In Lower Canada the clash was more serious. The French Canadians,
who had not asked for representative government, eventually
grasped its possibilities and found leaders other than those
ordained for them. In the first Assembly there were many
seigneurs and aristocrats who bore names notable for six
generations back Taschereau, Duchesnay, Lotbiniere, Rouville,
Salaberry. But they soon found their surroundings uncongenial or
failed to be reelected. Writing in 1810 to Lord Liverpool,
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the Governor, Sir
James Craig, with a fine patrician scorn thus pictures the
Assembly of his day.

"It really, my Lord, appears to me an absurdity, that the
Interests of certainly not an unimportant Colony, involving in
them those also of no inconsiderable portion of the Commercial
concerns of the British Empire, should be in the hands of six
petty shopkeepers, a Blacksmith, a Miller, and 15 ignorant
peasants who form part of our present House; a Doctor or
Apothecary, twelve Canadian Avocats and Notaries, and four so far
respectable people that at least they do not keep shops, together
with ten English members compleat the List: there is not one
person coming under the description of a Canadian Gentleman among
them."

And again:

"A Governor cannot obtain among them even that sort of influence
that might arise from personal intercourse. I can have none with