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THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 HISTORY OF CANADA 
 
THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL JAMES WATSON, 
 
 LIBRARIAN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 TORONTO: 
 
 ADAM, STEVENSON & COMPANY 
 
 1874. 
 
,^3 
 
 Entered accordinK to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year One Thousand Eight 
 Hundred and Seventy-three, by Samuel James Watson, in the office of the Minister 
 of Agriculture. 
 
 v^ 
 
 ^:^ 
 
 Hunter. Rose & Co.. 
 Printers and Binders, Toronto. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 The Capitulation of Canada, 1760 — Social condition of the 
 people 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Royal Proclamation of 1763 — Introduction of the Laws of 
 England 16 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The French and British desire a House of Assembly ... 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The British Government refuse Canada a House of Assembly 
 —Class Legislation— The Quebec Bill of 1774 27 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Canada and the Thirteen Colonies protest against the Quebec 
 
 BiU 37 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Dissatisfaction of the majority of the French Canadians — 
 
 American overtures and invasion ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Antagonism of Seignior and Peasant— The Peasants refuse 
 
 Military service to the Seigniors 53 
 
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. PACE 
 
 The Status of the Roman Catholic Church— The Peasants 
 
 refuse it political obedience 57 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Peril of the Province — American attack on Quebec — Defeat 
 
 and expulsion of the Invaders 62 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Colonial Misgovemment — French Canadian Legislative 
 
 Councillors oppose jETafte^s Corpws 66 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Revival of the French Laws — Nature of these Laws . . 70 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Laws of Inheritance — Detestation of Primogeniture ... 74 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Feudal Tenure — Peasant Servitudes .. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Canadian Reign of Terror 82 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Peace between Great Britain and the United States — Its 
 effects on Canada 87 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The people entreat for Constitutional Government — Opposi- 
 tion of the Legislative Council — Deplorable condition of 
 Canada 89 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Nation-Builders of Upper Canada 93 
 
CONTENTS. VU 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE 
 
 Canada in the British Parliament — The King's Message .. 97 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 British Merchants in Eastern Canada oppose the new Bill ... 102 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Fox and Pitt on the New Constitution 107 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Constitutional Act, 1791 116 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 The defects of the Constitutional Act 126 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The First Parliament of Upper Canada — Abolition of Negro 
 
 Slavery 130 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The gift of Religious Liberty to Canada 137 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Canada Past and Present 140 
 
 Index ... 146 
 
THE 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1760 : SOCIAL CON- 
 DITION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 In camp, before Montreal, September 8, 1760, the 
 Empire of France in North America melted away in 
 fifty-five Articles of Capitulation.* Of these Articles, the 
 twenty-seventh was, as it were, the anchor by means of 
 which the battered barque of the French Canadian race, 
 tossing about on the perilous sea of change, found bottom, 
 grappled and floated. 
 
 In this Article, Vaudreuil requested " the free exercise 
 of the Catholic, Apostolic, Eoman religion.'' He asked, 
 further, " that the people shall be obliged by the English 
 
 * "Annual Register," 1760, pp. 230. Great Britain was represented by- 
 General Amherst, France by the Marquis of Vaudreuil. "The peace of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle (18th Oct., 1748) between England and France, could not be said 
 to extend to the colonies. . . . The ink of the treaty was not dry when 
 the French took possession of the mouth of the river St. John. Neverthe- 
 less, in 1750, commissioners from both nations met to try and agree upon 
 a frontier— but in vain. The French Government persisted in the prepos- 
 terous pretension to connect their possessions in Canada with those of Louisi- 
 ana by a chain of forts which were to shut out the English from the vast 
 region beyond, and impede trade and communication." — Crowe, " History of 
 France," vol. iv. p. 258. 
 
fJO CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 Government to pay to the priests the tithes and all the 
 taxes they were used to pay under the Government of 
 His Most Christian Majesty." 
 
 To these proposals Amherst replied — " Granted, as to 
 the free exercise of their religion. The obligation of 
 paying the tithes to the priests will depend on the King's 
 pleasure." * 
 
 The British General, in adjudicating on the Articles of 
 Capitulation, refused to deal with the question of the 
 future government of Canada. He confined himself to 
 the pledging of the faith of Great Britain for full religious 
 liberty, which is amongst the noblest of natural and ac- 
 quired rights, and the source and fountain of them all. 
 
 After the Capitulation, the formative pressure of mili- 
 tary rule began to work on Canada. But the system, 
 which lasted about four years, was never before nor since 
 so tenderly administered.t 
 
 From 1760 to 1763, the British conquest of Canada was 
 a military, not a diplomatic fact. But, at Paris, on the 1 0th 
 of February, 1763, in the terms of the fourth clause of the 
 Treaty of Peace, the King of France, amongst other con- 
 
 * The legal right of the French Canadian clergy to the tithes was granted to 
 them fourteen years afterwards by the Quebec Act (1774). 
 
 t In 1773, ten years after the abolition of military law, the Seigniors, 
 a class, of course, apart from the rest of the people of Canada, in a petition to 
 the King of England complained that a civil government, based on the laws 
 of England, had succeeded to the military rule. See the " Maseres Papers," 
 p. 113. [Maseres had been Attorney-General of the province from Septem- 
 ber 1766 to September 1769 ; afterwards he was created in England Cursitor- 
 Baron of the Exchequer. He stands, for many reasons, high above the 
 Anglo-Canadian officials of his time. He was the warm and constant friend 
 of the policy of giving to Canada a constitutional government.] 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 11 
 
 cessions, "ceded and guaranteed to His Britannic Majesty, 
 in full right, Canada, with all its dependencies." * 
 
 King George the Third, on his part, "agreed to 
 grant the liberty of the Catholic religion to the inhabi- 
 tants of Canada. He would consequently give the most 
 precise and most effectual orders that his new Roman 
 Catholic subjects might profess the worship of their reli- 
 gion, according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far 
 as the laws of Great Britain permitted." t 
 
 To the storm and alarm of the conquest, there suc- 
 ceeded, for the people of Canada, a calm, unbroken by 
 war, and full of peace and promise. To the peasant- 
 inhabitants, who composed the vast majority of the 
 population, the change of rulers was a blessing palpable 
 and permanent. At the time of the Conquest, the seig- 
 niors and the peasants constituted two important factors 
 in the problem of a new Government. The seigniors 
 were entitled, according to the code of feudalism, to erect 
 courts, and to preside in them as judges. They could 
 administer what was known as "haute, moyenne et basse 
 justice." i They could take cognizance of all crimes com- 
 mitted within their jurisdiction, except murder and trea- 
 
 * See " Chalmers' Collection of Treaties," vol. i. pp. 476-494. 
 
 ■l" The nominal military law in Canada ceased with the consummation of the 
 treatj- of peace hetween Great Britain and France. The continuance of the law 
 was co-existent with the hostility between the two powers. It seems to have 
 been sanctioned more as a precaution against a possible demonstration by the 
 Canadians on behalf of France while at war with Great Britain, than as an active 
 instrument of government. During its continuance, the French laws, in all 
 civil cases, were administered by French Canadians. See the "Maseres 
 Papers," page 113. 
 
 I " Superior, Ordinary and Inferior Justice." 
 
12 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 son.* If they did not, in the French period, exercise 
 their tyrannous rights over the lives, limbs and liberties 
 of their vassals, it was because they were too poor to 
 organize the machinery of Seigniorial Courts, build dun 
 geons and retain jailors and executioners, t That it was 
 this power to crush, which was wanting to the seigniors, 
 and not the spirit, may be seen in their complaint of the 
 hardship of not being permitted, under British rule, to 
 exercise their feudal jurisdiction.:}; 
 
 The peasant owed compulsory military service to the 
 king ; to the seignior, crushing feudal obligation. The 
 Crown was the upper, the lord was the nether millstone, 
 between which the French- Canadian vassal was ground 
 down into a bellicose, tax-paying atom, whirling all 
 his life round the camps pitched against the thirteen 
 British Colonies, and round the coffers of his masters. 
 But, with the Conquest, the peasant came within the rim, 
 and was destined, ere long, to come under the ample centre 
 of the shield of the British Constitution. He was no 
 longer liable to be dragged from his wilderness-farm, to 
 make war, hundreds of miles away, in the wilds of the 
 distant West, on the Frontiersmen of the British Colo- 
 
 * Bouchette, " History of Can." vol. i. p. 377. 
 
 t Maseres, p. 162. The expenses of a Seigniorial Court would for the most 
 part, have exceeded the whole value of the Seigniory. The average value of 
 the Seigniories, in the French period, did not amount to more than fifty or 
 sixty pounds stg. per annum. "The rich society of the Priests of St. Sulpicius, 
 of Montreal, who are owners of the whole Island of Montreal, besides several 
 other Seigniories," drew an income of more than £4,000 stg. a year. (This was 
 written in 1775. 
 
 X Maseres Papers, p. 163 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 13 
 
 nies.* The feudal curb of the seignior was taken out 
 of the vassal's mouth, broken, and cast away for ever. 
 The beak and talons of the Crown were plucked from 
 the breast of the wasted husbandman. He was no longer 
 compelled, by a mandate of the Intendant, issued before- 
 hand, to sell in the market, at a fixed price, the hard- 
 won products of his farm.t 
 
 At the time of the conquest, the population was above 
 65,000 souls. J That portion of it which was " noble", in 
 the phrase of heraldry, was represented by about twenty- 
 two families. § Some of these nobles possessed seigniories ; 
 but they were absentees eleven months in the year. The 
 other fractional part they employed in a flying visit de- 
 voted to the sweeping up of their feudal dues. The 
 peasants looked upon their lords in the light of tax- 
 gatherers, wringing money out of labour, to spend it in 
 luxury in Quebec and Montreal. The feeling of the 
 peasants towards their seigniors was fear, not affection. 
 This experience, however, is as wide as the circuit of 
 Europe, and as old as feudalism. In the injuries done to 
 
 * See, in " Cavendish Debates on the Quebec Bill," the evidence offGovenior 
 Carleton, pa^e 105. He stated before the committee of the House of Commons, 
 " Under the French the spirit of the government was military, and conquest 
 was the chief object ; ver}' large detachments were sent up every year to the 
 Ohio, and other interior parts of the continent of North America. This drew 
 them from their land, prevented their marriages, and great numbers of them 
 perished Since the conquest they have enjoyed peace and tranquillity." 
 
 t See "Maseres Papers," page 140, where it is stated the inhabitants of the 
 towns deemed it a great misfortune that the peasant was allowed to .sell his 
 products at the highest price he could obtain. The Intendant was an oflBcer 
 whose duty it was to manage the matters of finance, police and justice. 
 
 t statement of Quebec Act, 1774. 
 
 § " Maseres Papers," pp 164-168. 
 
14 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 him by his seignior, the Canadian peasant could only 
 suffer ; redress he had none.* The people who were not 
 " noble," and who were more than 999 out of a thou- 
 sand, were well pleased that the battering-ram of the 
 Common Law had broken down the fortress of unjust 
 privilege which, in the period of French domination, 
 had walled in the noble from the consequences of his acts^ 
 
 But it was only in what may be styled his personal 
 and political status, and his release from war-service, that 
 the Canadian peasant was a gainer. The new rule did 
 not emancipate him from the thraldom of feudal obliga- 
 tions in respect to the tenure of his land. Nearly a 
 century after the conquest, t Canada, at the imperative 
 bidding of justice and necessity, was compelled to lift 
 from the peasant's shoulders and to place upon her own, 
 the crushing burden of feudalism, mountainous with the 
 accumulated evils of centuries. 
 
 In old France, long before and some time after the 
 Conquest, the nobility abounded in multitudes. Like so 
 many social locusts, they swarmed upon and devoured 
 every green thing. J But there was not found prey for 
 them all. Many of them, elbowed out of France, were 
 driven into Canada. § Their functions, in its military 
 
 * " Maseres Papers," pp. 168-169. 
 
 t 1854. 
 
 JSee Crowe, " History of France,' vol. 4, p. 157. 
 
 §Abb6 Saint Pierre, quoted in the "Maseres Papers," pp. 16U,100, and writing 
 about the year 1740, estimated the number of noblo families in France at no less 
 than 50,000. Maseres, on this computation, reckons the number of noble persons 
 in France— men, women and children— at not less than 250,000, or, perhaps, 
 800,000. *' Many of these," Maseres adds, " it may well be imagined, are miser- 
 ably poor." 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 15 
 
 government, were little better than those of titled camp- 
 followers. Some of them, however, were brave soldiers ; 
 many of them fattened on favouritism. British rule 
 meant, for this class, loss of military employment, enforced 
 idleness, or honest labour.* Many of them understood 
 the signs of the times, took advantage of the terms of 
 capitulation, sold out their properties and returned to 
 France, t 
 
 It is matter of historical interest that it was in Canada, 
 so long the colony of the hot-bed of European aristocracy, 
 where first that family of feudal fungi were thinned out 
 by new husbandmen, and by the force and pressure of 
 the times. § This event, of such far-reaching import to 
 the future growth of the oft-imperilled germ of our poli- 
 tical liberties, was one of the most vital results of the 
 Conquest. 
 
 * By the French feudal law, a nobleman who engaged in trade forfeited his 
 patent of nobility. 
 
 t " Maseres," p. 170, says : " The English Government was happily rid of that 
 part of the inhabitants of this new acquired Province who were most likely to 
 be discontented under it." The Abb6 Raynal, quoted by '* Maseres," p. 171, 
 speaks much more severely of the nobles in Canada. He styles them " these 
 despicable creatures " (ces 6tres mfiprisables). He asks if the colony has not 
 gained immensely in being relieved of all these lazy nobles who had fastened 
 themselves upon it for so long a time— of these insolent nobles who, in 
 Canada, entertained contempt for all sorts of labour ? 
 
 § Governor Carleton in 1774, ("Cavendish Debates," p. 107), when asked 
 what number of noblesse was in the country, said his memory would not suffer 
 him to tell. He supposed a hundred and fifty ; but he said he spoke at 
 random. Maseres, who puts the number of families at twenty-two, was much 
 more likely to be right in his estimate. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROYAL PEOCLAMATION, 1763; INTRODUCTION OF TE- 
 LA WS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 On the 7 th of October, 1763, the year of the Treaty 
 of Paris, the King of Great Britain put forth a Royal 
 Proclamation.^ It announced that he had granted letters 
 patent, under the great seal, to erect Quebec into a Gov- 
 ernment. It also defined the boundaries of that Pro- 
 vince, t 
 
 The proclamation asserted that the King had given 
 " express power and direction" to the Governor, "that, 
 so soon as the state and circumstance of the colony would 
 admit thereof, * * * the Governor should summon and 
 call a General Assembly." It was, furthermore, solemnly 
 promised that, " until such Assembly can be called, * * * 
 
 * See "Annual Register, 1763," pp. 208, 213. 
 
 t As the next definition of the boundary of Quebec, in 1774, played a 
 momentous part in the disputes between Great Britain and her thirteen colo- 
 nies, it may be interesting in this place to give the boundary as laid down by 
 the proclamation :— 
 
 Quebec was to be bounded on the Labrador Coast by the River St. John 
 (Saguenay) ; thence by a line drawn from the head of that river through 
 Lake St. John to the south end of Lake Nipissim ; v hence the line, crossing 
 the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain in 45 degrees of N. latitude, passed 
 along the High Lands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the 
 St, Lawrence from those that fall into the sea ; thence sweeping along the 
 North coast of the Bale des Chaleurs, and the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
 to Cap Rosieres, the line crossed the mouth of the St. Lawrence by the West 
 end of the Island of Anticosti, and terminated at the aforesaid River St. 
 John. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 17 
 
 all persons inhabiting in, or resorting to, our said colony 
 may confide in our Eoyal protection for the enjoyment of 
 the benefit of the laws of our realm of England." In the 
 commission to General Murray, appointing him Captain- 
 General and Governor-in-chief of Quebec, and in the com- 
 mission of his successor, General Carleton, the King 
 repeated the promise of the proclamation. 
 
 In the commissions to the Governors Murray and Carle- 
 ton, the King directed that the members of the future 
 Assembly should take the oaths appointed by the statute 
 of 1st G«orge the First. These oaths presented a strange 
 commixture of secular obligation and religious dogma. 
 There was the oath of allegiance ; the oath of abjuration 
 of the Pope's authority ; the oath of abjuration of the 
 Pretender's right to the crown. In addition, the mem" 
 ber of the future Assembly was required " to make and 
 subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation."* 
 / The King, in his instructions to the Governors, declared 
 that until an Assembly should be summoned, a Council 
 /was to be appointed to assist in certain of the lesser duties 
 / of legislation. For the appointment of this Council there 
 I was no authority in the commission of the Governor, 
 Which commission was issued under the great seal of Grea 
 
 V " Maseres Papers," page 42. Of these oaths there were two, or at Ic 
 there was one, which no conscientious Roman Catholic could prevail upon hi 
 self to take. This being the case, the French Canadians could hope for no re- 
 presentation in the promised Assembly by men of their own faith. In 1764, 
 an Assembly of delegates from all the parishes except Quebec was called, but 
 never sat ; for the Canadian members, as Roman Catholics, could not take the 
 oaths. Bouchette, " History of Canada," vol. 1, p. 441. Tlie oaths were abol- 
 ished by the Quebec Act of 1774, 
 
18 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 Britain. The instrument directing him to appoint the 
 Council was issued under the King's " Koyal Signet and 
 Sign Manual." * 
 
 The Governor and Council were empowered under 
 the " Eoyal Signet and Sign Manual" to advance, as it 
 ^were, a step beyond the threshold of legislation. Theyi 
 were invested with *'an authority to make such rules 
 and regulations as should appear to be necessary for the 
 , peace, order and good government of the province : tak 
 Vng care that nothing be passed or done that shall any 
 Ways tend to affect the life, limb or liberty of the sub- 
 ject, or to the imposing any duties or taxes." t 
 I This epoch was one of experiment and transition. Two 
 different systems of language, religion and social order 
 /were revolving round a common centre — the King of 
 / Great Britain. The orbits of these systems intercrossed : 
 I sometimes collision threatened : often doubt and fear were 
 I the result. The Canadian noblesse were much dissatis- 
 I fied with the British mode of trial ; not with the dealing 
 \ out of justice. The expenses of the new laws frightened 
 them. ; They detested juries. They could not under- 
 
 * "Maseres Papers," p. 43. The Baron raises, pp. 44-45, an interesting 
 constitutional issue. He doubts " whether a power of this kind could be legally 
 communicated to the Governor by any other instrument than letters patent un- 
 der the Great Seal of Great Britain, publicly read and notified to the people, 
 to the end that the acts done by virtue of them may have a just claim to obe- 
 dience." As to private instructions to the Governor, the people were not as- 
 sured whether they had been received or not. In such case the people " can- 
 not presume that he (the Governor) acts by his Majesty's authority, and there- 
 fore are not bound to obey him." 
 
 t " Maseres Papers," page 43. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 19 
 
 stand why the British in Canada would rather have 
 matters of law decided by tailors and shoemakers, than 
 by a judge alone.* A Canadian gentleman would have 
 chosen the torture of the rack sooner than be tried by 
 his tradesmen, t The French Canadians detested the 
 inhumanity and injustice of the English law of primo- 
 geniture ; in this respect they and the British colonists 
 vwere in harmony. J 
 
 In the month of April, 1770, there was prepared, by 
 order of Governor Carleton, a statement as to the num- 
 bers of the British colonists in the Province of Quebec. 
 He believed the return " included everybody who called 
 himself a Protestant." According to this statement, 
 there were in the whole colony between three hundred 
 and sixty and four hundred men, besides women and 
 children. In 1774 that number had become smaller : 
 the circumstances of the British colonists had been so 
 reduced as to force the people to leave the Province. 
 Of the number of colonists in 1770, there were some 
 who had purchased lands — officers, or reduced officers. 
 There were some respectable merchants. There were 
 engaged in trade a number of inferior officers and dis- 
 banded soldiers. 
 
