11:051 AN ENGLI,I1 vusvessen IN LOWER c %NADA.
- T!,:s install:et ion, contemptible Is it has been, proves the alienation of the Frei, ii-Cau.liati people to an extent whirls I dill not credit—to the fullest ex- t, ,,t „: _'.. 'pinion and your own. They hate us so. that in MACE to terrify and suelitly injure us, they will riseapparently with the very purpose of ex- posing their pri,perty to ikstruetion and their pet...on, to !on:::wre. 'I'lm out- j break tuts 'well conducted with singular concert. and as sn,,zular want of ;ir- ire—with great passive. and as much absence of ordinary active courage. I Even 'alien they succeeded, the) made nothing of their .111.1.C,,, : but in general thev were felled with ludicrous facility. Sixtv of them, marching with CAR-. DINAL, late M.P.P. for Beauharnois, at their head. into the village of tangl.“
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tam ag,a, were disarmed and captured by half their number of Indians. and car- ried prisoners into Montreal by twelve of the old men, who made them row them across the St. Lawrence. The leaders displayed the most shameful want of courage. NELSON was the first to run away ; and Colt, whilst his followers Were at Napierville, literally went every night across the frontier in order to sleep in security in the States. The only merit of these poor habitans is, that the few whom tlwy have killed, appear all to have been resisting; that they have not hurt one of the many prisoners who fell into their hands; and that they have shown no cruelty. '• Not so the conquerors. !laving been in Canada through this insurrection, I can now comprehend the extraordinary degree of terror which first agitates the British, and then produces the most terrible vindictiveness'. What is there so cruel as fear? From the first news of the outbreak, the minds of men were constantly kept on the stretch by every tale of terror that could be invented. All the country was represented as in insurrection : the island of Montreal
was said to be attacked by large bodies of rebels; and great apprehensions were entertained for the security of Quebec. The insurrection was puffed out as sud-
denly as it bad been kindled:. and the British have been thinking of nothing ever since but avenging imagined cruelties, and guarding against «pprdiended dangers. The Montreal Volunteers remained in town ; but the Country Vi.e.
lunteers, the troops of the Line, the Guards, the Glengarries, and the Indians, have vied with each other in taking vengeance on the race whom they hate, and who hate them as cordially. The county of L'Acadie has been laid waste with fire and sword. From Montreal we saw every night the fires by which the Glengarries were destroying the villages of the county of Beauharnois. In some places every Canadian house has been burnt ; in others gutted or robbed.
I had no idea of the horrors of war—still less of civil war—and less again of civil war between two mutually hating races, whose animosity has been for a long series of years nursed, and fostered, and aggravated by the folly or wicked- ness of their common Government. Such ignorance of the real state of things here, as has long disgraced the authorities at home, amounts to wickedness. Some knowledge and a little vigour might have prevented all this : it has been caused by the ignorance and timidity of a distant power. This second rebellion was inevitable : it strongly confirms all our previous opinions as to the past, and views for the future'
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