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The Prophetic Anti-Gallic Letters Adam Thom and the Hidden Roots of
The Dominion of Canada by Adam Thom was published in 1836 based on
Thom's editorials in Montreal Herald written under the pseudonym
"Camillus" in the previous two years. They were never reprinted,
despite their importance and above all the people for whom Thom was
the public voice, namely the executive committee of the powerful
Constitutional Association of Montreal, that included the president
George Moffatt as well as Peter McGill and John McCord. Thom was
also co-author of the famous Durham Report. More than an
anti-French, anti-Republican tract, The Anti-Gallic Letters, though
generally ignored by historians, are crucial to understanding how
British North America mutated into the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
Erroneously characterized as a minor discord between the Melbourne
cabinet in London and a select group of merchants, bankers and
gentlemen of the Montreal Tory oligarchy, The Anti-Gallic Letters
reveal the total disagreement among people of British culture and
background in London or in Montreal on how power should be
controlled in the colonies of Canada. Westminster, inspired by the
1832 Reform Bill, believed in a gradual and harmonious transfer of
British parliamentary values and institutions to a majority group
of a different culture, language and background, described as "The
great body of people" by Governor Gosford in his 1835 Throne speech
read in French. But the Montreal Tory Oligarchy, mobilized by fear
and bravado, anticipated the worst, while still espousing the same
British imperial world mission as Westminster. Seeing Montreal as
the hub of British North America, they brandished the spectre of a
British Empire dismembered by a French Republic arising in the St.
Lawrence Valley or annexation of Upper and Lower Canada by the
powerful American Republic. They thus considered themselves
justified to threaten the use lethal force to make Downing Street
change its course. Moreover, as Francois Deschamps shows, they
succeeded: first in 1837 with the brutal repression of the
Patriotes in Lower Canada and the Reformers in Upper Canada, second
with the Durham Report and the Act of Union, and finally with the
1867 BNA Act creating the Dominion of Canada. Now reprinted, the
Anti-Gallic Letters with Deschamps's fascinating presentation and
notes provide a new but crucial point of view as Canada prepares to
mark the 150th anniversary of the Dominion of Canada in 2017. The
book includes a comprehensive bibliography.
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