 The number of French Canadians amounted to about 
 150,000 souls — all Roman Catholics. The British co- 
 
 * "Debates on the Canada Bill," p. 102, (Evidence of Governor Carleton.) He 
 spoke for the noblesse ; not for the rest of the people. See "Maseres," p. 189. 
 
 t Attorney-General Thurlow's Report to the King, on the State of Canada, 
 January 22nd, 1773. Quoted in Christie's "Lower Canada," vol. i. pp. 57-58. 
 
 t " Maseres," pp. 288-289. 
 
20 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 lonists and the French Canadians were almost strangers 
 to each other.* A distrust, common to both, infected 
 with its poisoned leaven the whole body politic. The 
 hard, irresistible wedge of race clove and kept them 
 asunder. 
 
 The British colonists in Canada, at the end of the 
 year 1773, when looking back on the position they had 
 been made to occupy since 1763, were forced to complain 
 of the treatment they had received from the mother 
 country. From 1763, the year of the Eoyal Proclama- 
 tion, they had been trusting, in loyal patience, to the 
 fulfilment of its promise. This promise was that the 
 Governor, as soon as the circumstances of the Colony 
 would permit, should call a General Assembly. Now 
 it was the year 1773, and the Royal promise had not 
 been kept. The result was that the British colonists 
 found themselves, for ten long years, robbed of the pro- 
 tection of their own Constitution, t They were outlaws, 
 without being infamous. They were the subjects, not of 
 the Empire, but of a Governor and Council. For the 
 acts of either, were those acts secretly mischievous or 
 openly tyrannical, the British resident of Canada, unlike 
 the inhabitant of any of the Thirteen Colonies, had no 
 redress. It was no wonder, then, that high-spirited 
 
 * "Debates on the Canada Bill," pp. 103, 109. 
 
 + So long before, as 1720, Mr. West, Counsel to the Board of Trade, and after- 
 wards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, declared that the Common Law of England 
 was the Common Law of the Colonies. " Let an Englishman go where he will, 
 he carries as much law and liberty with him as the nature of things will bear.' 
 (See Forsyth's "Cases and Opinions of Constitutional Law," p. 1.) 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 21 
 
 emigrants from the British Islands turned away from 
 Canada, over which Irresponsible Government brooded, 
 blighting like a plague, and set their faces toward the 
 harbours of the freer Thirteen Colonies. 
 
 There has now been explored the social quarry, so 
 to speak, out of which were to be raised and fashioned 
 into shape the materials for future Parliaments — 
 diverse materials, destined, perhaps, to rise up, under 
 the workmanship of Time, into a harmonious edifice 
 of free government, upholding a noble and hospitable roof 
 of empire, whose eaves overhang the two oceans. 
 
CHAPTER HI. 
 
 FRENCH AND BRITISH DESIRE A HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY. 
 
 In the month of January, 1774, the British colonists 
 in Montreal and Quebec sent to the King a petition, and 
 to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for America, 
 a memorial, entreating for a House of Assembly. * 
 
 In the month of March, 1774, Baron Maseres pre- 
 sented to the King the petition of the British colonists, 
 and to the Earl of Dartmouth their memorial. t The 
 petition recited the promise of the Royal Proclamation 
 of 1763. Then it asserted that a General Assembly 
 would very much contribute to encourage and promote 
 industry, agriculture and commerce, and, as the petition- 
 ers hoped, to create harmony and a good understanding 
 between French and British. In conclusion, the petition 
 left the constitution and form of the General Assembly to 
 the Royal wisdom. 
 
 The memorial was in somewhat different terms. It 
 
 "* The majority of the French were in favour of a House of Assembly. ("Ma- 
 seres Papers," p. 30.) But, because the British would not petition to throw open 
 the Assembly to Roman Catholic representatives, the French would not join in 
 the petition. (Ibid, p. 40.) The lan^age of the British petition was very far 
 from being straightforward. The truth would seem to be that both races were 
 blameworthy. The British were narrow-minded ; the French short-sighted. 
 
 t The petition bore 148 names. (" Maseres Papers," p. 131 .) The name 
 which occurs oftenest in all the proceedings to obtain a House of Assemblj', 
 is that of Zachary Macaulay, father of Great Britain's greatest historian. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 23 
 
 stated that the British colonists, encouraged by the 
 Koyal Proclamation of 1763, purchased lands, planted, 
 settled, and carried on trade and commerce to a very 
 considerable amount, and to the manifest advantage of 
 Great Britain. These things were done in confident ex- 
 pectation of the early accomplishment of the promise of 
 the Proclamation. The memorialists now prayed the 
 King to relieve them from their fears as to their pro- 
 perty being endangered, and as to losing the fruits of 
 their labour. They were afraid of these evils, because 
 they were exposed to the ordinances of a Governor and 
 Council. These ordinances, which were repugnant to 
 the laws of England, were put in force before the King's 
 pleasure was known. And these same ordinances were 
 not only contrary to the King's commission and private 
 instructions to the Governor, but were equally grievous to 
 French and English. 
 
 The Ministers of the King of England looked with 
 no friendly eye on the object of the British colonists. 
 Still, there was open to the latter a narrow and miry path 
 by which they might have marched to success. But they 
 refused to tread it. 
 
 In a letter from Baron Maseres to the committee of 
 the British colonists, dated March 19, 1774, he informed 
 them that he had presented their petitions. In the same 
 letter he warned them that he knew of nothing that 
 would contribute more to their obtaining a General As- 
 
24 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 sembly than the making of a previous declaration. This\ 
 declaration was, that every member of such future As- 
 semby, before being permitted to take his seat, should be \ 
 required to recognize, in the plainest and strongest terms, | 
 the supreme authority of the British Parliament in every 1 
 matter whatsoever, both of legislation and taxation. ' 
 Such a previous confession of political faith would 
 greatly tend to remove the prejudices in the minds of 
 many people in England against the erection of new 
 Houses of Assembly in America. These prejudices arose 
 "from the^conductofthfiAgs^mblj in Boston and in others 
 of the American Provinces, in totally denying the su- 
 preme authority of Parliament."* 
 
 The British colonists, national narrow-mindedness 
 apart, were true to their own old constitution, to Canada 
 and to themselves. They longed for an Assembly ; but 
 they chose rather to keep company with that ** hope de- 
 ferred that maketh the heart sick," than to sacrifice on 
 the altar of expediency the principles which were the 
 life, pith and marrow of the British constitution. They 
 felt that a legislative body bound hand and foot in such 
 chains of obligation would be nothing but a crippled 
 changeling, from which the eye and reason of British 
 Islanders would turn away in disgust and in wrathful. 
 
 About the month of February, 1774, a petition of the 
 French Canadians was presented to the King. Opening 
 
 * " Maseres Papers," pp. 35, 87, 88, 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 25 
 
 with a warm outpour of devotion to the person of His 
 Majesty, the petition proceeded to bear hearty witness to 
 the clemency which followed upon the conquest.* One 
 proof of this clemency was, that the former countrymen 
 of the petitioners were made judges in disputes concern- 
 ing civil matters. But now the petition turned into the 
 channel of complaint. In 1774, His Majesty thought fit 
 to put an end to the Military Government of the Province, 
 and to establish a Civil Government in its stead. From 
 the moment of this change, the petitioners began to feel 
 the inconveniences that came in with the laws of Eng- 
 land, with which, until that time, the French Canadian 
 inhabitants had no acquaintance, t The petition con- 
 cluded with a most fervent prayer for the restoration of 
 the ancient laws, privileges, and customs of the country :t 
 
 * The petition, which represented the aristocratic and legal French Canadian 
 classes, bore 65 names ; the British petition 148. To make up the 65 names, some 
 of the French i)etitioners caused their children to sign it. The Roman Catholic 
 Bishop and his clergy took "infinite pains to procure the signatures." 
 (" Maseres Papers," pp. 131, 132.) 
 
 t The words are — " Dans l'ann6e 1764, votre Majesty daigna faire cesser 
 le gouvernement militaire dans cette colonic, pour y introduire le gouverne- 
 ment civil. Et dfis I'fipoque de ce changemeut, nous commen<james ^ nous 
 appercevoir des inconvenients qui rfisultoient des loix Britanniques, qui 
 nous gtoient jusqu'alors inconnues." (" Maseres Papers," p. 113.) 
 
 X The torture of the rack, in the administration of the French criminal 
 law of Canada, was of common occurrence. (See '' Christie's History of 
 Lower Canada," vol. i. p. 11.) The British conquest abolished this diabolical 
 and barbarous practice. But, strange to say, the English ministry were oh 
 the point of re-enacting the French criminal law in 1774, and were only 
 prevented by the strong remonstrances of Mr. Hey, Chief Justice of Quebec! 
 (Maseres, p. 231.) In 1774 Governor Carleton believed there were more pimish- 
 ments in the law of England than in the law of Canada, but could not pro- 
 nounce. (" Debates on Quebec Bill," p. 117.) He might have safely pronounced 
 in favour of Canada— barring the rack. See note to page 34. 
 
 B 
 
26 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 for the extension of the Province to its former boun- 
 daries : for the bestowal of the Eoyal favours on all the 
 inhabitants without distinction. But not one word nor 
 hint concerning a House of Assembly. 
 
 The signers of the petition presented a memorial in its 
 support. The most noteworthy feature of the memorial 
 was its prayer for extension of boundary. It entreated 
 that, as under the French Government, Canada was per- 
 mitted to extend over all the upper countries known as 
 Michilimakinac, Detroit, and other adjacent places, as far 
 as the Eiver Mississippi, so the colony might now be 
 enlarged to the same extent. The King was also im- 
 plored to re-annex to the Province the coast of Labrador, 
 which formerly belonged to it, and had been taken from 
 it since the peace. It was represented that the colony 
 was not in a condition to defray the expenses of a Gene- 
 ral Assembly. A council of a larger representation than 
 heretofore, to be composed partly of British and partly of 
 French, was suggested in preference. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT REFUSE CANADA A HOUSE 
 OF ASSEMBLY. CLASS LEGISLATION — THE QUEBEC 
 BILL, 1774. 
 
 In the House of Lords, on the 2nd of May, 1774, the 
 Earl of Dartmouth introduced a Bill " For making more 
 Effectual Provision for the Government of the Province 
 of Quebec." The measure was founded on the petition 
 of the French noblesse f every clause of it showed that 
 the petition of the British colonists had been unjustly 
 and contemptuously rejected. Nor did the Bill recognise 
 the wishes of the majority of the French Canadian people, t 
 
 Even in that gloomy epoch of the constitutional history 
 of Great Britain — a time when servile majorities, the 
 
 * "Mftseres Papers," p. 131. 
 
 t Qoremor Carleton, in his examination before the Committee of the 
 House of Commons, stated that an Assembly composed of the British inhabit- 
 ants would glre great offence to the Canadians. He had no doubt they would 
 greatly prefer, to such an Assembly, the rule of a Governor and Legislative 
 Council. Several of the Canadians had told him that Asaemblies had drawn 
 upon the other Colonies so much distress, riot, and confusion, that "they wished 
 never to have one of any kind whatever." ("Debates on Quebec Bill," pp. 
 105-106.) On the other hand, M. de Lotbiniere, a native Canadian nobleman, 
 declared before the Committee that the natural inclination of the Canadians 
 would be to be governed by a Legislature like that of Great Britain, provided 
 they themselves were allowed to be part of it. An Assembly was suitable 
 for Canada. The Canadians would certainly desire a freer government than 
 a Governor with a Council, the members of which he was to appoint, and 
 could remove and suspend. He (M. de Lotbiniere) considered such a Council 
 in no other light than that of a despotism. He believed the people would 
 wish to choose their own Council, and not leave the choice in the hands of 
 the Crown. ("Debates," p. 162.) The weight of belief leans toward M. de 
 Lotbiniere rather than toward the Governor, 
 
28 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 pampered Prsetorians of the Court, rushed daily to the 
 attack on the citadel of English freedom — this Bill stands 
 conspicuous for the criminal ignorance in which it was 
 conceived, and the perilous rashness in which it had its 
 birth. 
 
 The indecent haste with which the Bill was rushed 
 through the House of Lords, showed that the Prime Min- 
 ister, Lord North, and his colleagues were urged forward 
 by a spur which was then at its sharpest. On the 17th 
 of May the Bill passed the Lords. Tossed, as it were, 
 to the Commons, it came before that House for the 
 second reading on the 26th of May. Here it was op- 
 posed by the outnumbered but undaunted band who did 
 battle for the imperilled constitution. Burke, Fox, Colo- 
 nel Barr6, Chas.Townshendjr., Serjeant Glynn, combatted 
 those enactments which proposed to extinguish the rights 
 which British colonists inherited as members of the 
 Island races.* 
 
 Lord North, with his Attorney-General Thurlow, and 
 his Solicitor-General Wedderburne, defended the Bill in 
 its most iniquitous clauses. t They voted down an 
 amendment by Mr. Mackworth, to establish trial by jury, 
 in civil cases, at the option of either of the disputing 
 parties.:}" The Government, and its servile horde, next 
 
 * See " Debates on the Canada Bill," passim. See note, ante p. 16, Forsyth's 
 " Constitutional Opinions." 
 
 t See " Debates Canada Bill," passim. 
 
 { ' ' Debates on Canada Bill," pp. 264, 290. Strange to say, this optional system 
 had been in operation for ten years, and worked well. See Mr. Mansfield's 
 speech in " Debates," p. 91. Mr. Mansfield oi)i>osed the Bill on behalf of the mer- 
 chants of London. 
 
CONSTITUTION AT. HISTORY OF CANADA. 29 
 
 trampled down an amendment by Mr, Thos. Townshend, 
 jr., proposing to make temporary that part of the Bill 
 relating to the existence of the Legislative Council, about 
 to be established by the measure.* v 
 
 The great grievance of this Bill — the one which, in its\ 
 very nature, was sure to make continuous and calamitous » 
 war upon the instincts of eveiy colonist with British 
 blood in- his veins — was that it denied to him his native 
 right to the sovereign boon pf ^^frr° '''^f"'^ Mr. , 
 Dempster moved an amendment to provide that the Bim 
 should enact that " the English laws of habeas coiyus^ \ 
 and of bail in cases of commitment," should prevail in I 
 Canada. '' 
 
 The amendment was lost. A motion of the same mem 
 ber, that the proposed Legislative Council should carry 
 on its proceedings in public, was also negatived. 
 
 On the 13th of June, the Bill, by a vote of 56 to 2 
 received its third reading. It was sent back to the House 
 
 * " Debates," pp. 290, 291. Mr. Townshend was prepared to move that 
 the term of the existence of the proposed Council should be seven^ years. Then 
 to establish a Legislative Assembly. 
 
 t The opponents of the Bill raised an important constitutional issue as to 
 the proposal to revive the French laws concerning matters of property and 
 civil rights. Mr. Dunning put the matter in this shape : Personal liberty is a 
 civil right ; the Bill says that in all matters of property and civil rights, resort 
 shall be had to the laws of Canada, and not to the laws of England. Hence it 
 must follow that if a man were deprived of his liberty by a lettre de cachet, 
 and application were made to the Chief Justice of Canada for his discharge, the 
 Chief Justice would be bound to answer that, as this was a matter concerning a 
 civil right, he must proceed by the laws of Canada, which afforded a man no 
 relief when he was imprisoned by the King's lettres de cachet. See " Maseres 
 Papers, pp. 228-229." 
 
30 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 of Lords, with a few verbal amendments which had been 
 tacked on to it in the Commons. 
 
 /The Earl of Chatham, trembling, at the time, on the 
 Verge of the grave, dragged himself down to the House 
 if Lords, to raise a prophetic warning against the Bill. 
 jHe proclaimed that " it was a most cruel, oppressive and 
 (odious measure, tearing up justice and every good prin- 
 ciple by the roots ; that the whole of it appeared to him 
 to be destructive of that liberty which ought to be the 
 ground-work of every constitution : and that it would 
 shake the affections and confidence of His Majesty's sub- 
 nects in England and Ireland, and finally lose him the 
 Uiearts of all the Americans."* The Earl had only the 
 ear of the Lords ; in the case of the majority of that 
 House, the Court had every other faculty they possessed. 
 They passed the Bill : contents, 26 ; non-contents, 7. 
 
 On the 22nd of June, the Lord Mayor of London, 
 accompanied by several Aldermen, the Kecorder, and 
 upwards of one hundred and fifty of the Common Coun- 
 cil, went up with an address and petition to the King. 
 The object was to pray him to refuse his assent to the 
 Bill. The Lord Chamberlain, by order of the King, in- 
 formed the deputation, that " as the petition related to a 
 Bill agreed on by the two Houses of Parliament, of which 
 His Majesty could not take notice until it was presented 
 for his Royal assent, they were not to expect an answer." 
 The reply had scarcely left the lips of the Lord Cham- 
 
 * " Debates," Editor's Preface, pp. iii., iv. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY <.>F CANADA. HI 
 
 berlain when the King proceeded to the House of Lords 
 to prorogue Parliament. He assented to the Bill ; ob- 
 serving that " it was founded on the clearest principles 
 of justice and humanity ; and would, he doubted not, 
 have the best effect in quieting the minds and promoting 
 the happiness of his Canadian subjects."* 
 
 Thus passed a measure which in its far-reaching, disas- 
 trous results was — not even excepting the Stamp Act of 
 1765, which began to goad the Thirteen Colonies to revol- 
 ution — the worst Act the British Parliament ever im- 
 posed on an American colony. 
 
 Not to speak of the feeling on this side the Atlantic, 
 the opinions of the more intelligent portion of the Brit- 
 ish people were strongly against the measure. The mer- 
 chants of London appointed Mr. Mansfield to appear 
 before the committee of the Commons to combat the 
 BULt 
 
 It is probable that this vicious measure had one object 
 
 view. It is certain that it had in view a second, to 
 fhe full as reprehensible as the other. The first seems 
 to have been to throw down the gage of embittered bat- 
 Debates," Editor's Preface, p. iv. 
 
 t "Debates," p. 99. One of the grounds the great legist took was, that 
 *in a political point of view, as a defence of liberty, it was material that 
 civil as well as criminal causes should be decided by juries. For one of the 
 great checks to arbitrary power was this, that every undue exertion of it to 
 the injury of an individual might be brought to the tribunal of a jury. 
 If Canada were to be enslaved under a Legislative Council, the main- 
 tenance of the British jury laws was the more imperatively necessary. 
 For if persona were injured, and no jury laws in existence, they would have 
 no one to whom to apply but to judges holding office at the pleasure of the 
 Governor, and certainly at the pleasure of the Crown. 
 
32 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 tie to the discontented Thirteen Colonies. The second 
 object was proclaimed by the lips of Solicitor-General 
 Wedderburne in the debate on the Bill. His words 
 were — " Now, I confess that the situation of the British 
 settler is not the principal object of my attention. I do 
 not wish to see Canada draw from this country any con- 
 siderable number of her inhabitants. I think there 
 ought to be no temptation held out to the subjects of 
 England to quit their native soil to increase the colonies 
 at the expense of this country. * * With regard to the 
 \ English who have settled there, their number is very 
 \ few. They are attached to the country either in point 
 \ of commercial interest, or they are attached to it from 
 I the situations they hold under Grovernment. It is one 
 \ object of this measure that these persons should not settle 
 in Canada."* 
 
 \ It is now time to show the nature and essence of this 
 mfemorable Act. 
 
 The preamble recited the Eoyal Proclamation of the 
 7th of October, 1763; then it declared that in the ar- 
 rangements made by the Proclamation, " a very large ex- 
 tent of country, within which there were several colo- 
 nies of the subjects of France, who claimed to remain 
 therein under the faith of the Treaty of Paris, was left 
 without any provision being made for the administra- 
 tion of civil government." 
 
