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57 E n c r o a c h m e n t o f t h e Un i t e d S t a t e s 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 2 5 C h a p t e r I I Republican Resistance Attempts to assimilate French Canadians into a new imperial system were further complicated by the arrival of settlers from the American colonies. In the first decades after cession, many enterprising businessmen from New England headed north to profit from the economic opportunities afforded them by the acquisition of New France.1 Being citizens of the Empire, they were entitled to move freely in the province, but as relations worsened between Britain and its American colonies in the 1770s, their access to the region became a contentious issue. As William Massey Birks noted:“They were to be a disturbing force, not, in the main, because they were English-speaking 1. See Hugh Gray, Letters from Canada: Written during a Residence There in the Years 1806, 1807 and 1808, London, 1809, p. 272. For other comments, see John Melish, Travels in the United States of America in the Years 1806 & 1807, and 1809, 1810 and 1811, vol. II, Philadelphia, 1812, p. 338. Protestants, but because they were the pure distilled spirit of British-American commercialism dropped into the tepid colonial society of the St. Lawrence.”2 Believing that French Canadians shared their desire for emancipation,Americans first tried to rally their neighbours to support a continental revolution. Once it was realized that French Canadians were unwilling to join the cause, they invaded. In November 1775, they easily entered Montreal and occupied it for seven months. Although General George Washington believed that the seizure of the town was important for the success of the American cause, their stay was not marked by any significant modifications to the urban environment. Compared with the French colonial centres of St. Louis or Mobile that were gradually brought into the 2. Quote taken from William Massey Birks, Corner-Stone Revelations and History of the American Presbyterian Church, Montreal, 1938, n.p. 58 MONTREAL, CITY OF SPIRES republican fold,3 Montreal was left relatively undisturbed by the invasion. The fact that the occupation took place during the winter months, when commercial traffic was at its slowest, contributed to American ineffectiveness. The only legacies of their stay were the establishment of a printing press—originally created for the publication of propaganda—and the formation of an academy of philosophy where libertarian issues were discussed. However, in the fifteen years following American independence, migration from the United States caused the population of the region to double to 18,000.4 Though initially loyal to the Crown,many of these new settlers were not pure British but American by birth or residence and, as a result,their personalities were inextricably rooted in their own colonial experience. This wave of immigrants warranted greater concern about the potential to destabilize the tenuous social structure of the colony. In his novel about the revolt, Quebec and New York; or the Three Beauties. An Historical Romance of 1775,5 Joseph Holt Ingraham exaggerates English and American character traits by using colloquialism and etiquette to distinguish cultural identities. While it is doubtful that there were many noticeable differences in social demeanour between the two nationalities at that time, concerted efforts were made by British clergymen to suppress American theological doctrines.6 Another of Frances Brooke’s characters commented: “It seems consonant to reason, that the religion of every country should have a relation to, and coherence with, the civil constitution: the Romish religion is best adapted to a despotic government, the Presbyterian to a republican, and that of the Church of England to a limited monarchy like ours.”7 With the arrival of many Loyalists in Montreal, association with British religious communities was inevitable. 3. See John Reps, The Making of Urban America, op. cit., p. 68; also by Reps, Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 22. 4. 1836-1936 Centenaire du diocèse de Montréal, Montreal: Therien frères, 1936, p. 45. 5. Reference has been made to the second edition, published in 1843 in three volumes by A.K. Newman and Co. There are occasional mentions of Montreal. For example, see vol. 1, p. 296. 6. John Irwin Cooper, The Blessed Communion: the Origins…, op. cit., p. 14. 7. Frances Brooke, The History of...

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