Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/78

 a great majority of the inhabitants of both Provinces are decidedly opposed to it.

Your Petitioners consider it unnecessary to remark upon the various motives which led to a division of the Provinces; on this subject they will only observe that the division was hailed by the inhabitants of each as a special mark of consideration on the part of His Majesty's Government; and the people of Upper Canada, who had been long accustomed to the blessings of the British Constitution and Laws, were more especially delighted, inasmuch as it relieved them from all apprehension of an interest which, being of French origin, was at variance with their views and expectations.

That since the division of the Provinces the population of Upper Canada has increased much more rapidly than that of the Sister Province, a circumstance not less to be ascribed to the prevalence and influence of British Laws than to its superior climate and soil.

That your Petitioners, sensible that the prosperity of Upper Canada is daily increasing, view with alarm any chance of prospect of a change by which that prosperity may be checked or diminished, and they cannot but consider the proposed Union of the Provinces as a measure which must have such a tendency.

That during a period of upwards of thirty years, which have elapsed since the Division of the Province of Quebec, the public affairs of the Provinces of Canada, in which their joint interests were concerned, have been carried on without interruption, or any want of cordiality and good understanding, excepting only the difficulties which have occurred recently respecting the payment of revenue due to, and claimed by the Upper from the Lower Province. That these difficulties were of so formidable a nature, and so embarrassing to Upper Canada, that a Union of the Provinces appeared desirable for their adjustment, and to prevent their recurrence, but being happily removed by the gracious consideration of Parliament during its last Session and ample provision being made for the prevention of like difficulties