 The preamble next proceeded to enact that certain 
 
 * " Debates," pp. 57, 68. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANAI^A. 33 
 
 immense territories, especially to the west, should be an- 
 nexed to the Province of Quebec* 
 
 The Act revoked the Koyal Proclamation ; with the 
 revocation was violated the Koyal promise to the Brit- 
 ish colonists, t The measure then began the work of 
 concession. To the Roman Catholics was granted the 
 free exercise of their religion, subject to the King's su- 
 premacy as declared in the first year of Queen Elizabeth. 
 To the Roman Catholic clergy liberty was given "to 
 hold, receive and enjoy their accustomed dues and 
 rights, with respect to such persons only as should pro- 
 fess the said religion.''^ 
 
 A qualification was appended to this clause : Out of 
 the said " accustomed dues and rights," the King might 
 make such provision, as he might deem expedient, for the 
 support of a Protestant clergy. 
 
 To persons professing the Roman Catholic religion, 
 
 * The enactment is too long to be reproduced here, Bancroft says on the 
 matter, vol. 6, p. 527: "It (the Bill) extended the botindaries of the (Quebec) 
 Government to the Ohio and the Mississippi : and over the vast region which in- 
 cluded, besides Canada, the area of the present States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, 
 Illinois and Wisconsin, it extended an arbitrary rule. The Quebec Bill, which 
 quickly passed the House of Lords, and was borne through the Commons by 
 the zeal of the Ministry and the influence of the King, left the people who 
 were to colonize the most fruitful territory in the world without the writ of 
 habeas corpus to protect the rights of persons, and without a share in any 
 •ne branch of the government." 
 
 t See ante, pp. 12-13 " And until such an Assembly can be called, all persons 
 inhabiting in, or resorting to, our said colony may confide in our Royal 
 protection for the enjojiuent of the benefit of the laws of our realm of 
 England." 
 
 t The dues amoimted to one twenty-six part of all grain produced on 
 the farms ; and to occasional assessments for building and repairing churches 
 and parsonage-houses, etc. Bouchette, "Hist. Can.," Vol. 1. p. 378. The 
 tithe of the Church of England at the time, was one-tenth. 
 
34 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 relief was given in the matter of the oath of 1st Elizabeth.* 
 There was substituted an oath which was simply one of 
 allegiance to the King's person. The refusal to take this 
 modified oath carried with it the penalties of 1st Eliza- 
 beth. To the King's French Canadian subjects, reli- 
 gious orders excepted, was extended the right to hold all 
 their possessions in full security, t 
 
 In all questions as to property and civil rights, the 
 iivil laws of Canada were to decide. But from these 
 laws were exempted lands granted by the King in com- 
 mon soccage. 
 
 'he criminal law of the Province was to be the code 
 
 (f England. According to the words of the Act, " the 
 
 ^certainty and lenity" of the code had been sensibly felt 
 
 by the inhabitants from an experience of more than nine 
 
 years. J 
 
 * The object of modifying the oath was to enable Roman Catholics to 
 hold office under the Crown. The oath of let. Elizabeth cap. 1st. declared the 
 Queen's ecclesiastical and temporal supremacy. Ecclesiastical and secular office- 
 bearers were compelled t6 take this oath. The penalties of refusal were depri- 
 vation of office ; and permanent disqualification. 
 
 t To the credit of the British Government, this provision as to religious 
 orders, except with regard to the Jesuits, remained a dead letter. (" Christie's 
 History of Lower Canada," vol. 1, p. 10.) Not until the last of the Jesuits, 
 Father Casot, died in 1800, were their possessions taken by the Government, 
 and applied to educational purposes. (Ibid. p. 39.) The order of the Jesuits 
 was suppressed hi 1773 by Pope Clement XIV., "with their functions, houses 
 and institutions." (Knight, ** Hist. Eng.," vol. 6, p. 327.) "In 1764, the Jesuits, 
 or those who persisted in remaining so, were finally banished from France. 
 All the Bourbon courts followed the example." Crowe, " Hist. France," vol. 
 4, p. 302. 
 
 X To point out the giant strides which the mother country has taken within 
 the last century, it may be stated that, at the period of the passing of this Act, 
 every line of the English criminal law dripped with blood. May, in his " Con- 
 stitutional History of England," vol. 3, pp. 393-896, says of the English erimi- 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 35 
 
 The Act, after having declared " that it is at present 
 inexpedient to call an Assembly," proceeded to authorize 
 the appointment of a Council. 
 
 This body was to consist of not more than twenty- 
 three, and not less than seventeen members. It was to 
 have power " to make ordinances for the peace, welfare, 
 and good government of the Province." Butjijacas-aoL 
 authorized to imp^sft fii^yp" ^^ ^fifiA,g wJtihlTI tJTf^ f r^-^rinPA 
 
 ^Cept f^r. pnl^i;^ r>r.aAa ^^^ ]l]lildinga. 
 
 / Every ordinance of the Council was, within six months 
 / after its passing, to be transmitted to the King for his 
 approbation. The King retained the power to disallow 
 every such ordinance. 
 
 No ordinance touching religion, or by which any pun- 
 ishment might be inflicted greater than fine, or imprison- 
 ment for three months, was to be of effect until it had 
 received the King's approval. 
 
 No ordinance was to be passed where less than a ma- 
 jority of the whole Council was present. No ordinances, 
 except on urgent occasions, were to be passed except be" 
 
 nal law of this period—" The lives of men were sacrificed with a reckless 
 barbarity worthier of an Eastern despot or an African chief than of a Chris- 
 tian State. From the Restoration to the reign of George the Third, a period 
 of 160 years, no less than 187 capital offences were added to the criminal 
 code. In the reign of George II. thirty-three Acts were passed creating 
 capital offences : in the first fifty years of George III. no less than sixty-three. 
 Murder became, in the eye of the law, no greater crime than picking a 
 pocket. Such law-makers were as ignorant as they were cruel. Obstinately 
 blind to the evil of their blood-stained laws, they persisted in maintaining 
 them long after they had been condemned by jurists, and by the common 
 sense and humanity of the people. Crime was not checked ; but, in the 
 words of Horace Walpole, the country became * one great shambles :' and the 
 people were brutalized by the hideous spectacle of public executions." 
 
36 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 tween the first of January and the first of May. In such 
 case every member at, or within fifty miles of Quebec, 
 was to be personally summoned. 
 
 The King reserved the right, whenever he thought it 
 necessary, to constitute courts of criminal, civil and 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the Province. 
 
 The Bill, in its last clause, provided that nothing which 
 it contained should be held to repeal, within the Province, 
 any previous Acts of the British Parliament " for prohibit- 
 ing, restraining, or regulating the trade and commerce 
 of His Majesty's colonies and plantations in America." 
 All such Acts were declared to be in force in every part 
 ,of the Province of Quebec. 
 
 The spirit of the Act may be thus pourtrayed : It con- 
 firmed to the French Canadian Eoman Catholics the 
 fullest religious liberty ; this was most praiseworthy. 
 It restored the old civil laws of the Province ; this was 
 liberal. But it extended these laws over the British in 
 Canada, and over five immense territories inhabited by 
 twenty thousand people of British blood ; this was unjust. 
 It d.^ tfiy.ftft ftU th<PSfi.jaeat^lft of trial by jury.in..cixiJLcase§j 
 fy.c ^rroo lij^j-fj)^ IjUilieitiiaipes it shut the door§.,jj£-le««4 
 ^^j'arliaments j this was unconstitutional. But^ worst of 
 all, the Act robbed the British coloni§t,^el„Canada, his 
 I'rench Canadian fellow-citizen, and the men of the five 
 jiicorporated territories, of the sovereign rightai£..^iiij;^as_^ 
 Corjpus ; and this was rank tyranny. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CANADA AND THE THIRTEEN COLONIES PROTEST AGAINST 
 THE QUEBEC BILL. 
 
 No sooner had the Quebec Act reached Canada, than it 
 was received by the British colonists with a stern dis- 
 satisfaction which found vent in resolute remonstrance. 
 These men at once felt the full force of the statement of 
 Mr. Thomas Townshend, jr., when opposing the Bill in 
 the House of Commons. For that clear-headed friend 
 and defender of the Constitution had told the Ministry : 
 " You have given up to Canada almost all that country 
 which was the subject of dispute, and for which we went 
 to war. We went to war calling it the Province of Vir- 
 ginia. You tell the French it was only a pretext for 
 going to war ; that you knew then, you know now, that 
 it was part of the Province of Canada. "-"^ 
 
 The general feeling of alarm t which seized upon the 
 British colonists found expression in earnest public 
 meetings. They prepared, with all speed, a petition to 
 the King ; one to. the House of Lords ; a third to the 
 House of Commons. The petition to the King § 
 opened with a reference to the faith of his " Sacred 
 Majesty's Royal Proclamation." Upon that faith 
 
 * See "Debates on Canada Bill," p. 4. 
 I Maseres Papers, p. 238. 
 
 § It was dated "Quebec, 12th Nov., 1774 ;" and presented to tire King in 
 the month of January, 1775. 
 
38 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 British colonists made their homes in Canada. In 
 consequence of this fact, " the value of the land and the 
 wealth of its inhabitants were more than doubled." But 
 by a late Act of Parliament the petitioners " found, and, 
 with unutterable grief presumed to say * * that they 
 were deprived of the franchises granted by His Majesty's 
 Eoyal predecessors, and by the petitioners inherited from 
 their ancestors." 
 
 The evil results of the Act were enumerated. The British 
 colonists had lost the protection of the English laws. 
 In their stead the laws of Canada were to be introduced 
 — " laws to which we are utter strangers, disgraceful to 
 us as Britons, and in their consequences ruinous to our 
 properties, as we thereby lose the invaluable privileges of 
 trial by juries." The writ of habeas corpus was " dis- 
 solved." In consequence, the petitioners were subjected, 
 " to arbitrary fine and imprisonment at the will of the 
 Governor and Council, who may, at pleasure, render the 
 criminal laws of no effect, by the great power that is 
 granted to them of making alterations in the same." 
 
 In conclusion, the petitioners most humbly implored 
 the King to take their unhappy state into consideration, 
 and to grant them such relief as in his royal wisdom he 
 should think meet. 
 
 The petition to the House of Lords * was, in substance, 
 similar to the one presented to the King. In the colo- 
 nial innocence of their hearts, the petitioners concluded 
 in this strain : — 
 
 * The petition bore date, Quebec, Nov. 12, 1774. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA, 39 
 
 " In this cruel state of apprehension and uncertainty, 
 we humbly implore your lordships' favourable interposi- 
 tion, as the hereditary guardians of the rights of the 
 people, that the said Act may be repealed or amended." 
 
 On the 17th of May, 1775, Lord Camden presented 
 the petition to the House of Lords.* At the same time 
 he introduced a Bill to repeal the Quebec Act. But the 
 Earl of Dartmouth opposed the Bill, and on his motion 
 it was rejected. t 
 
 The petition to the House of Commons was from 
 ** His Majesty's ancient subjects, the seigneurs, freehold- 
 ers, merchants, traders and others settled in His Majes- 
 ty's Province of Quebec. "§ 
 
 The petition opened with the statement that the Royal 
 Proclamation was the main inducement to British settle- 
 ment in Canada. Then came the assertion that the 
 country had flourished chiefly through the industry and 
 enterprising spirit of the British colonists. Through 
 their hands passed four parts out of five of all the imports 
 and exports of the country. Their real and personal 
 property was, excluding the possessions of the religious 
 
 * "Parliamentary History," Vol. 18, pp. 665—666. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 676. The Contents for the Earl of Dartmouth's motion were 88, 
 non-contents, 28. 
 
 § Maseres Papers, p. 254. In the "Case of the London Merchants trading to 
 Quebec," which, the previous year, had been presented to members of both 
 Houses of Parliament against the passing of the Bill, it was stated that sixteen 
 of the Seigniories of the Province, and some of them the most valuable ones in 
 the country, were in the hands of the British colonists. The same document 
 stated that, in 1773, Canada exported 350,000 bushels of com ; whereas, in the 
 French period, it exported none at all, and produced hardly enough for its own 
 subsistence. Maseres' Papers, pp. 202—213. 
 
40 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 communities, equal to one-half of the whole real and per- 
 sonal valuation of Canada. 
 
 The petitioners had observed, with deep concern, that, 
 in a certain examination taken before the House of Com- 
 mons,* the British colonists had been grossly abused and 
 misrepresented as well as to their numbers as in their 
 importance in the Province. The number of French 
 Canadians had been greatly exaggerated, for, by the last 
 computation, it was about 75,000. On the other hand, 
 an enumeration of the British showed that at this time 
 they amounted to upwards of 3000 souls.t 
 
 The Act had " already struck a damp upon the credit 
 of the country." It had " alarmed all the petitioners with 
 just apprehensions of arbitrary fines and imprison- 
 ments." If the Act were carried out, it " would oblige 
 the British to quit the Province, or, in the end, it must 
 accomplish their ruin and impoverish or hurt their gener- 
 ous creditors, the merchants of Great Britain." The 
 petition ended with a prayer for the repeal or amend- 
 ment of the Act ; that the British colonists might have 
 the benefit of the English laws in so far as related to per- 
 sonal property ; and that their liberty might be ascer- 
 tained according to their ancient constitutional rights 
 and privileges. 
 
 * The allusion is to the examination of Gov. Carleton and others. See " De- 
 bates," pp. 100—169. 
 
 t See ante, p. 19. Carleton's evidence, as to the number of the British in 
 1770, seems untrustworthy. But, accepting his figures, the increase to 
 upwards of 3,000 In 1774 is quite comprehensible, if we take into account the 
 disturbed state of tha Thirteen Colonies. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 41 
 
 k George Savile, who, on the 18th of May, Bub- 
 mitted the petition to the Commons, moved to repeal the 
 Quebec Act.* Js^'] ^^rfh^ Hnn'ng t he debate, made an 
 announcement not calfinl a-tftd to appease^ fihfr ^^^^ ^'^ 
 ^-^*]]^ Q"*lhftfi Al(t( ]''"^ fyv^n ri>^y. in thftT||irt.^f^p,Ool- 
 nnif^s. " He stood "p j^ his pi jir.fl to assert that, if the 
 refractory p-nlnr^ji^a os^nnnt hrt rfldnpftd \ o obedience by 
 the present forces, he should think it a necess i^rv mei--^ 
 sure to arm the Koman Cathol ics of Canada, and to em- 
 ploy them in that service, "t 
 
 Charles James Fox charged that Lord North " did not 
 choose to own who was the real planner of the Quebec 
 Bill. In withholding from the Canadians an Assembly, 
 and in putting arms in their hands, he (Lord North) 
 showed that he was more afraid of their tongues than of 
 their swords. After Lord North's shameful neglect and 
 procrastination, he (Fox) was convinced that if the dis- 
 putes had not arisen with our American colonies, the Act 
 of last year would never have been thought of, but the 
 colony left without law or any political regulation what- 
 ever."t The fate of Lord Camden's motion in the House 
 of Lords the day before, was the fate of Sir George 
 Savile's — it was lost by a large majority. § 
 
 But it was not only the British colonists who were 
 grieved and disappointed with the Bill. The French 
 
 I* " Parliamentary History," Vol. 18, p. 676. 
 y t Ibid. Vol. 18, p. 681. 
 
 X IMd, Vol. 18, p. 681. 
 
 § Ibid, p. 684. The numbers were : For, 86 ; against, 174. 
 
42 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 Canadians in general were displeased with it.* They 
 declared that it was not at their desire or solicitation 
 that it had been passed. They had been left in ignor- 
 ance of the petition on which the Bill had been founded. 
 The persons who signed that petition " consisted princi- 
 pally of their ancient oppressors, their noblesse, who 
 wanted nothing more than, as formerly, to domineer over 
 them ; and they exclaimed against them bitterly on that 
 account, but intimated that they had better take care of 
 themselves, and not be too forward to put their inten- 
 tions into execution, "t 
 
 After the Bill reached the Province great numbers of 
 the French Canadians offered to join the British colo- 
 nists in petitioning for the continuance of the English 
 laws. In deference to the wishes of their fellow-citizens 
 of French origin, the committee appointed by the British 
 colonists to prepare petitions to the King, Lords and 
 Commons, for the repeal or amendment of the Act, 
 drew up a petition for the French Canadians to sign. 
 But, at the last moment, the French Canadians stated 
 that " they were withheld by their superiors, and com- 
 manded not to join in the English representations ; for if 
 they did they would infallibly be deprived of their reli- 
 gion j but if they remained quiet, they might depend 
 upon it that the English laws would not be changed." :|" 
 
 * Maseres, " Additional Papers," p. 101. 
 
 t Maseres, "Add. Papers," pp. 102, 103. 
 
 X Maseres Papers, pp. 133, 134. "Zachary Macaulay" is one name amongst 
 the nine fortifying this statement, which is contained in a letter bearing date 
 •' Quebec, Nov. 12, 1774," and is addressed to Baron Maseres. The letter 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 43 
 
 In opposition to the Quebec Act, the British colonists 
 and the French Canadians did not stand apart from the 
 rest of the empire. The people of the British Islands 
 pronounced against it. For more than two months the 
 newspapers teemed with letters in which the measure 
 was unsparingly criticised and sternly denounced.* 
 
 But if the opposition elsewhere were a breeze, the op 
 position in the Thirteen Colonies was a tempest which 
 shook to its foundations the fabric of British supremacy 
 on this continent. On the 14th of October, 1774, Con- 
 gress passed a number of resolutions, setting forth their 
 grievances and defining their rights. One resolution de- 
 clared that during the last session of the British Parlia- 
 ment three statutes were passed. One of them was for 
 " Making more effectual provision for the Government of 
 the Province of Quebec." 
 
 All of these statutes were pronounced "impolitic, unjust 
 and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most danger- 
 ous and destructive of American rights. "t 
 
 The Quebec Act was described as one " for establishing 
 the Roman Catholic religion in the Province of Quebec, 
 abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and 
 erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger — from its 
 
 says further: "In justice to the bulk of the Canadian inhabitants, who 
 have formerly smarted under the rigour of the French Government, and the 
 caprice of petty tyrants of those days, we must confess that they prefer in- 
 finitely English law, which secures their liberty and property, and gives a 
 free scope to their industry, and dread falling again under the laws and cus- 
 toms of Canada. This we declare upon our own certain knowledge " 
 
 * Maseres Papers, p. 236. 
 
 t American Archives, 4th Series, vol. 1, p. 912. 
 
44 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 total dissimilarity to the religion, law and government — 
 of the neighbouring British Colonies, by the assistance 
 of whose blood and treasure the said Colony was con- 
 quered from France."* 
 
 The Congress, on the 20th of October, 1774, drew up 
 an address to the people of Great Britain, in which ad- 
 dress was enumerated a list of grievances. "Several 
 cruel and oppressive Acts have been passed. * * 
 Also an Act for extending the Province of Quebec, so as 
 to border on the western frontiers of these Colonies, es- 
 tablish an arbitrary Government therein, and discourage 
 the settlement of British subjects in that wide-extended 
 country ; thus, by the influence of civil principles and an- 
 cient prejudices, to dispose the inhabitants to act with 
 hostility against the free Protestant Colonies, whenever a 
 wicked Ministry shall choose so to direct them."t 
 
 In the half -alienated Colonies this Quebec Act was as 
 a crushing weight falling from the summit of British 
 power on the straining and weakening bond of kinship f 
 which linked the Empire and its offspring. The Bill was 
 framed to retain Canada. It had but faint and falla- 
 cious influence in accomplishing that result. But this 
 it did accomplish : it helped to cut adrift from Great 
 
 * Ibid, p. 912. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 913. 
 
