During my rather prolonged stay in Buffalo, I had
frequent opportunities of discovering that the most rancorous feelings
exist on the subject; and in proof of this it may be remembered by the
reader that the Canadian insurgents were assisted at the late
insurrection by supplies of stores from this city. These were conveyed
to Navy Island by the steamer _Caroline_, which was subsequently seized,
and sent over the Falls of Niagara by the British troops, a number of
the crew being cruelly massacred.
From inquiries made of parties well informed on the subject, both in
Canada and the United States, I am convinced that the public act of Sir
John Colborne, before quitting the governorship of the province, in
1835, viz., the allotment or appropriation of 346,252 acres of the soil,
as a clergy reserve, and the institution of the fifty-seven rectories,
was the chief predisposing cause of the insurrection. By this Act a
certain portion of land in every township was set apart for the
maintenance of "a Protestant clergy," under which ambiguous term, the
clergy of the Church of England have always claimed the sole enjoyment
of the funds arising from the sale of such portions of land.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63