Excerpt from The Tragedy of Quebec: The Expulsion of Its Protestant FarmersWhen I came to Huntingdon forty-four years ago the county, leaving out one of its municipalities, St. Anicet. Was as solidly Protestant as any in Ontario. 1 have witnessed the decline of its Protestant population tu the pointof being in the minority. The same change. Only in a more marked degree, has taken place in all the youn ties east of the Richelieu. Missisquoi, founded by U. B. Loyalist's. Has ceased to be Protestant. Drummond, wolfe, Shell'ord ma y be said to he Catholic. The transformation has been going on with startling rapid ity during the past fifteen years. Often. When friends deplored the de parture of Protestant farmers. I heard them ask, Did the electors of the other provinces know what is happening to as in Quebec. Wou'd they not intervene? I thought of including testimony from residents of different sections as to the extent of the change going on, but desist cd on finding reluctance to putting their names to the information they gave me. This was'no re¿ectionlon these friends, for to make them selves known would be, in their several neighborhoods, to expose them to the malignity of the dominant power. The proof of the expulsion of Protestant farmers is abundant without individual evidence. It is palpable to the most unobservant. It is open to question whether this book will help the Protestant farmers. There is. However. No question. As to the faiiare of the policy that has been pursued-the policy of fawning. Of silence, of load tall: about tolerance, hromlmindeclnest, living in peace and iinrmony, - a policy most agreeable socially, in lmsi ness profitable. In public life the only road to preferment', but under which the Protestant farmers have gone on disappearing. Agitation on their behalf may fail to help them. But cannot make their situation worse. Viewing the immense resources of the church of Rome in Que. Bee, how its in¿uence permeates every channel of life and bends every interest to advance its own. With no encouragement from the other provinces. No offer to help tlieni, it is not surprisingthat the Protestant farmers of Quebec have hitherto made no resistance. The expressio noften heard among them, What's the use of butting our heads against a stonewall? We don't like it, so let us get out and leave the pro viace to them, represents their attitude. While Protestants form a smaller part of Quebec than they did, yet at no period have they con tributed so large a proportion of the revenue, either in customs duties or taxes imposed by the legislature. They are the chief taxpayers, yet it is a signifimnt commentary on their policy of tame submission, that they never exercised less in¿uence at Ottawa and Quebec. In the hope that a plain statement of the ease of the Protestant farmers of Quebec will bring them help, and lead to such legal changes as will preserve those settlements that are still substantially intact, I have written this hoolt. Doing so means' to me loss of friends and loss of busi ness, so that nothing save a sense of duty actuates me. I could not find a publisher, even in Toronto, and the printing. Poor as it is, was ell'ected at a sacrifice.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.