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My Lord,

66

No. 2-1.

Sir George Arthur to Lord Glenely.

Government House, Toronto, November 14, 1838. I HAVE this moment closed an official despatch to your Lordship, No. 88, commu- nicating the best information I could convey respecting our situation.

us.

I can add nothing as regards the Lower Province, no later intelligence having reached

I am now anxious to offer a few remarks which I thought might more properly find place in a confidential communication.

The state of the Province just emerging from rebellion—the obvious reasons which the Americans have for subverting British Institutions in it, and the little compunction they are known to entertain in gaining an object,-led me, as soon as I assumed this Go- vernment, to recommend such measures as I considered were of great importance, and 1 cannot but express my deep regret that they have not been complied with scarcely in one instance.

Seeing the universal clamour that was raised at the delays in adjusting the claims upon the Government, arising from the then recent outbreak, and krowing that although some were unreasonable, yet that others were equitable, and that the public creditors were being ruined in consequence of their inability to obtain their money, and that their case was exciting the greatest sympathy;--I strongly recommended the inmediate establish- ment of a separate commissariatbranch for the Upper Province, in order that the whole of the existing claims might be adjusted, and the recurrence of so great an evil avoided for the future.

My recommendation, it appeared, gave dissatisfaction to the Lords of the Treasury. As the same obstructions and difficulties presented themselves with reference to the Ordnance department, 1 likewise submitted that the Board of respective Officers should art in the Upper Province irrespectively of the Board in the Lower Province, but of course under the orders of the Commander of the Forces.

The intolerable delays of first referring to Kingston and then to Quebec, have retarded all the works which were ordered to be constructed by the Commander of the Forces, and winter is now setting in with all its troubles; whilst our defences-insignificant as they are-remaining unfinished, are consequently open to an easy capture, if the frontier ban- ditti cross in any considerable numbers at one given point, for on such an extended line it is impossible for us to be equally well guarded at every part.

The present system, as one adapted to a state of peace and tranquillity, when delays are comparatively unimportant, I doubt not might answer well enough; but I am per- suaded that his Grace the Duke of Wellington did not intend that it should apply to such a state of things as the last twelvemonths have presented in the Canadas, for nothing re- quires more despatch than military operations.

I did myself also the honour to submit to your Lordship that the Province should be fortified, and although such works might not be available at this eventful moment, yet, as strongly marking the determination of Great Britain to retain the Province, it would have been of incalculable importance.

It is an opinion entertained far and wide throughout the Province that Her Majesty's present Government do not heartily wish to retain the Canadas, and consequently it is of the greatest importance to remove this absurd delusion from the public mind.

I would not be understood to imply that so great an expense should be incurred Republican Go- merely to remove a popular error; but, my Lord, in the full view of a vernment--with such a mass of uncontrollable vagabonds as are upon the frontier, I do not understand how it is contemplated to retain the country by giving confidence to the Canadians by other means.

The best part of the population of this Province is its yeomanry. They have all horses, and offered their services last winter if they were equipped, on the most advanta- geous terms to Government.

A requisition was consequently sent to the respective Officers at Quebec for transmis- sion to England, by direction of my predecessor, for two thousand sets of caval:, armis and accoutrements, but not one set has been sent out.

Soon after my arrival, having remarked in my inspection of the militia that the arms in their possession were generally useless, and that the few in store were nearly as bad, i directed immediately that a requisition for 20,000 stand should be forwarded to the respec- tive officers at Quebec for transmission to England. It was well known to the Ordnance Department that the arms that had been given out at Kingston in December were of a very different kind, if not wholly unserviceable; nevertheless they were delivered to the militia because there were no others.

Your Lordship's Despatch, No. 129, discouraged me from expecting the supply I had required, and to this hour none have arrived in the Upper Province. I hear it is true that 30,000 stand have at length reached Quebec, but there is a serious difficulty in the way of our procuring any of them under the present circumstances of the Lower Province.

Having no confidence in the American Governincut, and being satisfied of the pro- gress of a wicked conspiracy between the banditti styling themselves » Patriots," and the disloyal in this Province, I strongly advised in the autumn, the Commander of the Forces to embody four regiments of the militia, but His Excellency, unfortunately certainly as

67

matters have turned out, could not be prevailed upon to coincide with me as to the danger to be guarded against.

'The result of my disappointments in all these particulars is this:

We are raising troops when they are required to be We have our works unfinished.

in the field. We have not more than a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in the military chest. We have neither blankets, great coats, nor clothing of any kind in store, (uor are they to be procured in sufficient quantities in the Province) for the militia, with a Canadian winter before us, and with an enemy threatening us all along our whole frontier. Lastly, we have a great deficiency of arms.

Still, my Lord, I do not doubt that we shall hold good our possession in spite of every disadvantage; but I have set these matters in array, in the hope that by recording them, better arrangements may be made for the future.

I have, &c.

To Lord Glenelg.

My Lord,

No. 25.

(Signed)

Sir John Colborne to Lord Glenelg,

GEORGE ARTHUR.

Government House, Montreal, March 18, 1839. THE four companies of the eleventh regiment, and a detachment of the Royal Artillery, which I directed to move to the Madawaska settlement, arrived at that post on the 9th instant.

I am not without hope that the Governor of Maine will gladly avail himself of the opportunity which the President has afforded him, of withdrawing his militia from the disputed territory without a collision with our troops. If, however, the great excitement which prevails in the State of Maine, should induce him to hold the position on the Aristook, which the intruding force at present occupies, I cannot suppose that he will risk a further aggression, with a view of entering the settled parts of the disputed territory under the jurisdiction of New Brunswick.

Sir John Harvey will not attempt to dislodge the corps of militia now entrenched near the Aristook; but should the Madawaska French settlement be invaded he will act on the defensive and protect the settlers.

Whatever may be the intentions of the State of Maine in compelling the general Government to bring forward the late measures in respect to the disputed territory, no doubt is entertained at New York, by persons who are most desirous that the points in question should be amicably arranged, that the general Government cannot but insist on the Treaty of 1783 being carried into effect, in consequence of the firm determination displayed by most of the States to sustain Maine in the pretensions which have been brought forward with so much violence,

of

While these pretensions and claims are under discussion, every effort will be made on this frontier, and on the frontier of Upper Canada, to turn to the advantage of the refugees and brigands, the proceedings which have taken place at Washington, and the ineasures adopted to enable the President to call out volunteers from the militia, and arm vessels on the lakes. I am convinced, therefore, that no time should be lost in making such arrangements for the permanent defence of the Colony as may probably be the mean

part of preventing the collision which is menaced, and in the end be less expensive than preparing for hostilities on every outrage, or appearance of aggression, on the the American people.

In your Lordship's despatch of the 24th November last, No. 6, and a separate despatch of that date, iny attention has been called to the extreme importance of restrain- ing within the narrowest limits that prudence will admit, the raising and arming of volunteers. In Lower Canada, with the exception of one corps and the Montreal cavalry, the volunteers have been embodied for the defence of the section of the country where they reside, and have been allowed to return to their homes, and paid only as sedentary militia, when circumstances admitted of their services being dispensed with: but near the border line the whole of the population are of English origin, and for the protection of their property, volunteer corps and companies have been necessarily kept on permanent duty, forming a chain of posts from the eastern township of Standstead to Missisquoi Bay and to the townships to the westward of the Richelieu.

These volunteers who have been much harassed and compelled to be constantly on the alert for several months, since the insurrectionary movements in November, in consequence of the organised bands of refugees and brigands near the Province line, must soon be permitted to attend to their farins and the cultivation of their lands; but the frontier cannot be left without strong guards. I am fully aware of the evils which will arise, and in fact have already been caused, by the taste for the excitement of a military life, the encouragement of which can be justified only by an overruling necessity for guarding against impending danger.

The enormous expense of equipping and calling out our irregular force on every occasional alarm, and the difficulty of checking the current expenditure is also a mest rerious consideration.

We cannot venture to disperse our regular corps on the frontier, and they must be more concentrated than they are at present in Upper Canada under existing circum-