----- [ Gazette: Feb 10, 1841] Excerpt from proclamation of Lord Sydenham, governor of British North America, announcing the Act of Union: ----- In obedience to the commands of the Queen, I have this day assumed the government of the province of Canada. Upper and Lower Canada, separated for 50 years, are once more re-united and henceforward will form but one province under one administration. By the Imperial Act which fixes the Union, representative government is again established and that control by the people over their own affairs, which is deemed the highest privilege of Britons, is once more restored to them. The act ... affixes certain conditions over which the provincial legislature can exercise no authority, while it leaves to the final arbitration of that legislature all questions but those which the Imperial Parliament, in its wisdom, has deemed essential itself to determine: the legislative Re-union, the establishment of a secure and firm administration of government and the maintenance of the due relations of colony and parent state. Efforts have been sedulously made to deceive the unwary, and especially some of our fellow subjects of French origin, upon this point: to represent these provisions as injurious, to treat them as susceptible of change hear and to excite opposition which can only prove as mischievous as it must be useless. I rely, however, on these efforts proving unavailing, and I appeal with confidence to the loyalty and good sense of the inhabitants of Lower Canada, of whatever origin, so to use the power which is now again committed to their hands as to justify the trust which our Sovereign and the Imperial Parliament have reposed in them and cordially to join in an endeavour to promote the common interest of the united province ... Inhabitants of the Province of Canada! Henceforward may you be united in sentiment as you are from this day in name. Who can visit, as it has been my good fortune to do, the extensive regions which are now united in one common denomination and fail to acknowledge the vast resources they present for all that can conduce to the comforts and happiness of man? A part of the mighty Empire of England, ... your freedom guaranteed by her laws and your rights supported by the sympathy of your fellow subjects there, Canada enjoys a position unsurpassed by any country in the world. It is for you, its inhabitants, to cultivate these advantages, to avail yourselves of the new era which now opens upon you.... ----- On Feb. 10, 1841, Gazette heralded Act of Union: This being the day appointed for the Re-Union of the Canadas, we have deemed it proper to anticipate our regular day of publication [The Gazette was not yet a daily -- SMC] to give earlier insertion to the imperial Statute by which so desirable an event has been effected, and the Royal Proclamation determining a new epoch in the history of this great province, which we sincerely trust will be characterized by all the happiness and prosperity that can fall to the lot of a free and civilized country ... It is now nearly half a century since the province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada, with two separate and distinct governments. That unwise, impolitic and disastrous event took place on the 26th of December, 1791. Since then, the inhabitants of these provinces have had a long and painful struggle to arrive at the present desirable issue. But let us not dwell on the past, for the retrospect is gloomy and unsatisfactory. Let us rather endeavour to turn it to the best account, in our future progress towards the great object for which the Union Act was passed. Where we found rocks and shallows before, let them now be carefully avoided. Where we found the current calm and unruffled, let us still be guided by it. Above all, let Union be the polar-star of our course. Let past feuds, differences and dissensions be forever forgotten. Let us live together, as one people, in that peace and harmony which so well befits the subjects of one great, glorious Empire. We are free; let us also be wise. A happy career and cheering prospects are before us, if not marred by extreme folly and imprudence. United Canada may now safely be said to be one of the most valuable jewels in the imperial diadem. It is a wide, rich and fertile province, capable of sustaining, by industry, millions of British subjects and of greatly adding to the wealth and strength of the parent state ... We know, however, as well as we greatly lament it that there still exists in this province a party, or rather a faction, who is opposed to the Union, and who will not scruple to make every possible exertion to subvert our new constitution. But, though desperate, they are also a powerless faction. Let is, therefore, be the steady object of the friends of the Union to circumvent the designs of this faction, rather by the the weapons of peace, order and constitutional government than by those of interminable strife and contention. Such a manly course will soon blunt the arms of the adversary and, perhaps, induce him in the end to adopt better and wiser counsels. But whatever support is to be given to the Union, let it, by all means, be unanimous, stern and determined. It is here, like the lock of Samson, that our great strength lies. It is here that the palladium of our freedom, of our regenerated constitution of government, of our permanent connexion with the parent state, of our moral and political improvement, of our laws and institutions as British subjects is to be found. Let us guard it, therefore, and protect it like men who value their rights and liberties. Do the inhabitants of Canada desire peace and prosperity? Let them support and maintain this measure of integrity. Do they desire to continue their allegiance as British subjects? Let them support and maintain the Union. Do they desire to live and die as Britons? Let them support and maintain the Union. It was the only measure, which, in the present circumstances of Canada, the wisdom of the imperial legislature and government could devise for permanently united this great and flourishing colony with the interests and destinies of the Mother Country. This was the last and only alternative ... Upper and Lower Canada, after an unnatural separation of nearly half a century having thus been happily reunited, we have only to add ESTO PERPETUA.