chapter 10, section 2.

"Upper Canada ... has long been entirely governed by a party commonly designated throughout the Province as the 'Family Compact,' a name not much more appropriate than party designations usually are, inasmuch as there is, in truth, very little of family connection among the persons thus united. For a long time this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of government; it maintained influence in the legislature by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of a large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this well-organized party the real conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party: by grant or purchase, they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province; they are all powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit. The bulk of this party consists, for the most part, of native-born inhabitants of the colony, or of emigrants who settled in it before the last war with the United States; the principal members of it belong to the church of England, and the maintenance of the claims of that church has always been one of its distinguishing characteristics."

_Earl of Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America, page 105._

"The influences which produced the Family Compact were not confined to Upper Canada. In the Lower Province, as well as in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, similar causes led to similar results, and the term Family Compact has at one time or another been a familiar one in all the British North American colonies. ... The designation Family Compact, however, did not owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe."

_J. C. Dent, The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion,