Lieutenant Governors of the various provinces asserted
independent authority, and in a few years the Governor General
became in fact merely the Governor of the most populous province,
Lower Canada, in which he resided.

In Upper Canada, as in New Brunswick, the population was at first
much at one. In time, however, discordant elements appeared.
Religious, or at least denominational, differences began to cause
friction. The great majority of the early settlers in Upper
Canada belonged to the Church of England, whose adherents in the
older colonies had nearly all taken the Loyalist side. Of the
Ulster Presbyterians and New England Congregationalists who
formed the backbone of the Revolution, few came to Canada. The
growth of the Methodists and Baptists in the United States after
the Revolution, however, made its mark on the neighboring
country. The first Methodist class meetings in Upper Canada, held
in the United Empire Loyalist settlement on the Bay of Quinte in
1791, were organized by itinerant preachers from the United
States; and in the western part of the province pioneer Baptist
evangelists from the same country reached the scattered settlers
neglected by the older churches.

Nor was it in religion alone that diversity grew. Simcoe had set
up a generous land policy which brought in many "late Loyalists,"
American settlers whose devotion to monarchical principles would
not always bear close inquiry. The fantastic experiment of
planting in the heart of the woods of Upper Canada a group of
French nobles driven out by the Revolution left no trace; but
Mennonites, Quakers, and Scottish Highlanders contributed diverse
and permanent factors to the life of the province. Colonel Thomas