Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Colony of �migr�s in Canada, 1798-1816
England's bearing toward those who sought her Shelter during the Revolution in France redounds to her honour. The nation was divided in its opinion concerning the Revolu tion, party lines were drawn on this issue, there were those who wore the tricolour and those who carried the white ?ag; but the �migr�s as a body received a welcome and generous assistance. Some dissentients among the English people there were, of course. The country had its own poor, the lot Of the labouring classes was hard, and charity was needed at home. But these considerations did not prevent the putting forth of great effort to meet the needs of the indigent strangers. It is pleasant to recall that though England was a Protestant country, she gave the Catholic priests who ?ed to her shores a singularly warm reception.1 Nearly 8000 of the dispossessed clergy crossed the Channel. They seem to have been an unusually pure-hearted, Single-minded body of men.2 This may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that those of their brethren who were willing to lend them selves to private ends, or were dominated by the spirit of restlessness, had thrown themselves into the Revolution. The ecclesiastics who sought a refuge in England were for the most part willing to work at whatever presented itself, and they practised rigid economy in order to be as light a burden as possible upon the community in whose midst they lived.3 With the noblesse the case was somewhat different. Not that they were unwilling to exert themselves to earn a liveli hood. On the contrary, many of them accepted whatever work Ofiered itself and gave evidence Of great skill and versa tility.4 But their inclinations and habits were those of the leisure class, and, unlike the clergy, they had no leaders to bind them together and to look out for their material wants. There were those among them, too, who Spent their best efforts in intrigues to further the Bourbon cause, which they identified with their own.
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