On his return to Canada in September, 1774, Carleton reported
that the Canadians had "testified the strongest marks of Joy and
Gratitude and Fidelity to their King and to His Government for
the late Arrangements made at Home in their Favor." The "most
respectable part of the English," he continued, urged peaceful
acceptance of the new order. Evidently, however, the respectable
members of society were few, as the great body of the English
settlers joined in a petition for the repeal of the Act on the
ground that it deprived them of the incalculable benefits of
habeas corpus and trial by jury. The Montreal merchants, whether,
as Carleton commented, they "were of a more turbulent Turn, or
that they caught the Fire from some Colonists settled among
them," were particularly outspoken in the town meetings they
held. In the older colonies the opposition was still more
emphatic. An Act which hemmed them in to the seacoast,
established on the American continent a Church they feared and
hated, and continued an autocratic political system, appeared to
many to be the undoing of the work of Pitt and Wolfe and the
revival on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi of a
serious menace to their liberty and progress.
Then came the clash at Lexington, and the War of American
Independence had begun. The causes, the course, and the ending of
that great civil war have been treated elsewhere in this series.
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