 X Baron Maseres, in 1779, said that the Act " had not only offended the 
 inhabitants of the Province (Quebec) itself, in a degree that could hardly be 
 conceived, but had alarmed all the English ;Provinces in America, and contrib- 
 uted more, perhaps, than any other measure whatsoever to drive them into re- 
 ellion against their Sovereign."— Preface to ** Debates on Quebec Bill," p. v. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 45 
 
 Britain the noblest appendages of sovereignty that ever 
 promised to lend power and splendour to a Parent State. 
 The Mother-land was the loser. We who now behold 
 these things through the calm and settled medium of a 
 century — a medium in which the giants of a hundred 
 years ago are the pigmies of to-day — in which the lines 
 of Providential events are no longer dim and distorted, 
 but clear and straight, — we are forced to ask ourselves 
 and history, if the Empire were the loser, was not 
 Humanity the gainer ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DISSATISFACTION OF THE MAJORITY OF THE FRENCH 
 CANADIANS. — AMERICAN OVERTURES AND INVASION. 
 
 The British Ministry, in the passing of the Quebec 
 Act, had achieved two objects. They had gained over 
 the clergy and the seigniors; and had induced the 
 French Canadian people to recognize the supreme autho- 
 rity of the House of Commons in the matter of taxa- 
 tion.* This race, for generations, was obliged to pay 
 taxes without open murmur or chance of relief. It was 
 unacquainted with the constitutional machinery by which 
 the men of Great Britain could restrain the undue exer- 
 cise of the taxing power. To the French Canadians, 
 therefore, this power was one they could but too well 
 understand, knowing not how to modify or resist it. 
 For this reason the French Canadians offered no opposi- 
 tion to a Bill which followed the Quebec Act.t The 
 measure was memorable in this — that it was the first tax 
 bill Great Britain ever passed with respect to Canada ; 
 and that it abolished the French customs duties, which 
 had been allowed, since the Conquest, to remain un- 
 changed. The preamble recited that certain duties were 
 
 * Ganieau's '• Historj' of Canada," vol. 2, p. 119. 
 
 t The title was— ."An Act to establish a Fund towards further defraying the 
 charge of the Administration of Justice, and th« Support of Civil Government, 
 within the Province of Quebec," 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 47 
 
 imposed by the authority of His Most Christian Majesty 
 the King of France. These duties were declared to be 
 abolished, and others substituted, after the 5th of April, 
 1775.* 
 
 The composition of the Council was amongst the first 
 grievances of which the French Canadians made com- 
 plaint. In the year of the passing of the Quebec Act, 
 1774, Governor Carleton, who had been created a Major- 
 General while in England, returned to Canada, to put 
 the new measure into effect. He appointed a Legislative 
 
 Council. Tf pnTYiKArP^ fyor.fj-fl.T.n.i moTn>.oi-aj dfrht of 
 
 thftTTp w^ \^( B<;/ i;^^n Cflthn lica. But the lawyers, notaries, 
 and others, men who had been afraid to refuse their 
 signatures to the petition, almost unanimously declared 
 their dislike to the Act when they saw how the Council 
 was constituted. Jor a seat had been given to none 
 excep t to the nob lesse or to thyg e whn wn^ 'e the cross of 
 ^t. Louis, ine commercial element amongst the French 
 
 * The French duties were upon wine, rum, brandy, and eau de vie de liqueur^ 
 imported into the Province ; also, a duty of three pounds per centum, ad 
 valorem, upon all dry goods imported into and exported from the Pro- 
 vince. The British duties were— on every gallon of brandy, or other spirits, 
 manufactured in Great Britain, threepence; on every gallon of rum, or 
 other spirits, imported from any of His Majesty's sugar colonies in the West 
 Indies, sixpence ; on the same articles imported from any other of His Ma- 
 jesty's colonies in America, ninepence ; on every gallon of foreign brandy, or 
 other spirits, foreign manufactured, imported from Great Britain, one shil- 
 ling ; on every gallon of rum, or spirits, produce or manufacture of American 
 colonies, not British, imported from any other place except Great Britain, one 
 shilling ; on every gallon of molasses, or syrups, imported into Canada in 
 British, Irish, and Canadian vessels, threepence ; on the same articles im- 
 ported into Canada in foreign vessels, sixpence. [It will be seen that vessels 
 belonging to the Thirteen Colonies are not included. J 
 
48 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1774, the Americans, 
 feeling that their hour of trial was at hand, and their raw 
 and immature power about to engage in deadly grapple 
 with the strength of a firm and time-tried Empire, began 
 to turn their eyes Canada-ward. From the Canadians, 
 their enemies for generations, they sought aid and com- 
 fort in the rapidly nearing struggle with the mother 
 country. In the " Address of the General Congress to 
 the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec," dated October 
 26th, 1774, and signed by Henry Middleton, President, 
 the theory of Constitutional Government was developed 
 at considerable length. Then there was pointed out the 
 instances in which this theory was violated by the Quebec 
 Act. The address concluded thus — " In this present Con- 
 gress * * it has been with universal pleasure, and a 
 unanimous vote, resolved — That we should consider the 
 violation of your rights, by the Act for altering the go- 
 vernment of your Province, as a violation of our own ; 
 and that you should be invited to accede to our Confede- 
 ration, which has no other objects than the perfect secu- 
 rity of the natural and civil rights of all the constituent 
 members, according to their respective circumstances, and 
 the preservation of a happy and lasting connection with 
 Great Britain, on the salutary and constitutional princi- 
 ples hereinbefore mentioned." On the 1st day of May, 
 
 * Maseres, Adcl.|Papers, p. 102. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 49 
 
 1775, the Quebec Act went into effect. On the 29th of 
 the same month, the American Congress addressed the 
 Canadians : " We most sincerely condole with you on the 
 arrival of that day, in the course of which the sun could 
 not shine on a single freeman, in all your extensive domi- 
 nions. By the introduction of your present form of 
 government, or rather present form of tyranny, you and 
 your wives and your children are made slaves."* 
 
 The address was not barren of serious results. Trans- 
 lated into the French language, it was sent for distribu- 
 tion to Messrs. Walker and Cazeau, influential British 
 \ and French merchant of Montreal, who made no secret 
 \ of having received it. The address had reached Canada 
 \through American newspapers. It had also been handed 
 l^bout the country by the French Canadians themselves, t 
 ' The peasants in the rural districts felt its influence. 
 Not a few of the British colonists in the towns were 
 swayed by the constitutional sympathies to which it gave 
 expression. J In all great popular movements a wave of 
 
 * Bancroft, vol. 7, pp. 381, 382. He adds— "No adequate motive for rising 
 was set before them. * * A union for independence, with a promise of 
 institutions of their own, might have awakened their enthusiasm." 
 
 t Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 85, For over the century and a half —1608-1 760— 
 during which France ruled Canada, a printing press never entered the country. 
 lu 1764, an English newspaper, the Quebec Gazette, was established. This 
 pioneer of the grand array of journals that now do duty for Canada, its liber- 
 ties and its colonial pre-eminence, still flourishes. 
 
 { See Bancroft, vol. 8, p. 177. " The French nobility, of whom many, under 
 the Quebec Act, were received into the Council or appointed to Executive 
 offices, and the Catholic clergy who were restored to the possession of their 
 estates and their tithes, acquiesced in the new form of government, but by a large 
 part of the British residents it was detested, as at war with English liberties, 
 and subjecting them to arbitrary power. The instincts of the Canadian pea- 
 
50 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 human feeling goes out, which overflows the barriers of 
 place, race and faith, and, with a mysterious influence, 
 sucks into the whirl and vortex of the struggle every one 
 who, having a grievance that bows him down, stands 
 hoping on the marge of the Future, holding out his hands 
 to welcome a coming change. In such case was the 
 majority of the French Canadians and British colonists of 
 Canada, in relation to the approaching strife between 
 England and her colonies. On the 19th of April, 1775, 
 at Lexington, blood had flowed out upon the quarrel ; had 
 burned hatred into the hearts of the opposing kinsmen, 
 and set two continents on fire. It is not within the 
 scope and purport of this work to narrate the incidents 
 of this most lamentable war, except in so far as those 
 incidents may relate to the social and political condition 
 of Canada. 
 
 On the 1st of June, 1775, Congress passed a resolution : 
 " That, as this Congress has nothing more in view than 
 the defence of these colonies, no expedition or incursion 
 ought to be undertaken or made by any colony, or body 
 of colonists, against or into Canada."* The resolution 
 was translated into French, and distributed throughout 
 Canada. In the light of the subsequent action of Con- 
 gress, this resolution must be regarded as an attempt to 
 cheat either the Government or people of Canada into a 
 
 santry inclined them to take part with the United Colonies ; they denied the 
 authority of the French nobility as magistrates, and resisted their claim of a 
 right as seigniors to command their military services. Without the hardihood 
 to rise of themselves, they were willing to welcome invasion." 
 * Lord Mahon's "History of England," vol. 6, p. 92. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 51 
 
 sense of security, the better to overrun and overwhelm 
 them. For, on the 27th of June Congress passed ano- 
 ther resolution, instructing General Schuyler to proceed 
 without delay to Ticonderoga, and, if he found it prac- 
 ticable, " immediately to take possession of St. John's and 
 Montreal, and pursue any other measure in Canada which 
 might have a tendency to promote the peace and security 
 of these Colonies."* 
 
 These things did not escape the notice of Governor 
 Carleton, one of the most praiseworthy military men that 
 ever governed a British dependency ; the man who pre- 
 served Canada to the Empire ; the only English General 
 who extorted from the Americans an honourable reputa- 
 tion for generosity and humanity. t Carleton, on the 
 9th of June, 1775, proclaimed that he had put the Pro- 
 vince under martial law ; at the same time he called out 
 its militia. The malign influence of the Quebec Act, 
 now that the fate of Canada was about to be placed in the 
 balance of war, was everywhere felt in disastrous dis- 
 
 * Lord Mahou's " Hist. Eng.," vol. 6, pp. 114, 116. In a note on this resolu- 
 tion, Lord Maiion remarks— " This last resolution being kept secret or not 
 printed in the journals, it is a hard task to vindicate, on this occasion, either 
 the good faith or the consistency of the American rulers." The last observa- 
 tion might, with safety, be applied to almost every case, from 1775 to 1873, in 
 which the rights of Canada came into conflict with the interests of the United 
 States. The Maine and Oregon Boundaries, and the Island of San Juan, rise 
 up in accusation against the United States' contempt of the higher law of Inter- 
 national Equity. Bancroft's defence of the action of Congress is, that on the 9th 
 of June Governor Carleton "proclaimed the American borderers to be a rebel- 
 lious baud of traitors, established martial law," etc. (See vol. 8, p. 176.) Most 
 unprejudiced minds will refuse to see in this defence a successful exoneration 
 of the double-dealing of Congress. 
 
 t Bancroft, vol. 8, p. 186. 
 
52 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 appointment. Now was seen by the perplexed Governor 
 of Canada, the fatuous folly of the measure that gave 
 bread, power and privilege to a church and a noblesse, 
 and to the people stones and serpents. The noblesse 
 were hated ; the clergy were powerless, if not absolutely 
 despised ; and the bosom of the Province was left open to 
 the blows of the American invader. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANTAGONISM OF SEIGNIOR AND PEASANT. — THE PEA- 
 SANTS REFUSE MILITARY SERVICE TO THE SEIGNIORS. 
 
 The peasants believed that the Quebec Act revived 
 those powers of Crown and noble which had been their 
 scourge and their horror in the French period.* An 
 opinion prevailed in the Province, that the seigniors, by 
 the tenure of their lands, owed military service to the 
 King of England. Further, that it was part of the same 
 tenure, that they should engage for the personal service 
 of all their vassals. It was also believed that, as the Que- 
 bec Act revived the laws and customs of Canada, the 
 seigniors had a legal right, whenever the King or his re- 
 presentative called on them, to command the personal 
 service of all their tenants, t 
 
 It was soon seen that the times were changed. In the 
 fourteen years of British rule, the French Canadian pea- 
 sant had made brave progress up the ascent of personal 
 liberty, whence he stood and gazed back in fear across the 
 slough of servitude over which his ancestors had toiled 
 and panted for over a century and a half. The seignior 
 of Terrebonne, M. La Corne, was deputed by General Carle, 
 ton to enrol his tenants. La Corne took high ground 
 
 * Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 69. 
 t Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 71, 72. 
 
54 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 with the peasants. He told them that, by the tenure of 
 their lands, he had a right to command their military 
 services. Their answer was the most pregnant commen. 
 tary on the Conquest : " They were now become subjects 
 of England, and did not look on themselves as Frenchmen 
 in any respect whatever."* Then followed uproar. t A 
 Mr. Deschambaud, son of a seignior, went to his father's 
 estate on the Eiver Richelieu, to raise the tenants. He 
 harangued them in an arbitrary strain. They replied 
 defiantly. He then drew his sword; whereupon the 
 people surrounded him, and beat him severely. The re- 
 sult of this incident might have been fraught with the 
 very worst consequences, had it not been for the admir- 
 able tact of Carleton.{ Mr. Cuthbert, an Englishman, 
 seignior of Berthier, made a peremptory demand on the 
 military service of his tenants. They told him not a man of 
 them would follow him ; and made an oath on the publi^ 
 cross, at the place of meeting, that they would never take 
 
 • Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 73. 
 
 t M. La Come struck some of those who spoke loudest ; this maddened the 
 people. He was forced to fly to Montreal, threateuing to bring back two hun- 
 dred soldiers. The people armed themselves for reeistanoe, determined to die 
 rather than submit to the seignior. But the {Hndenoe of Carleton soothed 
 them. He would not give La Come soldiers ; but sent with him an EInglish 
 ofBcer, a Ciq)t. Hamilton. In reply to Hamilton the people said: "If Gen. 
 Carleton requires our services, let him give us Rn gliwb officers to command us ; 
 * * or if not, common soldiers, rather than those people" (the seigniors). 
 The peasants only dispersed when Hamilton promised that La Come should 
 come no more among them.— Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 74. 
 
 I The peasants, fearing that it might go ill with them, assembled to the 
 number of three thousand at Fort Chambly, and began to march to Fort St. 
 Jdkm% to faoe two r^jments of regidars there, whom they suspected the Gov- 
 ernor would viae against them. Carleton promised to forgive them if they 
 diqiersed ; they did so, and he k^ his word.— Maseres, Add. Pwp. p. 76. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 55 
 
 up arms against the Americans j that if any one of them 
 offered to join the Government, they would burn his 
 house and barn, and destroy hisjcattle ; and that, if Carle- 
 ton attempted to compel them into the service, they would 
 repel force by force.* M. Lanaudiere, seignior of St. 
 Anne's, went to Berthier to make the attempt in which 
 Cuthbert failed. The people seized him, with seventeen 
 of his companions, and held warm debates as to whether 
 they should send him to the American camp at St. John's. 
 Finally, on his promise to obtain for them the Governor's 
 pardon, and never again to come amongst them on a like 
 errand, he and his friends were set at liberty, t 
 
 The main reason why the peasants — when aroused, a 
 determined and warlike race — refused to do military ser- 
 vice was, not that they disliked their new rulers, but that 
 they detested the new Bill. The men of Berthier declared 
 that if Governor Carleton would promise, and affix the 
 promise to the church door, that he would do his best for 
 the repeal of the Quebec Bill, they were ready to defend 
 the Province. They said " that on a sudden, without 
 any provocation on theii' part, they had been reduced to 
 their former state of slavery. They were told to regard 
 the invaders as enemies. But then the invaders said 
 that they were not enemies, but their best friends. The 
 invaders were now in arms for the defence of the peasants 
 from their oppressors ; and made the repeal of the Quebec 
 Bill one of the conditions for laying down their arms. 
 
 * Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 76, 77. 
 t MaseroH, Add. Pap. 77, 78. 
 
56 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 The peasants, then, ought certainly to assist those who 
 were fighting to restore to them that liberty of which 
 they had been wantonly and most cruelly deprived.'' 
 This language, however, was not that of the men of Ber- 
 thier alone. "The same is in the mouths of the most 
 ignorant peasants all over the Province."* 
 
 But it was not the peasants only to whom the Quebec 
 Act was a menace and a grievance. The men of the 
 towns held the measure in detestation. In Montreal, the 
 captain of the French Canadian Militia declared to Carle- 
 ton "that his compatriots would not take arms as a 
 militia unless His Excellency would assure them, on his 
 honour, that he would use his utmost endeavours to get 
 the Quebec Bill repealed." The Governor thereupon 
 gave the promise, t 
 
 The Government of Canada felt that it had, in all jus- 
 tice and generosity, an irresistible claim on the Roman 
 Catholic Church in the Province. It invoked the aid of 
 the Church to influence the peasants. But the children 
 closed their ears against the advice of their Mother, and 
 steeled their hearts against her entreaties. 
 
 * Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 78, 79. The couduct of the peasants drew out 
 hints from the Government, that their refusal to obey the seigniors had jus- 
 tified the forfeiture of their lands, and that suits at law would be taken to 
 dispossess them. The peasants admitted that they had incurred forfeiture, 
 but were determined to hold possession of their lauds by force. — Maseres, Add. 
 Pap. p. 72. Happily for Canada and Great Britain, the soldier-statesman who 
 tjoverned the Province did not allow any actions for forfeiture to be taken. 
 
 t Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 106. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STATUS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. — THE 
 PEASANTS REFUSE IT POLITICAL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Inasmuch as before the Conquest, since that epoch, and 
 at the present time, the Eoman Catholic Church in Lower 
 Canada must be regarded as one of the chief elements in 
 the social and political life of that Province, it becomes 
 necessary to devote a portion of space to a sketch of the 
 fortunes of the establishment. After the Conquest, the 
 Grand Vicar and Clergy of Quebec, the see being vacant 
 by the death of its former occupant, Mgr. Pontbriant, 
 applied to the Governor, General Murray, asking that 
 their right to elect should be recognised. The Governor 
 transmitted the matter to the Home authorities, and 
 recommended the granting of the demand. In 1763 the 
 Law Oflficers of the Crown decided that the Penal Laws 
 against the Eoman Catholics in the British Islands did 
 not extend to the Colonies. Accordingly, the Chapter 
 of Quebec elected as their Bishop, M. de Montgolfier, 
 Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Montreal. 
 The Government took exception to the nomination.* M. . 
 de Montgolfier, in 1764, declined the charge. At tlae 
 same time he designated M. Briand, a Breton by birth, 
 
 * " Perhaps because the nominee was too French at heart."— Oameau," Hist. 
 Can.," vol. 2, p. 89. 
 
68 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 one of the Canons and Grand Vicar of Quebec, for the 
 vacant Episcopate. M. Briand was chosen. In the same 
 year, 1764, he visited London, and received, with the 
 consent of the King, his bulls of investiture from Pope 
 Clement XIII. ; and then repairing to Paris, was there 
 consecrated. To the Province of Quebec, which had been 
 without a Bishop from 1760 to 1766, Mgr. Briand re- 
 turned in the latter year, a stipendiary of the King of 
 England to the extent of £200 sterling annually.* His 
 acceptance of the yearly pension, and his subsequent 
 administration, contributed to his unpopularity and less- 
 ened his influence, t It seemed, on his return to Canada, 
 that he would exercise only the milder and more benefi- 
 cent duties of his high office. In his reply to those who 
 welcomed his arrival he deprecated pomp and ceremony. 
 He told them that " he did not come into the Province 
 to be a Bishop on the same high footing as his predeces- 
 sors in the time of the French Government ; * * * 
 that he was un simple faiseur de pretres — a mere ordainer 
 of priests." J But power ultimately became too strong for 
 sobriety of ecclesiastical demeanour. § The Bishop, in a 
 manner unknown to Canadian ecclesiastical history, 
 before or since, launched forward on a career of pre- 
 
 * Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 137. Bancroft, vol, 8, p. 177, alludes to Bishop 
 Briand as " a stipendiary of the British King." 
 
 t Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 137. 
 
 t Ibid, 138. 
 
