Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/12

his family; the Members of the Legislature can, therefore, only attend to their legislative duties, in the winter season, when they have some relaxation from their private occupations. In Upper Canada the winter sets in, and the winter travelling is practicable, a month an half later than in Lower Canada; and there is the same difference in the commencement of the spring or summer. At the time of the falling of the first snows, and the freezing of the rivers in the autumn, and the melting of the snows and breaking up of the ice in the spring, there is in both Provinces a period of near a month when travelling is nearly impracticable. The difference of the seasons, the distance, the difficulties, dangers, and expenses of travelling to the scite of the joint Legislature, at the only season when the people or their representatives can attend to their public concerns, would be such as to leave them only a mockery of the system of government which has hitherto prevailed in the British Colonies; which was solemnly promised to British subjects settling in Canada by His Majesty's Proclamation of the 7th October, 1763; and which they have hitherto though was inviolably guaranteed to them by a solemn act of the British Parliament. Their situation would be the more severely felt, as amidst their sufferings under the evils resulting from such a state of things, they could not fail to observe on their southern frontier,