In several instances, the choice of rulers for the new
provinces proved fortunate. This was particularly so in the case
of John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada from
1792 to 1799. He was a good soldier and a just and vigorous
administrator, particularly wise in setting his regulars to work
building roads such as Yonge Street and Dundas Street, which to
this day are great provincial arteries of travel. Yet there were
many sources of weakness in the scheme of government--divided
authority, absenteeism, personal unfitness. When Dorchester was
reappointed in 1786, he had been made Governor in Chief of all
British North America. From the beginning, however, the
Lieutenant Governors of the various provinces asserted
independent authority, and in a few years the Governor General
became in fact merely the Governor of the most populous province,
Lower Canada, in which he resided.
In Upper Canada, as in New Brunswick, the population was at first
much at one. In time, however, discordant elements appeared.
Religious, or at least denominational, differences began to cause
friction. The great majority of the early settlers in Upper
Canada belonged to the Church of England, whose adherents in the
older colonies had nearly all taken the Loyalist side. Of the
Ulster Presbyterians and New England Congregationalists who
formed the backbone of the Revolution, few came to Canada.
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