 § See "Anecdotes sur la conduite de MoHsieur Briand, Evfique de Quebec. 
 Extrait d'une lettre de Quebec de la fin de Septembre, 1775, a un ami h Loii- 
 dres. Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 120-126. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 59 
 
 rogative. He suspended and deprived priests; he cut 
 off members of his faith from their sacraments ; he inter- 
 dicted divine worship in churches and chapels.* The 
 Bishop may have resorted to these measures in his loyalty 
 to the British Government. But in any community, 
 whether made up of one or of many faiths, no matter 
 whether a Government or the people are the first to begin 
 dispute, ecclesiastical aid, come from whatever creed it 
 may, is a dangerous and exacting auxiliary. The defeated 
 party perpetuates the quarrel by the bitter hatred which 
 they are sure to cherish against their spiritual antagonists. 
 For the natural instincts of men tell them that the glory 
 of the Christian faith is to make peace, to mediate, to 
 fly from strife as from a plague. The politician who 
 wields a spiritual weapon makes wounds that centuries 
 will not heal ; nor can he return the sword to the scab- 
 bard until its owners have secured for the use of it powers 
 and privileges which, in unscrupulous hands, may, in her 
 time of need, coerce and confront the very majesty of the 
 State which surrendered them. 
 
 Mgr. Briand, Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, issued 
 in the summer of 1775, at the instance of the Govern- 
 ment, an encyclical letter to the French Canadian people. 
 In this epistle the Bishop exhorted them to take up arms 
 for the Crown against the American invaders. To those 
 who obeyed, he promised indulgences. Over the heads of 
 those who should refuse, he suspended the thunders of 
 
 * Maseres, Adti. Pap. pp. 138, 139. 
 
60 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 excommunication. The reception accorded to the letter 
 was another instance of a phenomenon sometimes wit- 
 nessed in history — that when the political passions of 
 men begin to boil, the elements of religious kinship and 
 obligation begin to evaporate. The very quarrel then in 
 progress between Great Britain and her colonies was 
 proof to the point. 
 
 The people not only turned deaf ears to the injunc- 
 tions of the Bishop, but expressed the opinion that his 
 action in the dispute was quite unsuitable to the cha- 
 racter of a Christian prelate, who ought to have no con" 
 cern in anything that involved the shedding of blood. 
 They even went further than this. They assumed that 
 Bishop Briand's conduct had been influenced by the pen" 
 sion of £200 a year he received from the King of Eng- 
 land, and by the expectation he had formed of a larger 
 gratuity.* The French Canadians not only disobeyed 
 their Bishop, but went so far as to lampoon him in more 
 than thirty songs, which were circulated during the sum- 
 mer of I775.t Fifty placards, affixed to public places, 
 testified to the sentiments which the prelate had excited 
 in his people. " He had been issuing forth throughout 
 every part of the Province one excommunication after 
 another. It was no longer the King who was disobeyed, 
 but the Church, of which the Bishop was the head. His 
 
 * Maseres, Add. Pap. p. 112. (Bishop Briand was probably the first Roman 
 Cathohc Bishop, since the time of Queen Mary, who received an annual stipend 
 from a British monarch.) 
 
 t Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 117, 118. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 61 
 
 violent conduct, which only exasperated the people," had 
 lasted from the 20th of May until the early part of No- 
 vember (1775), when he became quiet, " even threatening 
 to leave the Province and go to France." A devout wish 
 was expressed that he would carry out the threat. *'But 
 it was only the fear of the Americans, who had mvaded 
 the country, which had caused him to make it." if In 
 one of the lampoons the people were made, in sarcasm, 
 to say to themselves — " In disregard of true glory, they 
 ought to march forward, though they would earn but a 
 sorry niche in the Temple of Memory. However, by 
 their heroic deeds in battle, they would deserve this 
 — that the pension of the Bishop should be largely aug- 
 mented." § 
 
 } The above facts are contained in a French letter in the " Maseres' Add. Pa- 
 pers," pp. 117-18. It is in part as follows :—" On dit que plus de 30 chansons 
 et 60 placards, oil la cupidity * * * n (the Bishop) envoye, en haut et en has 
 du pais excommunications sur excommunications, Ce n'est plus au roi qu'on 
 desobfiit ; c'est h I'figlise, dont il est le chef. Sa folic (qui ne fait qu'u-riter 
 les peuples), dure depuis le 20 de May. Cependant depuis le 3me de ce mois (No- 
 vembre) il se tait :— menace m6me le pais de s'en aller en France. Pliit a Dieu 
 qu' il ex6cutat sa menace ! Mais ce n'est que la peur qu'il a des Bostonnois 
 qui la lui fait faire." 
 
 § The first eight verses of the song it would be oflfeusive to reproduce. The 
 words of the last two verses, 9 and 10, w ere :— 
 " En d6pit de la vraie gloire 
 Partons nos pas en avant, 
 Dans le Temple de M6moire 
 Nous serons mis tristement. 
 
 Et, par nos braves proUesses 
 
 Dana les combats, mgritons 
 Qu'on augmente avec largesse 
 
 Du prglat la pension." 
 
 Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 112, 113, 114. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PERIL OF THE PROVINCE. — AMERICAN ATTACK ON QUE- 
 BEC. — DEFEAT AND EXPULSION OF THE INVADERS. 
 
 The situation of the Province was one of extreme peril. 
 The position of Governor Carleton was that of a ruler 
 weighed down by perplexity, and rendered powerless by 
 being deserted by those on whom he had relied. Turn 
 to whatever quarter he might, he saw no chance of being 
 enabled to cope successfully with the invaders. In the 
 month of October, 1775, he succeeded in assembling 900 
 men at Montreal, to operate against the Americans who 
 were engaged in besieging one or two wretched places 
 on the Eastern Frontier, before they marched on that city. 
 But the force melted away. The French Canadians, in 
 the same month, actually turned the scale for the invaders 
 in capturing the Fort of Chambly.* The Governor, with 
 800 Indians, French Canadians and regulars he had 
 enrolled "with desperate exertions," endeavoured to 
 effect a junction with Col. Maclean, in order to raise 
 the siege of St. Johns. Carleton met with a reverse ; 
 then the French Canadians deserted Maclean, t St. 
 Johns, on Nov. the 3rd, after a gallant defence of 50 
 days, surrendered to the Americans. Its garrison, 500 
 
 * Bancroft, vol. 8, p. 186. 
 t Bancroft, vol. 8, p. 187. 
 
 o 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 63 
 
 regulars and 100 French Canadians, many of whom were 
 of the seigniorial class, marched out with the honours 
 of war. * 
 
 The road to Montreal was now open. In the matter of 
 apathy in the defence of the country, and as far as re- 
 garded sympathy with the invaders, a portion of the 
 British colonists were of the same frame of mind as 
 the majority of the French Canadians. If blame is to 
 be awarded, some of the British colonists must bear their 
 share. Neither race can be much praised at the expense of 
 the other. It ought to be remarked, however, that sev- 
 eral English gentlemen in Montreal, men of experience 
 in military matters, offered their services to lead the 
 Canadians. But, for some unaccountable reason, the 
 Governor refused them, t 
 
 General Montgomery, on the 12th of November, 1775, 
 took unopposed possession of the City of Montreal. J 
 The Thirteen Colonies were now masters of all Canada, 
 
 *Ibid. vol. 8, p. 188. 
 
 + Maseres, Add. Papers, p. 79, In|page 80 it^is stated " that the English in- 
 habitants, though they felt for their treatment from Governor Carleton, yet 
 did not think it would justify their countenancing, in any degree, those who 
 were in arms against their sovereign. Accordingly they have been active in 
 the .defence of the Province; those few Canadians who have taken part 
 with the Government have been influenced entirely by their persuasion and 
 example." 
 
 t Governor Carleton, utterly powerless, was obliged, on the ere of the en- 
 trance of the invaders into Montreal, to leave the city by stealth, and, accom- 
 panied by a handful of men, to try to reach Quebec by the St. Lawrence, elud- 
 ing the guard boats of the Americans, stationed at various points along the 
 river. Part of the way he had to disguise himself as a peasant. After many 
 hair-breadth escapes from capture, fortunately for British rule in Canada, he 
 reached Quebec on the 17th November. 
 
6if CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 with the exception of the City of Quebec. This, the 
 key of the Province, was still held by the smitten but 
 firm-closed hand of Great Britain. * On the last day of 
 the old year, 1775, in the ghastly light of a winter dawn, 
 the raw and marrow-piercing air choked with the rush 
 of stinging snow-flakes, an icy acclivity beneath his feet, 
 a mountain fortress above his head, death staring him 
 in front, and despondency threatening him behiad, Gen- 
 eral Eichard Montgomery rushed forward to the su- 
 preme struggle with Great Britain for her Canadian Em- 
 pire. He failed and fell, t The Province was saved. 
 Carleton, an enemy no less generous than Montgomery 
 himself, gave to the clay of his old comrade in arms 
 under Wolfe, the honours of a soldier's sepulture. In a 
 few months more Canada expelled from her violated 
 soil the last American invader. 
 
 The moral of this eventful year is easy to understand. 
 The politicians, not the statesmen of Great Britain, af- 
 ter having lashed the Thirteen Colonies into revolt, 
 fancied they might oppose to the Democratic wave, now 
 in angry and vehement flow, the cobweb barrier of class 
 legislation. The act was akin to that of the Persian 
 
 * " On Dec, the 22nd, Carleton ordered all who would not join in the defence 
 of the city, to leave it within four days. After their departure he found him- 
 self supported by more than 300 regulars, 330 Anglo-Canadian militia, 543 
 French Canadians, 485 seamen and marines, 120 artificers capable of bearing 
 arms." In all 1,778 men. " On the 6th December, the invading army was com- 
 posed of less than 1,000 American troops, and a volunteer regiment of about 
 200 Canadians."— Bancroft, vol. 8, pp. 200, 201. As Canadians, we can af- 
 ford to say that the advantages were on the side of our own countrymen. 
 
 tBancroft, vol.8, p. 208, says, that, with Montgomery, "the soul of the expe- 
 dition fled." 
 
CONSTITLTTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 65 
 
 despot scourging the rebellious billows of the Helles- 
 pont, which mocked him still the more with their defiant 
 thunders. The Quebec Bill spurned the rights of the 
 people of Canada; it raised thrones for prelates and 
 aristocrats. In the day of danger the prelates were 
 weak, and the aristocrats were as stubble. But it was 
 many a sorrowful year ere British Ministers would learn 
 or acknowledge that if they unshackled the arms of the 
 men of Canada, these men would know how to hold for 
 Great Britain, as against all who would attempt to seize 
 it, the sovereignty of the North American Empire. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 COLONIAL MISGOVERNMENT. — FRENCH CANADIAN LEGIS- 
 LATIVE COUNCILLORS OPPOSE HABEAS CORPUS. 
 
 In the history of Great Britain and her Golonies, many- 
 have been the instances in which the latter have experi- 
 enced refusals when they looked for concessions. Now, 
 when the Colonies march step for step with the Mother 
 Land on the road which leads to a future of brighter 
 social and political life, the offspring of Great Britain, 
 separated from her by oceans never so wide, can judge of 
 her past acts, not with feelings of bitterness, but with 
 feelings of leniency and allowance. 
 
 It is plain to the student of our colonial history, that 
 in almost every case, in times past, in which the relations 
 between Great Britain and Canada were those of au- 
 thority rather than affection, the fault, as a rule, lay 
 not so much at the door of the British Ministers of the 
 day, as to the charge of those who occupied high places 
 of trust in our Provincial Administrations. There is little 
 doubt that British Ministers made effort to do their best, 
 or what they thought was best. There is less doubt that 
 the Provincial officers in whom they trusted for a full and 
 accurate recital of those social facts and popular aspira- 
 tions without which legislation is as brick without straw, 
 were recreant to the confidence which had been reposed in 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 67 
 
 them. The British Minister felt himself bound to believe 
 the information transmitted to him by the Governor. The 
 Governor received his information from the members of 
 a colonial oligarchy, who stood like an impassable rampart 
 between the people and the representative of Great 
 Britain. No sounds but the scented echo of artificial 
 praise, and the grateful breezes of fictitious popular de- 
 light, were ever permitted to steal upon the ear of the 
 British Governor. The people's discontent might sweep 
 over the land in gusts whose force and frequency were 
 the forerunners of a terrible tempest, but the Governors 
 were never allowed to hear the mutterings without. In 
 the official atmosphere everything was bathed in bright- 
 ness, and all was repose. To change a figure in the 
 simile of the Roman poet, doomed to be the flatterer of 
 a Court, not the celebrant of a free people, the Canadian 
 Governor, surrounded by that mockery of feudalism, a 
 Canadian oligarchy, shone above them in the treacher- 
 ously peaceful firmament of the official universe, while 
 they rejoiced in being the smaller stars.* 
 
 In the matter of the unfortunate Quebec Bill, there 
 can be no doubt that it was founded upon partial infor- 
 mation. Ministers, it is to be assumed in charity, en- 
 deavoured to do what they considered right and just. 
 But they acted in ignorance of the needs and wishes of 
 the majority of the people of both races. And to at- 
 tempt to do right in ignorance is almost as mischievous as 
 
 * "Nox erat, et luna in caelo sereiio fulgebat, 
 Inter minora siden,."— Horace. 
 
68 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 to do wrong with full knowledge. For their ignorance 
 the advisers of the Crown were only partially to blame. 
 The burden of the blame must rest with their Canadian 
 officials. To give the British Ministry justice, they 
 showed signs of being desirous to mitigate some of the 
 more oppressive results which flowed from the Quebec 
 Bill. They had evidently been moved by the petitions of 
 the British colonists, and were prepared to make con- 
 cessions. The facts now about to be related have been 
 kept from the knowledge of the people of Canada. But 
 the time has come to let the light of truth shine in 
 upon the dark places of our history, and to apply the 
 caustic of criticism to the unwholesome growths of 
 national pretence and self-adulation. 
 
 The Quebec Bill had not long become law when the 
 Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for America, 
 directed Mr. Hey, Chief Justice of the Province of 
 Quebec, to prepare the draft of a Provincial ordinance. 
 This, the Chief Justice was to carry over to Canada, 
 in order to lay it before the Governor and the new Legis- 
 lative Council, so that they might make it into a law. 
 The draft provided for the re-establishment of the 
 English laws relating to habeas corpus; to commerce; 
 and, with certain restrictions, to trial by jury in civil 
 In the month of September, 1775, the draft was 
 ubmitted to the Legislative Council of Canada and 
 e the subject of debate. The new French-Canadian 
 I members opposed it, " but without (as it is said) alleging 
 
 f. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 69 
 
 any reasons for their opposition."* The British members 
 of the Council seemed disposed to adopt the ordinance. 
 It would probably have become law, but for the fact 
 that General Montgomery's invasion compelled Governor 
 Carleton to break up the meetings of the Council before 
 the discussion of the subject came to a conclusion. In 
 this instance was shown what, in the after history of the 
 country, was the bitter experience of its inhabitants, that 
 a non-elective Legislative Body was the natural enemy of 
 popular liberty. The opposition made by the French- 
 Canadian members to the re-establishment of trial by 
 jury and the English commercial code, was nothing but 
 what might have been expected. Their antagonism to the 
 revival of habeas corjpus was, as they well knew, in direct 
 hostility to the earnest wishes of the British colonists, as 
 also to the desires of the great majority of the French. 
 But the chevaliers of the Cross of St. Louis did after their 
 kind. Unfortunately for many a Canadian, French and 
 British, the action of these seigniors, in baffling the wishes 
 of the people for security for personal liberty, was destined 
 to work wide evil and bitter suffering in the days that 
 were about to come. 
 
 * The words within commas are those of the document on which the above 
 statement is based.— Maseres, Add. Pap., pp. 447, 448. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 REVIVAL OF THE FRENCH LAWS. — NATURE OF THEBE LAWS. 
 
 National prepossession should never be allowed to sup- 
 press truth or to cloak fact. And it is both truth and 
 fact to say that the administration of justice was the one 
 bright and laudable characteristic of the French rule in 
 Canada. 
 
 The Great Ordinance of the 17th of September, 1764, 
 introduced at once into Canada all the civil and criminal 
 laws of England. In the wording of the Ordinance it was 
 assumed that, " in the Supreme Court sitting at Quebec, 
 his Britannic Majesty was present in the person of his 
 Chief Justice, having full power to determine all civil 
 and criminal cases, agreeably to the laws of England and 
 to the ordinances of this Province." But there were 
 British legists, even in those days, who contended, with 
 the weapons of constitutional precedent, that this " sudden 
 and violent act of legislation " was void and illegal, and 
 that, of right, the French laws should have remained in 
 force in Canada.* The arguments may be thus stated : — 
 The change of laws had not been made by the Parliament 
 of Great Britain, which was the only proper Legislature 
 
 • For an able argument on this subject see pp. 35-47 of a paper in the first 
 vol. of the " Lower Canada Jurist," entitled "A View of the Civil Government 
 and Administration of Justicein the Province of Canada, while it was Subject 
 to the Crown of France." 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 71 
 
 of Canada. The change had not been made by virtue of 
 any legislative authority legally communicated by the 
 King to the Governor and Council of Canada. For the 
 commission, under the great seal to the Governor, commu- 
 nicated no such authority to the Governor and Council, 
 but to the Governor, Council and A.ssembly. The King's 
 private instructions were not a legal method of communi- 
 cating such an authority. Further, the change had been 
 made without a promulgation of the new laws. 
 
 The supplanted law of Canada was a body of juris- 
 prudence known as the " Custom of Paris." The Province 
 was divided into three judicial districts, each of which took 
 its name from its principal town — Quebec, Three Rivers 
 and Montreal. In each of these districts a judge, 
 appointed by the King, had full jurisdiction in all 
 cases, criminal and civil. These judges sat twice a week 
 throughout the year. The exceptions were about six 
 weeks of vacation in September and October, and a fort- 
 night at Easter. If litigants so desired it, the judges, 
 upon being allowed a certain moderate allowance for 
 their extra labour, would sit oftener than once a week. 
 In Quebec and Montreal each judge had an assistant, to 
 take his place in case of sickness or absence. The judges 
 had no option in the modification of the laws, but from 
 all decisions there lay an appeal to the Supreme Council, 
 From the Supreme Council there lay a further appeal to 
 the King of France himself, in his Council of State. 
 
 The Supreme Council, numbering fifteen inembei-s, was 
 
72 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 composed of the principal officials of the civil government, 
 and of men of eminence in the Province. The Governor, 
 the Intendant and the Bishop of Quebec were of the 
 Council ; they had a right to sit and vote, but seldom 
 attended. The Council was solely a Court of Appeal for 
 all matters civil and criminal ; no suit could be originally 
 instituted in it. The Council could relax penalties 
 in criminal and civil offences, and often exercised this 
 power. It sat once a week throughout the year, except 
 in the Autumn vacation and during the Easter solemni- 
 ties. At the urgent demand of suitors the Court would 
 sit oftener than once a week. 
 
 To each of the jurisdictions of Quebec, Three Rivers 
 and Montreal, there was attached a " Procureur du Roi," 
 or Attorney for the King. In this officer was vested the 
 power of a Grand Jury ; it was his duty to inform the 
 Court of the commission of a crime, and to indict the 
 offender. The mode of procedure of the Attorney was 
 very cautious. A person who knew of the commission of 
 a crime called on him voluntarily, was examined, and 
 the evidence taken down in writing. If the Attorney 
 suspected that others besides the voluntary witness knew 
 anything of the crime, such persons he had a right to 
 summon and examine. The witnesses were always ques- 
 tioned separately. If, after the private examinations, the 
 officer considered that he ought to proceed further by 
 way of public trial, he prayed the Court for power of 
 aiTcst. But if the Attorney thought that the private 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 73 
 
 examinations were not of such a nature as to warrant a 
 prosecution, the person privately accused was never 
 molested. If this oflScer allowed, in his district, an 
 offence to pass unexamined, he was held guilty of a mis- 
 demeanor. It was also the duty of the Attorney to sue 
 for the King's civil rights : such as taxes, fines upon the 
 alienation of land, escheats of lands on the commission of 
 Certain great crimes, or the breach of the conditions of 
 tenure. He was obliged, as well, to sue for the rights of 
 all persons and corporations that were under the protection 
 of the Crown : such as orphans, absentees and churches. 
 Further, it was his duty to cause the King's Ordinances, 
 and those of the Supreme Council, to be entered in the 
 Court Registers of his district, and to be duly published. 
 
