This Will
Account For The Violence Of Party Feeling Which Lately Prevailed
In Canada.
There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give
point and pungency to party feeling.
The British immigrants, who
afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course
brought with them their own particular political predilections.
They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the
ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more
early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful
and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the
old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as
republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the
original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government
became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation
of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the
peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious
dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added
to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now
beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk
of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these
U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the
descendants of republican settlers from the United States.
As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the
mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they
now considerably out-number the conservatives.
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