In time,
however, divergences appeared and gradually hardened into
political divisions. A governing class, or rather clique, was the
first to become differentiated. Its emergence was slower than in
New Brunswick, for instance, since Upper Canada had received few
of the Loyalists who were distinguished by social position or
political experience. In time a group was formed by the accident
of occupation, early settlement, residence in the little town of
York, the capital after 1794, the holding of office, or by some
advantage in wealth or education or capacity which in time became
cumulative. The group came to be known as the Family Compact.
There had been, in fact, no intermarriage among its members
beyond what was natural in a small and isolated community, but
the phrase had a certain appositeness. They were closely linked
by loyalty to Church and King, by enmity to republics and
republicans, by the memory of the sacrifice and peril they or
their fathers had shared, and by the conviction that the province
owed them the best living it could bestow. This living they
succeeded in collecting. "The bench, the magistracy, the high
officials of the established church, and a great part of the
legal profession," declared Lord Durham in 1839, "are filled by
the adherents of this party; by grant or purchase they have
acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the province;
they are all powerful in the chartered banks, and till lately
shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust
and profit.
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