 There was an officer known as the King's Attorney- 
 Greneral. His duty was to transact the King's business 
 in the Supreme Council or Court of Appeal, and to super- 
 vise the three Attorneys. 
 
 Such were the King's regular law courts. But there 
 was another court of a peculiar jurisdiction : this was the 
 Court of the Intendant. It had power to determine civil 
 matters in a summary manner. The jurisdiction was sel- 
 dom exercised except in such causes as would not bear the 
 cost of litigation in the King's Courts. The people found 
 the Intendant's Court of great advantage, and frequently 
 sought its interference. The Intendant had deputies; their 
 jurisdiction, but not his, was limited to suits not exceed- 
 ing fifty French livres, or about forty shillings sterling. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LAWS OF INHERITANCE. — DETESTATION OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 It was the abolition of their own system of civil 
 laws, and the substitution of that of England, which 
 weighed the most heavily on the French Canadians. In 
 almost every aspect the two legal systems, British and 
 French, were antagonistic. The unnatural custom of 
 primogeniture had no place in the laws of Canada, nor 
 in the hearts of its people.* In respect to the law of in- 
 heritanoe amongst the seigniors, the custom was not to 
 give all to the eldest son. In every case where there were 
 more than two children, the eldest son received only the 
 half of the estate. If there were only two children — that 
 is to say, the eldest son and another — the two-thirds of 
 the estate went to the eldest. As to the law of inheri- 
 tance in the lands of the peasants, all the children received 
 an equal portion. A restraint, however, was imposed in 
 the case of both seignior and peasant, in order to prevent 
 the evils that might flow from too minute subdivision 
 amongst the co-heirs of the last possessor. If the eldest 
 son of the eldest branch of the original seignior's family 
 had no more of the seigniory remaining to him than the 
 manor-house, and the ground close adjoining it and be- 
 
 * The British colonists were willing to have the law of primogeniture ex- 
 pressly excluded, and the French law on that subject expressly revived.— 
 Maseres, Add. Pap. pp. 323, 324. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 75 
 
 longing to it — called the vol du chapon, or capon's range — 
 subdivision ceased. If such an eldest son had a dozen 
 children, his eldest would inherit the whole of this rem- 
 nant of the seigniory. In the peasant's case, it was a law 
 that no one should settle and build upon a less quantity 
 of land than sixty superficial arjpents, or about fifty Eng- 
 lish acres. A peasant who possessed such a piece of land, 
 dying and leaving several children, it was not divided 
 amongst them, but was to be sold, and the price was to 
 be equally divided amongst all the children. If the elder 
 brother were able, it was usual for him to buy out the 
 rights of the others. If he were unable to do this, it was 
 optional with the second, third or fourth brother to pur- 
 chase. It was only when any one of all the brothers was 
 unable or unwilling to satisfy the rights of the rest, that 
 the land was sold out of the family. 
 
 The character of the criminal and civil jurisprudence of 
 French Canada has now been fairly and fully delineated. 
 It was a code well suited to the genius of the people, for 
 it was the natural outcome of their social life and their 
 political institutions. The great defect of the system was, 
 that it was not strong enough to interpose itself between 
 the people and the tyranny of King and noble. This 
 shortcoming, however, may be fairly charged to the 
 timidity and the time-serving of the Parliaments of Old 
 France, rather than to the inherent fault of the juris- 
 prudence itself. To abolish, in particular, the French 
 civil code was the greatest grievance of the Conquest, 
 
76 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 The British civil code was not better for French Canada 
 than the one it had supplanted. The man would justly 
 win the crown of folly who would pretend that every 
 custom and ordinance of England is good for every race, 
 under all circumstances. The French civil laws were 
 best for Canada a century ago. Recast, a few years 
 since, the same laws now regulate the civil interests of 
 the Province of Quebec. The re-establishment of these 
 laws was an equitable concession made to the French 
 Canadians by the Quebec Act of 1774. . 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FEUDAL TENURE : PEASANT SERVITUDES. 
 
 The title of " Seignior " meant, in Canada, the lord and 
 owner of an estate which he held directly from the King 
 of France, "en fief or en roture." * The tracts of land 
 thus granted to the seigniors were seldom less than six 
 English miles square, and were often more.t If the 
 seigniory were sold, the purchaser was obliged to pay to 
 the King what was known as the " quint," or a fifth part 
 of the whole purchase money. One of the conditions on 
 which the King granted the lands was, that the seigniors, 
 as soon as possible, should cause them to be settled. For 
 this purpose the seigniors were compelled to make grants 
 of lands to those who applied for them. The grantees 
 and their heirs were entitled to hold their lands for ever, 
 under the grantor and his heirs. 
 
 Tenure in " franc aleu " w£is a freehold tenure ; lands 
 so held were exempt from all seigniorial rights and dues, 
 the occupants acknowledging the King alone. But there 
 were in all the Province only two fiefs so held. J Lands 
 
 * '* Fiefy" in feudal law, meant an estate in land held of a superior under 
 the charge of fealty, homage and military service. " Roture " meant, in old 
 BVench and Canadian law, a free tenure without the privilege of nobility. 
 
 ■f- The Seigniory of Lauzon, near Quebec, on the opposite side of the St. 
 Lawrence, usually known as the Seigniory of Point Levis, and which belonged 
 to General Murray, was eighteen miles square, and contained 324 square miles. 
 
 X These were Charlesboiu-g, near Quebec ; and 600 " arpents" near Three 
 Rivers, held by the Jesuits. 
 
78 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 were occasionally held by " bail emphit^otique," whicli 
 •was equivalent to a long lease of fifty or more years, the 
 lease carrying a small annual rent. There was also a 
 feudal tenure known as the censive ; it created a moderate 
 annual rent, paid in money or produce. 
 
 The peasant tenure was charged with many oppressive 
 burdens. If the peasant sold his land, the buyer, after 
 paying its price to the seller, was obliged to give to the 
 seignior, over and above that price, the twelfth part of 
 the amount of the purchase money. This seigniorial 
 right was known as " lods et ventes." In case of the 
 prompt payment of the *' lods et ventes," it was usual to 
 reduce them by a fourth. The seignior, in the matter of 
 a sale, possessed the " droit de retrait." This was the 
 privilege of pre-emption, within forty days after the sale, 
 at the highest price that had been obtained. This right, 
 however, was not often exercised. The seignior received 
 a tithe of all the fish caught within his domain, or an 
 equivalent sum. It was his right to fell timber anywhere 
 within his seigniory, for the purpose of erecting mills, 
 repairing roads or making new ones. The peasant was 
 compelled to grind his grain at the '' mo\ilin banal," or 
 his lord's mill ', one-fourteenth part was taken as pay- 
 ment. He was also obliged to perform " corvee," or 
 enforced labour, on the highways and byways. For his 
 rent, he paid every year to the seignior between two 
 shillings and sixpence and five shillings for every ''arpent" 
 which his farm extended in front. To this was added 
 some article of food, as a bushel of wheat. From the 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 79 
 
 fines paid in the seigniorial courts, by persons convicted 
 of petty ofiences, the seigniors derived, in addition to 
 their other revenues, some pecuniary advantages. In 
 their own courts, also, the seigniors sued their tenants for 
 the quit rents and other dues. In the case of tenants 
 who died without heirs, and intestate, the seignior was 
 entitled to the escheat of their lands and goods. If this 
 right, however, were not conferred in the seignior's origi- 
 nal grant of jurisdiction, the escheats reverted to the 
 King. The peasants could not make grants of their lands 
 to be holden of themselves. They were obliged to sell 
 outright, and the buyer took the seller's place, and assumed 
 his feudal obligations in respect to the seignior. 
 
 The one redeeming feature in the seigniorial system 
 was this, that the peasant was, in spite of the feudal 
 obligations, the absolute owner of his farm. His lord 
 could not dispossess him ; nor, after the fashion of the 
 majority of the Irish and Highland Scotch landlords, 
 drive him and his wife and little ones out to die on the 
 highways and in the ditches, of cold and hunger. The 
 French Canadian peasant was, with his lord, a co -pro- 
 prietor of the soil. In comparison with the tenant-serfs 
 of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, the French Cana- 
 dian farmer was independent. From the land which his 
 fathers and himself had reclaimed and made valuable, he 
 could not be barbarously uprooted by his lord. The 
 Canadian seignior was a man of a more equitable type 
 than the average Irish and Highland landlord. He was 
 also of the same race and faith as his nominal tenant. 
 
80 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 But even if he were all these, the State did not leave him 
 to himself, for it threw its shield between him and the 
 peasant. Much of the happiness and prosperity of our 
 country is owing to the fact that we have never been, 
 and never will be, cursed with a land system which, until 
 the humane and far-sighted statesman who now wields 
 the destinies of Great Britain struck it down a few years 
 ago, was at once the blot upon our civilization and the 
 chronic danger of the Empire. 
 
 The total quantity of land in Lower Canada granted 
 to the seigniors exceeded twelve million superficial " ar- 
 pents," or about 15,390 miles.* There is nothing more 
 remarkable in our past political history than the fact that 
 the King of England, at one time, desired to extend over 
 and perpetuate in Canada this seigniorial system, with 
 all its manifold burdens and effective impediments to 
 immigration and the development of the country. In the 
 year 1775, the King, in the 38th Article of his Instruc- 
 tions to Governor Carleton, commanded as follows :— 
 " It is, therefore, our will and pleasure that all the lands 
 which now are or hereafter will be subjected to our dis- 
 posal, be granted in fief or seigneurie in like manner as was 
 practised antecedent to the Conquest." Later still, in 
 1786, in the 40th Article of the Eoyal Instructions to 
 Carleton — by this time created Lord Dorchester — the 
 King again pronounces in favour of the feudal tenures. 
 His Majesty, after directing that the exiled Loyalists from 
 the United States, and the disbanded troops, should re- 
 
 * Bouchette, "Hist. Can." (1832), vol. i. p. 380. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 81 
 
 ceive grants of the waste lands of the Crown, ordered 
 that these lands should be held en seigneurie. These same 
 men, all this time, were making every possible exertion 
 to obtain from the Mother Country the abolition of the 
 feudal, and the establishment of freehold, tenures. But 
 it was not until the year 1789 that the tenure of free and 
 common soccage was effectually introduced. A French 
 Canadian historian says — " Notwithstanding these re- 
 peated and powerful manifestations of the Crown to 
 perpetuate the tenure of fief and seigniory in Lower 
 Canada, ... no fresh grants in fief were made after 
 the Conquest, if we except those of Shoolbred and Mur- 
 ray Bay ; and the whole of the lands of the Colony not 
 previously granted under the feudal system are now con- 
 sidered as soccage lands."* 
 
 It is well in this place to bear in mind that at this 
 period, and until the passing of the Constitutional Act of 
 1791, the Province of Quebec comprised the territory 
 which by that Act was set apart as Upper Canada. It 
 was in this western portion of Quebec, afterwards the 
 Province of Upper Canada, that the Loyalists who were 
 expelled from the United States by the men in arms 
 against the King, chose to seek new homes, and to 
 found a new Britain. To these men, who had suffered 
 and lost so much for the unity of the Empire, the feudal 
 tenure was a grievance to the full as galling as some of 
 those to avoid which they had turned their backs upon 
 civilization, and set their faces toward the wilderness. 
 
 * Bouchette, vol. i. p. 376, 
 
CHAPTER XTV. 
 
 THE CANADIAN REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 In the tempest and turmoil of the American Invasion, 
 the doors of the Legislative Council were shut against 
 the appeals of the people of Canada. But the footprint of 
 the last fljdng enemy had scarcely been effaced from our 
 soil, when the jaws of the prisons opened for the eternal 
 prey of tyranny — the bolder spirits of the land. 
 
 It was not until 1777, the second year after the 
 American Invasion, that the Legislative Council reas- 
 sembled. But the popular voice found no kindly echo 
 within its walls. The functions of this body were of a 
 double nature : they were self-seeking as regarded itself, 
 despotic in respect to the people. There was little dif- 
 ference, in this respect, between the British and the 
 French Canadian Councillors. The former numbered fif- 
 teen, and the latter eight ; and all were salaried. The 
 British clamoured for advantageous grants of land : the 
 French members demanded, " as men of noble rank, all 
 sorts of aristocratic privileges. . . . They were 
 always in opposition to the people's interests, when these 
 interfered in any way with their own immunities."* 
 They believed only in military government. They wor- 
 shipped Power, and were its unreasoning slaves, except 
 
 * Garneau, "Hist. Can.," vol. ii. p. 166. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 83 
 
 when it put forth its hand against their order or their 
 nationality.* 
 
 . When the Council met, it was not to seek remedies 
 for the healing of the country, but to forge fetters for its 
 limbs, as yet bleeding and paralyzed. An ordinance was 
 passed, creating a military despotism. All the inhabit- 
 ants were compelled to submit to the unquestioning 
 tyranny of the sword. They were to bear arms beyond 
 the Canadian frontiers for an unlimited period, and were 
 not even to receive the scanty pittance of the soldier. 
 For those absent on military service, they who chanced 
 to be at home were obliged to undertake agricultural 
 labour, and this without any manner of reward. For 
 neglect or refusal of the commands of this ordinance, the 
 people were subjected to the most severe penalties. 
 
 The Council, in addition to the military code, passed 
 other ordinances. They introduced the commercial code 
 of England and established a Court of Probate. They 
 constituted themselves a Court of Appeal, but left a 
 final power of appeal to the Privy Council in England : 
 they authorized the opening of Courts of Oyer and 
 Terminer. 
 
 The labours of the Council engendered social and 
 political chaos. The tribunals administered law, some- 
 times according to the French, at other times accord- 
 ing to the English code. But the militia law was the 
 greatest calamity ; it weighed down to the very earth 
 
 * Gameau, " Hist. Can.," vol. ii. p. 166. 
 
84 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOKY OF CANADA. 
 
 the miserable peasantry. The British colonists were 
 the spokesmen for their oppressed fellow- citizens as 
 well as for themselves ; but just as they had taken 
 the first step to compel the Legislative Council to listen 
 to the complaints of the Province, a new and hostile 
 influence brought itself to bear on Canada. Tn 1777, 
 General Haldimand, by birth a Swiss, by profession a 
 soldier in the British army, replaced Carleton in the 
 Governorship of the Province. Under his sway, the 
 natural antagonism between liberty and the rule of the 
 sword displayed itself in all of its unrelenting and repul- 
 sive phases. Haldimand acted as if the people of Canada 
 were the rank and file of a mutinous regiment. The 
 spectre of Eepublicanism haunted him by day and terrified 
 him by night. Imprisonment — reckless, needless, cruel — 
 was his sole exorcism. The enforced military service, 
 and the enforced statute labour, wore out the bodies and 
 the patience of the peasantry. They could do nothing 
 but complain. But to tyrants, in troublous times, com- 
 plaint is held to be akin to treason. Haldimand fancied 
 that these lamentations were the outpourings of the 
 spirit of revolt, excited by republican emissaries. He 
 tried to stifle them in the dumbness of the dungeon. 
 Acting on mere suspicion, he filled the prisons with mul- 
 titudes, indifferent as to whether they were innocent or 
 guilty.* ' 
 
 The Council looked upon these outrages with pitiless 
 
 * Garneau, "Hist. Can,," vol. ii. p. 170. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 85 
 
 eyes and callous hearts. In 1779 it met, sat for a few 
 days : renewed some ordinances about to expire : ad- 
 journed. In 1780 it again assembled. One of its mem- 
 bers, named Allsopp, moved that the Governor should be 
 asked for a copy of his Instructions respecting the 
 administration of the Province. The proposition was 
 voted down. The outcry of the people was not, how- 
 ever, to be altogether silenced, even in the Council. 
 Again Mr. Allsopp, who was in opposition to the 
 despotism of the time, demanded the introduction of the 
 free laws of Great Britain. But once more he was 
 doomed to fail. A rumour had gone abroad that the 
 Americans were preparing for another invasion. The 
 Government became more tyrannical. That cruelty 
 which is the sure sign of weakness and of rottenness in a 
 state, was again put forth in military arrests. The rich 
 and the poor alike, on the mere suspicion of treason, on 
 charges for lesser offences, and no accusation whatever, 
 were swept before a wave of bayonets into the filled and 
 festering prisons, or into the noisome holds of war-vessels 
 in the St. Lawrence. No information was vouchsafed to 
 these miserable men as to the cause for which they had 
 been robbed of their liberty. Many suffered not only 
 loss of liberty, but of fortune.* 
 
 The Government of Canada reached the shameful 
 summit of its tyranny in respect to its treatment of 
 private correspondence. Matters of a private nature, 
 
 * Gameau, •* Hist. Can.," vol. U. pp. 178, 174. 
 
86 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 which, on account of their very privacy, assume, by the 
 general consent of men and moralists, a character almost 
 sacred, were violated by the polluted fingers of the rob- 
 ber-spy. On several occasions the European mail-bags 
 were found lying opened at the Governor's, and the con- 
 tents scattered about the floor.* The distrust in which 
 Governor Haldimand held letter-writers was encouraged 
 by the seigniorial members of the Council, who feared that 
 Republicanism, if it succeeded in Canada, would trample 
 their privileges in the dust.t The principal pretexts for 
 these multiplied outrages were mere suspicion of being in 
 communication with the Americans, and disobedience to 
 the new militia law. As a rule, the French Canadians, 
 in greater numbers than the British, were made to feel 
 the tyranny of Governor Haldimand and his Legislative 
 Council. 
 
 * Gameau, " Hist. Can.," vol. ii. p. 173. 
 + Ibid. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PEACE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED 
 STATES : ITS EFFECTS ON CANADA. 
 
 The treaty of peace concluded between Great Britain 
 and the United States on the 3rd of September, 1783, 
 was the talisman that set the Canadian state prisoners 
 free. ^ The jails disgorged the victims of arbitrary arrests, 
 innocent or guilty. But Governor Haldimand and the 
 Legislative Council gave to these sufferers neither the 
 m'elancholy satisfaction of knowing wherefore they had 
 been deprived of their liberty, nor indemnity for the 
 deprivation. The treaty of peace stripped Canada of the 
 five western countries which had been added to it by 
 the Quebec Act. The United States, characterized even 
 then by the territorial gluttony which they have ever 
 since displayed for the possessions of their neighbours, 
 clamoured for and closed upon Lake Cham plain, an 
 important adjunct and defence of Eastern or Lower 
 > Canada. 
 
