,000.
The Canadians who did not return to France repaired to their homes and renewed their peaceful avocations.
The first British Governor, Sir Jeffry Amherst, entered upon his functions 1763.
We have now very cursorily indeed, noticed the history of the French Canadians up to the time they became British subjects. We have seen they did not willingly become such; yet scarcely fifteen years were to pass away before their loyalty to the British flag was to be tested; not indeed to decide whether they should again become a part of France, rather than remain British, but whether their condition as British subjects was so intolerable that they should seek other protection of a foreign origin.
We shall see that although promises were held out of great political advantage they preferred to remain as they were. There remained in the hearts of the Canadian French, not so much a dislike to England as a detestation to the New Englander. Hence it was that when the rebel banner was unfurled in 1776, with the declaration of American Independence upon it, no Canadian rallied around it. Although commissioners from the rebel congress visited them with honied words and fair promises, they received no friendly welcome. The Canadians regarded their old enemies as enemies still, and they turned their backs upon the revolting provinces and their faces toward old England for protection. The commissioners to the Canadians, composed of Dr. Benj. Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carrol, with his brother, a Jesuit Priest were appointed to this mission, on the 15th February, 1776. The same Franklin who now offered the French “freedom,” had urged upon the British in 1753 the expediency of reducing Canada!!
For a century and a half France endeavored in vain to erect a power in America; but shall we say that it was all in vain?
The monument although broken, so far as France is concerned yet stands a lasting memorial of French energy, of religious fervor, stern determination, and indomitable valor. And, when the wave of revolution passed over the thirteen British Colonies, the column was conspicuous enough to be seen by refugees; the protection Canada offered was sufficient for the homeless families of U. E. Loyalists. Canada was a sacred spot, although French. It constituted a nucleus, around which collected those who preferred order to rebellion. Those who had fought as opponents at Duquesne, at Niagara, at Frontenac, at Tyconderoga, and upon the Plains of Abraham, were joined together. The heel, which had assisted to crush the Canadian French, now sought and found a resting place among those who had been overcome. Thus was to be laid the foundation of the Dominion of Canada, whose future is to be great. Stretching from seaboard to seaboard, it is destined to become, ere it has reached the present age of the United States, the Russia of America, with the purest principles of government the world has ever known.
We now approach the period of time when another element of discord was to appear among the races which inhabited America. Bloody Indian wars had in the past swept back and forth across the woody land. Rival colonizers had resorted to strife, to extend territorial power. European weapons had been transported to wage wars of extermination. Conquest and subjugation of Indians and rivals had been witnessed; but now Rebellion, a term that has received fresh significance in the late civil war in the United States, was to be initiated. The British blood and money which had been lavishly spent for the Anglo-Americans, had only prepared those colonists to seek other advantages. The Indians held in subjection, the French conquered, the mother country itself must now be coerced to give full rein to the spoiled and wayward offspring.
DIVISION I.
THE REBELLION OF 1776—THE THIRTEEN COLONIES.
CHAPTER III.
Contents—First American Rebellion—Independence—Traitors made Heroes—Loyalists driven away to found another Colony—The responsibility of rebelling—Treatment of the Loyalists—The several Colonies—The first Englishman in America—Receives £10—English Colonization—Virginia—Convicts—Extent of Virginia—First Governor—Virginians not willing to rebel—Quota supplied to the rebel army—New York—Hudson—The Dutch—New Netherlands—Price of New Amsterdam (New York)—First Legislative Assembly—Not quick to rebel—Quota of rebel troops—Gave many settlers to Upper Canada—New Jersey—Its settlement—A battle ground—Gave rebel troops; also loyal troops—Furnished settlers to Upper Canada—Massachusetts—Captain Smith—New England Puritans—The “Mayflower”—First Governor—Cruel treatment of Indians—Massachusetts takes the lead in rebelling—Troops—Loyalists—New Hampshire—Troops—Delaware—Settlement—Quota of rebel troops—Connecticut—Education—Troops—Roman Catholics—Toleration—Rhode Island—Providence—Inconsistency of the Puritans—Roger Williams—North Carolina—Inhabitants—South Carolina—Many loyalists—Pennsylvania—William Penn—Conduct toward Indians—The people opposed to rebellion—Georgia—Oglethorpe—Policy of England—New England.
In the introductory chapters a brief sketch has been given of the settlement of America. We now approach the important events which belong to the first great American rebellion, which culminated in the Declaration of Independence by the thirteen British American Colonies, and terminated in the recognition of their independence by the parent State. The rebellion had resulted in a revolution, and traitors were made heroes!
It forms a part of the present undertaking to record some of the facts relative to the steps by which the now powerful United States were, as a whole, ushered into the arena of nations, and by which a large class of Americans, true to their British allegiance, were compelled to leave their native country to found another colony in the northern wilderness. To be justified in rebelling against the constituted authorities there must be the most cogent reasons; to take up arms against the State—to initiate a civil war, is assuming the most fearful consequences.
To present even a brief account of the circumstances which led to the settlement of Upper Canada, it becomes necessary to dwell for a time upon the great rebellion of 1776, the result of which was adverse to those Americans who adhered to the old flag under which they had been born, had come to the new world, and had prospered; a rebellion which was attended and followed by persecution and violence, imprisonment and confiscation, banishment, and, too often, death; which caused a stream of refugee loyalists to set in toward the wilderness of Canada.
At the time of the rebellion of the English colonists in America, they consisted of thirteen provinces. Massachusetts, with her colony of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It may be well to briefly notice these several states, and the part each took in the war for Independence.
The first Englishman to set foot upon the continent of America was John Cabot, who discovered Newfoundland, and probably the adjacent mainland, June 4, 1497. The event is noticed in the Privy Purse expenditure thus: “1497, Aug. 10—To hym that found the new Isle, £10,” which seems to have been a grant for his services.
VIRGINIA.
In the year 1578, Sir H. Gilbert endeavoured to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Roanoke. Failing in his undertaking, his half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, made a similar effort the following year, which likewise failed. It was Sir Walter Raleigh who gave the name to Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin Queen. A third and successful