 If the treaty narrowed the boundaries of Canada, it 
 brought her peace. With peace came the dawn of per- 
 sonal liberty. In 1785, the British Ministry chose to 
 indicate to the rulers of Canada that it was now time to 
 Revive the slumbering writ of habeas corpus. But the 
 Legislative Council must needs debate the matter. This 
 
 \ 
 
88 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 body, which was swift of deed when the rights of the 
 men of Canada were to be violated, was slow of deed, 
 even when called upon by the Ministers of the Empire, 
 to make atonement. The Council, however, dared not 
 long resist the behests of the Mother Country and the 
 pressure of Provincial popular opinion, which, gathering 
 strength in Canada, was rolling up like a wave against 
 the barricaded doors of the Legislative conclave. The 
 Council were obliged to pass an ordinance introducing 
 the law of habeas corpus. Governor Haldimand signed 
 the instrument. It was his last official act. He left 
 Canada, pursued by the hot indignation of the vast 
 majority of the inhabitants of both races.* The people 
 could not believe that they had been oppressed by' the 
 will and wish of the Mother Country. Upon Haldimand, 
 therefore, who, in reality, was no more to blame than the 
 Legislative Council, if indeed he were to blame as much, 
 ^e people of Canada joined in pouring out the vial of 
 national hatred, a stream which keeps fresh, for ever, the 
 tainted memory of him on whom it has once descended. 
 It must be said, however, in justice to Haldimand, that his 
 despotism had but one object in view : to prevent 
 Canada from falling into the jaws of the United States. 
 
 * Aware that he was detested by the people, Haldimand, during his last two 
 years of oflSce, repeatedly solicited his recall.— Garneau, "Hist, Can.," vol. ii. 
 p. 180. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PEOPLE ENTREAT FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERN- 
 MENT. — OPPOSITION OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 
 
 DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF CANADA. 
 
 As soon as the weight of military despotism was re- 
 moved from the Province, there followed the natural 
 rebound. The British and French Canadians, in 1783, 
 united themselves in petitions to the Home Government, 
 praying for constitutional changes, for equal political 
 rights, for a House of Assembly, for the restoration of the 
 law of habeas corpus. The Legislative Council became 
 alarmed. In 1784, by a majority of two-thirds, it passed 
 an address to the King, thanking him for his protection 
 during the American war, and praying that he would 
 permit no change in the mode of government established 
 by the Quebec Bill. This address, which was merely the 
 echo of a paltry minority of the people of Canada, had 
 the eJBfect, when it reached England, of postponing tl^e, 
 day of constitutional government. Lord Sidney, onesN 
 of the principal Secretaries of State, was content that \ 
 the law of habeas corpus should be introduced ; but he \ 
 was of opinion that those who demanded a Legislative \ 
 Assembly, trial by jury, and the permanence of the seats 1 
 of the judges, were persons of evil dispositions and of ques- I 
 
90 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 tionable loyalty.* The people of Canada, however, were 
 not thus to be silenced. Montreal and Quebec, in 1784^, 
 petitioned for an elective Assembly, a Council of un-l 
 salaried members, the extension of British jurisprudence 
 to places not yet organized for judicial purposes, and trial 
 l>y jury in civil cases. Counter-petitions from the partj^ 
 of tyranny followed the others to London. The Britist 
 Ministry were perplexed. Some of the propositions be 
 longed to that class of which the novelty obscures, for 
 the moment, the underlying absurdity. One petition, 
 for example, prayed that the British inhabitants should 
 be represented in the House of Commons, stating that] 
 this would be much better than to establish a Colonial ) 
 Assembly, whose members, French Canadians, would be 
 elected by their co-nationalists. O/^ 
 
 The war of petitions and counter-petitions was waged 
 from 1785 to 1788. The British House of Commons gave 
 them passing notice, but not practical consideration; for 
 the affairs of Europe were filling, to the exclusion of all 
 else, every sphere of legislation. In 1789, Mr. Grenville, 
 successor to Lord Sidney, transmitted to Lord Dor- 
 chester, Governor-General of Canada, the scheme of a 
 constitution. Mr. Grenville further requested the 
 Governor to send home to England the views which, 
 after mature consideration, he might form concerning the 
 whole matter. 
 
 The social condition of Canada, in the period between 
 
 * Gameau, " Hist. Can,," vol. ii. p. 168. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 91 
 
 the American Invasion and 1787, was deplorable. Society- 
 seemed to be in danger of dissolving into its primitive 
 barbaric elements. Liberty, justice, security, there were 
 none. An inquiry, carried out in 1787 by Lord 
 Dorchester, at the command of the British Government, 
 threw some gleams of light on the seething social chaos. 
 The worst of the revelations was, that the fountain of 
 j ustice was polluted at its source. One judge had been 
 seen, when drunk, to ascend the bench, and disgrace the 
 administration of the law. The same judge had often 
 refused to hear evidence, stating that outside of the 
 Court he had been in communication with the litigants. 
 Another judge, in order to nonsuit a party in a case, 
 himself produced a letter from an individual interested 
 in the action, which letter, denying certain facts, the 
 judge accepted for evidence, ^n an othnr piwn thr nniTTin 
 judge sto pppH t]]p. snit^- simply observing t| ]^||f |]f[ ^mo-nr 
 ^^'^ 'jff*'""^"^^ T"^"^ ^^^^ ^^ "^^s a man quite incapable of 
 the act o f which he stood charp^ed. AVorst of all, per- 
 haps, it was ascertained that Governor Haldimand, him- 
 self, on one occasion took his seat on the bench, and, by 
 influencing the judges, had caused M. du Calvet, a politi- 
 cal prisoner, to be despoiled of the sum of £6,000. f 
 
 The intellectual condition of the people was wretched. 
 An ignorance, like that Egyptian darkness which could 
 be felt, was spread over the whole land, making the 
 minds of men barren, sluggish and unwholesome. No 
 system of elementary education had been provided for 
 the people. There was not a public school-house in the 
 
92 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 Province. Nor, in the matter of the repression of crime, 
 was there any effective agency. A court-house did not 
 exist in Canada ; nor was there a serviceable prison nor a 
 house of correction in the country. Such was the condi- 
 tion of things when the British Parliament reached forth 
 its hand to Canada, to lead her up the steep and hazard- 
 ous way that ascends to Constitutional Government. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE NATION-BUILDERS OF UPPER CANADA. 
 
 In the period previous to the rupture between Great 
 Britain and her Colonies, and during the progress of the 
 struggle, there were those in the disaffected Provinces 
 who sympathised with the Mother Country. These men 
 were, as a rule, amongst the most estimable of the popu- 
 lation. To their revolted fellow-citizens, the feelings 
 which actuated these Loyalists ought to have been a 
 guarantee for respect, or, at least, ought to have pleaded 
 for a generous forbearance. For these friends of Brit- 
 ish connection were no unreasoning lovers of tyranny. 
 But they believed, in all honesty of heart, that there was 
 no cause why the Thirteen Colonies should break away 
 from Great Britain. They chose an heroic part; they 
 would not let the self-interest of the moment bear down, 
 and bury out of sight for ever, the warm and well-earned 
 remembrance of all the past kindnesses which the Mother 
 Land had heaped upon her offspring. The present un- 
 reasonable demands of the Parent could not extinguish 
 the kindly flame of gratitude which fed itself on the 
 hearts of the American Loyalists. 
 
 These men were in a minority, the invariable fate of 
 moderation in any great political problem. The majority 
 of their countrymen rose up against them. To the tiger- 
 passions of the mob, thirst for blood, and cruelty for the 
 
94 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOEY OF CANADA. 
 
 sake of cruelty, were added, in the case of the outnum- 
 bered Loyalists, lust for their possessions, with that un- 
 reasoning hatred which is the certain outcome of civil 
 war, and sure to be engendered between brethren of the 
 aforetime. Some of the Loyalists took up arms in de- 
 fence of King, Parliament and a United Empire. In the 
 case of the aged and the non-combatants ; in the case of 
 that denomination of Christian men whose glory it is to 
 walk the world searching for the blessing pronounced by 
 the Divine lips two thousand years ago on the peace- 
 makers — in the case of all these, the outrages of civil 
 war were unleashed like so many blood-hounds. * 
 
 These Loyalists, like wild beasts, were hunted out of 
 their native land. They fled to Canada, they and their 
 wives and their little ones. The savage wilderness gave 
 them shelter from their more savage brethren. They 
 chose the Western portion of Canada as the place where 
 they would hew out for themselves a rude and wretched 
 resemblance of that home from which they had been 
 driven. The Mother Country did not forget those who, 
 for her sake, had become exiles. Lands were granted to 
 them ; they were taken under the special protection of 
 the Empire. And, in 1789, an Order in Council testi- 
 fied to their worthiness of Imperial favour and perma- 
 nent recognition. " To put a mark of honour upon the 
 families who had adhered to the unity of the Empire, and 
 joined the Eoyal standard in America, before the Treaty 
 of Separation, in 1783," the Order in Council commanded 
 
 * See Lorenzo Sabine's « History of the United Empire LoytdiBts." 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 95 
 
 that a list of these men should be prepared. This was to 
 be done in order that "their posterity might be dis- 
 criminated from the then future settlers." The initials 
 in the words of the Order in Council, " Unity of the Em- 
 pire," gave to this roll of honour the appellation of the 
 " U. E." List. The immediate offspring of those whose 
 names were thus inscribed, reaped advantage from the 
 circumstance. And, in the war of 1812, they proved to 
 the world that these favours had been well bestowed, 
 and that the ancestral valour of their race had not become 
 degenerate. 
 
 It must not be supposed that these expatriated colonists 
 were the blind champions of arbitrary rule. They were 
 the very opposite. They would have repudiated, with 
 indignation, the slavish doctrine that the Monarch alone 
 should make laws for Great Britain or the Colonies. 
 They believed in the Constitution as then interpreted — 
 namely, that the King, Lords and Commons of right had, 
 and ought to have, supreme legislative sovereignty over 
 all colonies of English-speaking men. The idea which 
 fed the conflict of Great Britain with her Colonies was 
 not so much that the King should have domination, as 
 that this domination should belong to Parliament. The 
 annals of our British Parliaments are an anomalous and 
 a conflicting record. In respect to our whole legislative 
 history, the feelings of the Nation have oscillated between 
 two extremes — superstitious reverence and loud-spoken 
 contempt. At this period, the feeling of reverence hap- 
 pened to be in the ascendant. Parliament, which is as 
 
96 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 the brain of the body politic, and occasionally in magnetic 
 sympathy with the moods and passions of the hour, 
 chanced, at this epoch, to be thrilled and influenced by 
 the national impulse towards war. The Loyalists in the 
 Colonies were in unison with the majority of their fellow- 
 citizens at Home, but in discord with the majority of their 
 fellow-citizens in America. 
 
 The settlement of the Loyalists in Canada was worth 
 more than an army to the British Colonists in the Eastern 
 part of the Province, praying for a House of Assembly. 
 The U. E Loyalists did not suffer for Great Britain with 
 the intention of yielding up their hereditary right to 
 Representative Government, and their privileges as British 
 citizens. They were not long in Canada until they pro- 
 tested against the feudal tenures.* And, thinking they 
 recognised social barriers that might, in the future, 
 separate them, in many respects, from Eastern Canada, 
 the U. E. Loyalists of tjie Western section were desirous 
 of having a Legislature of their own, moulded, as nearly 
 as possible, after the similitude of the Parliament of the 
 Mother Land. Such were the men who were the Nation-' 
 Builders of Upper Canada ; who laid, in heroism, self- 
 sacrifice, loyalty and steadfast labour, the foundation of a 
 social and political system which, of all the social and 
 political systems in this New World, most nearly re- 
 sembles that of Great Britain. From such beginning 
 rose Ontario, the Pillar Province of the British North 
 American Confederation. 
 
 * See ante, p, 8. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIT. 
 
 CANADA IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. THE KING's 
 
 MESSAGE. 
 
 On the 25th of February, 1791, in the House of Com- 
 mons, William Pitt presented a message from His Majesty 
 respecting the government of Quebec. The King ac- 
 quainted the House that it appeared to him it would be 
 for the benefit of his subjects in his Province of Quebec 
 to divide it into two separate Provinces, the one to be 
 called Upper, and the other Lower, Canada. Therefore, 
 it was his intention so to divide Quebec, whenever he 
 should be enabled, by Act of Parliament, to establish the 
 necessary regulations for the government of the two Pro- 
 vinces. His Majesty, accordingly, recommended this 
 object to the consideration of the House. He also recom- 
 mended the consideration of such provisions as might be 
 necessary to make a permanent appropriation of lands in 
 the two Provinces for the support and maintenance of a 
 Protestant clergy, the appropriation to be in proportion 
 to such lands as he had already granted within the Pro- 
 vinces.* 
 
 On the 4th of March, the order of the day being read 
 I for taking into consideration His Majesty's message rela- 
 \tive to the government of Quebec, William Pitt made a 
 
 "Parliamentary History," vol. xxviii. p. 1271. 
 
98 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 motion founded upon the message. The object of his mo- 
 tion was to repeal part of the Quebec Bill, and to enact 
 lew regulations for the future government of that Pro- 
 . The new Bill was intended to put an end to the 
 (differences of opinion and growing competition for some 
 years existing in Canada, on several important points, be- 
 tween the ancient inhabitants and the new settlers from 
 England and from America • and to bring the government 
 of the Province as near to the British Constitution as cir- 
 cumstances would admit. 
 
 The first great object of the new Bill was to divide the 
 Province into two parts : one to be named Upper, 
 the other Lower, Canada. The Upper Province was to be 
 for the English and American settlers ; the Lower, for the 
 Canadians. The division, it was hoped, could be made in 
 such a manner as to give to each race a great majority in 
 its own particular territory. In each Province were to be 
 established a House of Assembly arid Legislative Council, 
 which would give all the advantages of the British Con- 
 stitution. Members of the Council would hold their seats, 
 not during pleasure, but for life. Further, the descend- 
 ants of such members as should be honoured with heredi- 
 tary titles were to have an hereditary right of sitting in 
 the Council. It was also proposed to annex the dignity 
 of a member of Council to every title of honour that 
 might be conferred. 
 
 The Canadians were in possession, in many respects, of 
 the English civil law. But this law did not extend to 
 landed property. It was therefore intended that landed 
 
/ 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 99 
 
 property should rest on soccage tenures. A specific point 
 in the Bill was the extension of the Habeas Corpus Act 
 to both Provinces ; the Act was at present in operation in 
 Canada, under the authority of a Provincial ordinance : 
 and an ordinance had the force of law. 
 
 The laws in operation would be continued until the 
 Assembly of each Province chose to alter them. In this 
 manner, the complaints of the petitions now before the 
 House would be remedied, as the inhabitants of Quebec 
 would have an Assembly, with the power of enacting 
 what laws they pleased. 
 
 The Bill contained another important enactment. It 
 made provision for the maintenance of the Protestant 
 clergy in both Provinces. For this purpose there was to 
 be a permanent appropriation of certain portions of land ; 
 and such provisions for future grants of land within each 
 Province, in proportion to the increase of their population 
 and cultivation, as might best conduce to the same object. 
 But, as in one of the Provinces the majority of the in- 
 habitants would be Roman Catholics, it was meant to 
 provide that it should not be lawful for His Majesty, in 
 future, to assent to grants of land for this purpose, under 
 the sanction of the Council and Assembly of either Pro- 
 vince, without first submitting them to the consideration 
 of the British Parliament. 
 
 In regard to taxation : — To avoid the occasion of a mis- 
 understanding similar to that which had formerly taken 
 place in respect to the Thirteen Colonies, no taxes were 
 
foo 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 meant to be imposed by the British Parliament on Cana- 
 da, saving only such as might be necessary for the pur- 
 poses of commercial regulation. But in this case, so 
 as to avoid even the possibility of a cavil, the levying 
 and disposal of such taxes should be left entirely to the 
 wisdom of the Provincial Legislatures. 
 
 By dividing the Province into two, Pitt conceived that 
 the existing causes of controversy would be removed. 
 " In the Lower Canada, as the residents would be chiefly 
 Canadians, their Assembly would be adapted to their 
 habits and prejudices. The Upper Canada, being almost 
 entirely peopled by emigrants from Great Britain, or from 
 America, the Protestant religion would be the Establish- 
 ment, and they would have the benefit of the English 
 tenure law." He moved for leave to bring in a Bill " to 
 repeal certain parts of the Act 14 George 3rd, and to 
 make further provision for the government of the said 
 Province."* 
 
 Charles James Fox found it impossible to concur in any 
 plan like the one proposed until the Bill was before the 
 House. But he was willing to declare that the giving to 
 a country so far distant from England a Legislature, and 
 the power of governing for itself, would exceedingly pre- 
 possess him in favour of every part of the plan. He did 
 not hesitate to say, that if a Local Legislature were liber- 
 ally formed, that circumstance would incline him much 
 to overlook defects in the other regulations. For he was 
 
 * " Parliamentary History," vol. xxviii. pp. 1376-1379. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 101 
 
 convinced that the only means of retaining distant colo- 
 nies with advantage was to enable them to govern them- 
 
 * 
 
 Pitt obtained leave to bring in the Bill. 
 
 " Parliameutary History," vol. xxviii, p. 1379. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE BRITISH MERCHANTS IN EASTERN CANADA OPPOSE 
 THE BILL. 
 
 The British merchants in Eastern Canada took exception 
 to several propositions in the Bill. On the 23rd of 
 March, 1791, Mr. Adam Lymburner, a Quebec colonist, 
 and their agent, was heard on their behalf at the bar of 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 The House of Commons heard from the Canadian agent 
 some of the grievances of the Quebec Bill. The people 
 had severely felt and suffered under the confusion which 
 that Bill had introduced. They had been exposed to the 
 pernicious effects of uncertain and undefined laws, and to 
 the arbitrary judgments of Courts guided by no fixed 
 principles and certain rules. What was called in the 
 Quebec Bill " the Laws of Canada " had not yet been 
 defined. Sixteen years had now elapsed since that Bill 
 came into effect ; but it was not determined what or how 
 many of the laws of France composed the system of Cana- 
 dian jurisprudence previous to the Conquest ; or even if 
 there were any positive system, particularly for commer- 
 cial transactions. He stood before the House as the 
 agent of a number of the most respectable and intelligent 
 of the French Canadians, to solicit the total repeal of the 
 Quebec Bill. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 103 
 
 The investigation made by order of Lord Dorchester, 
 in 1787, into the past administration of justice in the 
 Province, as well as the disputes between the Upper and 
 Lower Courts since that period, showed that neither the 
 judges, the lawyers nor the people understood what were 
 the laws of Canada previous to the Conquest. There had 
 been no certainty on any object of litigation except in 
 such matters as regarded the possession, transmission or 
 alienation of landed property where the Custom of Paris 
 was very clear. 
 
 On behalf of those he represented, Mr. Lymbumer op- 
 posed the intention of the new Act to divide Quebec into 
 two Provinces. He had not heard this had been the 
 general wish of the Loyalists who had settled in the Up- 
 per or Western part of the Province; it was not the desire 
 of the people of the Lower or Eastern part. The Loyal- 
 ists, as well as the inhabitants of Eastern Quebec, had had 
 reason to complain of the present system of Civil Govern- 
 ment But, even supposing the Loyalists had wished for 
 a division of the Province, he hoped the House would 
 consider that, in a matter of such vast importance as the 
 separation for ever of the interests and connections of those 
 who, from local situation, were certainly designed by na- 
 ture to remain united, that the interest, the feelings and 
 desires of Eastern Quebec ought to be consulted. Defer- 
 ence in this respect was as much owing to Eastern Quebec 
 as to the wild project of a small body of people who were 
 thinly scattered over the upper parts of the Province, and 
 who had not had time to examine into their relative situar 
 
104 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 tion, and the natural dependence which their country must 
 have on the lower parts of the Province.* As an addi- 
 tional argument against separation, he stated that, in peti- 
 tions then on the table of the House, the people of Eastern 
 Quebec had complained that already the Province had 
 been greatly mutilated, and that its resources would be 
 greatly reduced by the operation of the Treaty of Peace 
 of 1783. 
 
 To that portion of the Bill which provided for a Cana- 
 dian hereditary peerage or aristocracy, Mr. Lymburner 
 offered a determined opposition. The people, as would be 
 seen from the petitions on the table, had only requested 
 that the Legislative Councillors should hold their offices 
 during life. The hereditary principle was an expedient 
 extremely dangerous in any infant colony ; but it must 
 appear absolutely ridiculous in the Province of Quebec, 
 where there were so few landed estates of any considerable 
 value ; and where, by the laws of inheritance, these estates 
 must, at every succession, be reduced to one-half, and in 
 two generations inevitably sink into insignificance. Thus, 
 the hereditary Councillors, from their poverty, would be- 
 come objects of contempt to the public. It might be said 
 that the families of Legislative Councillors might be sup- 
 ported in an independent situation by introducing the 
 laws of primogeniture. But this would be extremely in- 
 jurious to the Prbvince._The.Fjrench law, in this respect, 
 
 * Mr. Lyrnburner was somewhat inconsistent with himself. He had just pre- 
 viously stated that he had not heard that separation " had been the general 
 wish of the Loyalists." 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 105 
 
 was much better calculated for a young country, where it 
 was of great advantage to cultivation and population that 
 landed property should be divided, fluctuate and change 
 owners. He informed the House that, poor as the coun- 
 try really was, on account of the oppressive system of 
 laws under which it had suffered, there were, amongst its 
 merchants, those whose moveable fortunes were, perhaps, 
 equal, if not superior, to any of the seigniorial estates. 
 These men, from the employment and support they gave 
 to thousands of the people, had infinitely more influence 
 in the country than the seigniors. For it would not be 
 difficult to prove that the seigniors were almost universally 
 disliked by their tenants. From these facts he hoped the 
 House would see the impropriety and the danger of ren- 
 dering the office of Councillor hereditary.* 
 
 Mr. Lymburner pointed out what he considered had 
 been a radical defect in the representation of all our 
 American Colonies. There were but few towns in the 
 Colonies. These towns had only their proportion of re- 
 presentatives. The result was, that the landed interest 
 had always been too prevalent, and had, at times, greatly 
 oppressed the commerce of the Colonies, and impeded the 
 operations of government. 
 
 He entreated that the Province should not, for some 
 time, be called upon to defray the expenses of its civil 
 
 * Mr. Lymbumer's aixximent had no effect. The Bill established the here- 
 ditary principle. But no Governor, in either Province, ever ventured to give 
 it effect. The Governors knew anada better than British Ministers or Par- 
 liaments. 
 
106 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 Government. He acknowledged it was the intention of 
 his constituents that the Province should defray these 
 expenses. But Canada had been so long oppressed and 
 neglected, and every object of industry and improvement 
 had been so apparently discouraged, that the country was 
 now reduced to such a state of languor and depression, 
 that it was unable to provide for the expenses of its Civil 
 Government. This present financial inability ought to be 
 excused in those who had been told " that ignorance and 
 poverty were the best secuiity for the obedience of the 
 subject ; and that those who did not approve of these 
 political principles might leave the country." He hoped, 
 therefore, that the House of Commons would release the 
 Province of the expenses of the Civil List for a certain 
 number of years.;}: 
 
 Mr. Lymburner asked, on behalf of his constituents : 
 The total repeal of the Quebec Act : that optional juries 
 might be granted in civil cases, nine jurors out of twelve 
 being sufficient to return a verdict. That the judges 
 might not be subject to suspension or removal by the 
 Governor. Amongst the objections Mr. Lymburner made 
 to the Bill were the claiming of tithes from the distant 
 Protestant settlers, and not fixing the rate. The House 
 refused to concede the requests, or to entertain the 
 objection. 
 
 t The House of Commons granted the request of Mr. Lymburner, and dealt 
 " most liberally, at least, with respect to Lower Canada. It was not until 1818 
 that the Assembly of this Province was called upon, pursuant to their voluntary 
 offer in 1810, to vote the necessary expenses of the Civil Government." — Christie, 
 Hist. L. C, vol. i., p. 103. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FOX AND PITT ON THE NEW CONSTITUTION. 
 
 In the House of Commons, on the 8th of April, Mr. 
 Hussey presented a petition from several merchants con- 
 cerned in the trade to Quebec, praying that the Quebec 
 Government Bill might not pass. The petition stated 
 that the Bill would be attended with great injury to the 
 Province, and particularly to the trade and commerce of 
 the petitioners. The Speaker having put the question, 
 " that the Beport of the Committee on the Bill be now 
 taken into further consideration," Mr. Hussey moved that 
 the Bill be re-committed.* 
 
 Charles James Fox then rose in his place to second 
 the motion. He thought that a Constitution should be 
 framed for Canada as consistent as possible with the prin- 
 ciples of freedom. This Bill would not establish such a 
 Government, and that was his chief reason for opposing 
 it. He approved of a House of Assembly for each 
 Province ; but the number of members deserved par- 
 ticular attention. Although it might be perfectly true 
 that a country three or four times as large as Great 
 Britain ought to have representatives three or four times 
 as numerous, yet it was not fit to say that a small country 
 should have an Assembly proportionally small. The 
 
 ' " Parliamentary History," vol. xxix. p. 105. 
 
108 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 great object in the institution of all popular assemblies 
 was, that the people should be freely and fully repre- 
 sented, and that the representative body should have all 
 the virtues and the vices incidental to such assemblies. 
 But when they made an assembly to consist of sixteen or 
 thirty persons, they gave a free Constitution in appear- 
 ance, when, in fact, they withheld it. 
 
 He opposed the proposition of the Bill to make the 
 Canadian Legislatures septennial ; and thought that, from 
 the situation of Canada, annual or triennial Parliaments 
 would be much preferable. He disapproved of the elec- 
 toral qualification. In England, a freehold of forty 
 shillings was sufficient ; in Canada, five pounds were 
 necessary. This might be said to make no material dif- 
 ference. But, granting that it did not ; when the House 
 was giving to the world, by this Bill, its notions of the 
 principles of election, it should not hold out that the 
 qualifications in Great Britain were lower than they 
 ought to be. The qualification on a house in Canada was 
 to be ten pounds. In fact, he thought that the whole of 
 this Constitution was an attempt to undermine and con- 
 tradict the professed purport of the Bill — namely, the 
 introduction of a Popular Government into Canada. 
 
 He pointed out this anomaly : that although the Legis- 
 lative Assemblies were to consist of so inconsiderable a 
 representation, the Legislative Councils were unlimited 
 as to numbers. He saw nothing so good in hereditary 
 powers and honours as to incline the House to introduce 
 them into a country where they were unknown, and 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 109 
 
 by such means distinguish Canada from all the Colonies 
 on the other side of the Atlantic, In countries where 
 they made a part of the Constitution, he did not think 
 it wise to destroy them ; but to give birth and life 
 to such principles in countries where they did not exist, 
 appeared to him to be exceedingly unwise. Nor could he 
 account for it, unless it was that Canada having been for- 
 merly a French colony, there might be an opportunity of 
 reviving those titles of honour, the extinction of which 
 some gentlemen so much deplored.* It seemed to him 
 peculiarly absurd to introduce hereditary honours in 
 America, where those artificial distinctions stunk in the 
 nostrils of the natives. He thought these powers and 
 honours wholly unnecessary, and tending rather to make 
 a new Constitution worse than better. If the Council 
 were wholly hereditary, he should equally object to it : it 
 would ouly add to the power of the King and Governor. 
 For a Council so constituted would only be the tool of 
 the Governor, as the Governor himself would only be the 
 tool and engine of the King. 
 
 The enactment respecting the reservation of lands for 
 ecclesiastical purposes, next provoked the criticism of Fox. 
 He totally disapproved of the clause which provided, 
 "that whenever the King shall make grants of lands, 
 one-seventh part of those lands shall be appropriated to 
 the Protestant clergy." He had two objections to these 
 regulations. In all grants of lands made in that country 
 
 * The allusion was to the overthrow of the aristocracy of France by the 
 recent Revolution. 
 
110 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 to Catholics — and a majority of the inhabitants were of 
 that persuasion — one-seventh part of those grants was to be 
 appropriated to the Protestant clergy, although they might 
 not have any cure of souls, or any congregation to instruct. 
 One-tenth part of the produce of this country was assigned, 
 and this, perhaps, was more than one-seventh part of the 
 land. He wished to deprive no clergyman of his just 
 rights ; but in settling a new constitution, to enact that the 
 clergy should have one-seventh of all grants appeared to 
 him an absurd doctrine. If they were all of the Church 
 of England, this would not reconcile him to the measure. 
 The greater part of these Protestant clergy were not of the 
 Church of England; they were chiefly Protestant Dis- 
 senters. The House was therefore going to give Dissenters 
 one-seventh of all the lands in the Province. This was 
 not the proportion either in Scotland or in any other 
 country where those religious principles were professed. 
 This provision would rather tend to corrupt than to bene- 
 fit the clergy. 
 
 Fox complained that, with all its variety of clauses and 
 regulations, there had not yet been a word said in explana- 
 tion of the Bill. It went through the House silently, 
 without one observation ; it also went through the Com- 
 mittee, only in form, but not in substance. 
 
 He proceeded to discuss that enactment of the Bill 
 which struck him the most forcibly. This was the divi- 
 sion of the Province of Canada. It had been urged that, 
 by such means, the House could separate the English and 
 French inhabitants of the Province. But was this to be 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. Ill 
 
 desired 1 Was it not rather to be avoided 1 Was it 
 agreeable to general political expediency 1 The most de- 
 sirable circumstance was, that the French and English in- 
 habitants should unite and coalesce, as it were, into one 
 body, and that the different distinctions of the people 
 might be extinguished for ever. If this had been the ob- 
 ject in view, the English laws might soon have prevailed 
 universally throughout Canada, not from force, but from 
 choice and conviction of their superiority. The inhabit- 
 ants of Canada had not the laws of France. The Com- 
 mercial Code was not established there ; they stood upon 
 the exceedingly inconvenient Custom of Paris. He wished 
 the people of the country to adopt the English laws from 
 choice, and not from force; and he did not think the 
 division of the Province the most likely thing to bring 
 about this desirable end. Canada was a country as capa- 
 ble of enjoying political freedom as any other country on 
 the face of the globe. It was material that the inhabit- 
 ants should have nothing to look to among their neigh- 
 bours to excite their envy. Canada must be preserved to 
 Great Britain by the choice of its inhabitants. But it 
 should be felt by the inhabitants that their situation was 
 not worse than that of their neighbours. This, however, 
 would never be the case under a Bill which held out to 
 them something like the shadow of the British Constitu- 
 tion, but denied them the substance. He held that the 
 Legislative Councils ought to be totally free, and repeat- 
 edly chosen ; in a manner as much independent of the 
 Governor as the nature of the Colony would admit. But 
 
112 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 if not, they should have their seats for life ; be appointed 
 by the King ; consist of a limite<i number, and possess no 
 hereditary honours.* 
 
 William Pitt confessed it was certainly his wish that 
 the Assemblies in both Provinces might prove numerous 
 enough to answer all the purposess of a Popular As- 
 sembly, as far as the circumstances of the two Provinces 
 were properly qualified for that situation. But he doubted 
 very much, according to the present state of the Colony 
 and its population, whether the Assemblies could be ren- 
 dered more numerous than was proposed. There was no 
 wish that the Assemblies should not be increased, when 
 the population of the Province increased. The Assem- 
 blies, undoubtedly, ought to be extended with the grow- 
 ing population of Canada. He believed that a very nu- 
 merous representative body was in no respect desirable, 
 and that they ought always to bear some proportion to 
 the circumstances of the country. 
 
 A House of Assembly for seven years would surely be 
 better than one for a shorter period. In the other Colo- 
 nies, the Councils and Assemblies were constituted in such 
 a manner as to invest the Governor with more influence 
 than would be given him by the present Bill. If the 
 Assemblies were not properly constituted at first, it must 
 be recollected that there was a remedy. There was 
 nothing to hinder the Parliament of Great Britain from 
 correcting anything that might hereafter appear to want 
 correction. 
 
 * " Parliunentary Hlttory," vol. xxix. pp. 104-111. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 113 
 
 Pitt entirely differed from Fox in the opinion that the 
 Legislative Council should be elective. An aristocratical 
 principle being one part of our Mixed Government, he 
 thought it proper that there should be such a Council in 
 Canada as was provided for by the Bill, and which might 
 answer to that part of the British Constitution composed 
 by the other House of Parliament. 
 
 He defended the appropriation of lands for the support 
 of the clergy. If one-seventh turned out to be too much 
 in future, the matter, like everything else in the Bill, was 
 subject to a revision. Tt was to be recollected that one- 
 seventh had almost grown into an established custom, 
 where land had been given in commutation for tithes. 
 One-tenth of the produce, which took place in England, 
 must be confessed to be a far greater provision than one- 
 seventh of land. 
 
 The division of the Province, Pitt declared, was in a 
 great measure the fundamental part of the Bill. He 
 agreed with Fox that it was extremely desirable that the 
 inhabitants of Canada should be united, and led univer- 
 sally to prefer the English Constitution and the English 
 laws. To divide the Province was the most likely means 
 to effect this purpose ; since, by so doing, the French sub- 
 jects would be sensible that the British Government had 
 no intention of forcing the English laws upon them. 
 Therefore, the French colonists would, with more facility, 
 look at the operation and effect of those laws, compare 
 them with the operation and effect of their own, and 
 probably in time adopt them from conviction. This was 
 
114 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 more likely to be the case than if the British Government 
 were all at once to subject the whole inhabitants to the 
 Constitution and laws of England. Experience would 
 teach them that the English laws were best ; but he 
 admitted that the French Colonists ought to be governed 
 to their satisfaction. 
 
 If the Province were not divided, there would be only 
 one House of Assembly. There being two parties, if 
 those parties were equal, or nearly equal, in the Assem- 
 bly, it would be the source of pei'petual faction : if 
 one of the parties were much stronger than the other, 
 the other might justly claim that they were oppressed. 
 It was on this persuasion that the division of the Pro- 
 vince was conceived to be the most likely way of attain- 
 ing every desirable end. 
 
 After the reply of Pitt, the Bill was ordered to be re- 
 committed.* 
 
 On the 6th of May the Bill went into Committee, and 
 was fully debated, clause by clause. On the 16th of the 
 same month the report of the Committee was brought up. 
 
 Fox divided the House on the clause providing for 
 hereditary legislators. For the negative he obtained 39 
 votes ; Pitt, for the affirmative, received 88. Fox op- 
 posed the clause limiting to thirty the number of repre 
 sentatives for the Lower Canada Assembly. He pro- 
 posed that the number should be a hundred. Pitt moved 
 to leave out the word "thirty" and to insert "fifty." 
 
 * "Parliamentary History," vol. xxix. p.p. 111-113. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 115 
 
 Fox objected to this number as still insufficient, and 
 divided the House. But his amendment was lost : 
 Yeas, 40; Noes, 91. The amendment of Pitt was in- 
 serted in the Bill.* 
 
 The King, on the 16th of August, 1791, gave his 
 assent to the measure, 
 
 * •'Parliamentary History," vol. xxix. pp. 429,430. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONAL ACT 1791. 
 
 The measure known in Canadian History as the " Con- 
 stitutional Act/' contained no fewer than fifty sections. 
 Stripped of all technical wordiness, its more important 
 provisions may be followed without wearisomeness.* 
 
 The Act opens with the confession, that the measure of 
 1774 was " in many respects inapplicable to the present 
 condition and circumstances" of the Province. It was 
 next declared " that it is expedient and necessary that 
 further provision should now be made for the good gov- 
 ernment and prosperity of the Province." As an advance 
 towards this result, so much of the Act of 1774 as related 
 to the appointment of a Council for the affairs of the 
 Province, or to the powers granted to that Council, was 
 repealed. 
 
 The Act divided Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada. 
 To each Province was given a Legislature, to be composed 
 of a Legislative Council and an Assembly. To constitute 
 the Council, the Governor of each Province was em- 
 powered to summon *' a sufficient number of discreet and 
 proper persons" : from Upper Canada, no fewer than 
 seven ; from Lower Canada, no fewer than fifteen. 
 
 * The Act is the 31st George 3rd, c. 31, (1791). Its title : " An Act to Repeal 
 certain parts of an Act passed in the 14th year of His Majesty's reign, intituled 
 ' An Act for making more effectual provision for the government of the Province 
 of Quebec, in North America.' " 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOEY OF CANADA. 117 
 
 No person under twenty-one years of age was to be 
 summoned to the Council ; nor any one who was not a 
 natural-bom subject of the King, nor naturalized by Act 
 of the British Parliament, or who had not become a 
 subject by the Conquest and Cession of Canada. A seat 
 in the Legislative Council was to be for life. 
 
 The Act then entered upon an attempt to lay the foun- 
 dation of a future Canadian aristocracy. It was provided 
 that whenever the King should think proper to confer, 
 by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of either Pro- 
 vince, any hereditary title of honour, descendible accord- 
 ing to any course of descent limited in such Letters 
 Patent, His Majesty might annex thereto, by the said 
 Letters Patent, an hereditary right of being summoned 
 to the Legislative Council of such Province. Every per- 
 son on whom such right should be conferred, or to whom 
 it should descend, was to be entitled to demand from the 
 Governor his writ of summons to such Legislative 
 Council. 
 
 The Governors were empowered to appoint and remove 
 the Speakers of the Legislative Councils. 
 
 The whole number of members to be chosen for Upper 
 Canada were not to be less than sixteen ; for Lower Ca^ 
 nada, not less than fifty. 
 
 For districts, or counties, or "circles," the electoral 
 qualification was : That each voter should be possessed of 
 lands held in freehold, or in fief, or in roture, or by certi- 
 ficate of the Governor and Council of the Province of 
 Quebec. The lands were to be of the yearly value of 
 
118 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 forty shillings sterling or upwards, over and above all 
 rents and charges. 
 
 The electoral qualification for towns or townships was : 
 That each voter should be possessed of a dwelling-house 
 and lot, held by the tenure already described. The yearly 
 value of such property was to be five pounds sterling or 
 upwards. Or, these conditions being absent, a person 
 who had been a resident in a town or township for twelve 
 months before the date of the writ of summons for the 
 election, and who had paid one year's rent for his dwel- 
 ling, at the rate of ten pounds sterling per annum or up- 
 wards, was entitled to a vote. 
 
 No person was capable of being elected a member of 
 the Legislative Assemblies, who should be a member of 
 either of the Legislative Councils ; or a minister of the 
 Church of England , or a minister, priest, ecclesiastic or 
 teacher, either according to the rites of the Church of 
 Rome, or any other form or profession of religious faith 
 or worship. 
 
 No person, unless twenty-one years of age, and a British 
 subject, could vote for a member of the Assembly, or hold 
 a seat in that body. No person could vote for a member, 
 or sit as one, who had been attainted for treason or felony 
 in any court of law within any of the King's domi- 
 nions. 
 
 The Governors were empowered to prorogue the Legis- 
 latures, and to dissolve the Legislative Assemblies, wheu- 
 ever they deemed it expedient. The Legislature in each 
 Province was to be summoned once at least in every 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 119 
 
 twelve months. Every Assembly was to continue four 
 years from the day of the return of the writs, and no 
 longer : subject, nevertheless, to be sooner prorogued and 
 dissolved by the Governor. No member of either House 
 was to sit or vote until he took the oath of allegiance. 
 
 The Governors were to transmit, to the Secretary of 
 State, copies of Bills to which their assent had been given. 
 The King, in Council, might declare his disallowance of 
 such Bills, within two years of receiving them. Bills 
 reserved for the King's pleasure were not to have any 
 force till his assent had been previously communicated 
 to the Legislatures.* 
 
 The Governor of each Province and the Executive 
 Council were to be constituted a court of civil jurisdic- 
 tion for hearing and determining appeals. But this 
 enactment was made subject to the future action of the 
 Legislatures, t 
 
 Provision was made " for the support of a Protestant 
 clergy in each Province." In the Quebec Act of 1774, 
 there was a clause which confirmed to the Boman Ca- 
 tholic clergy of that Province "their accustomed dues and 
 rights with respect to such persons only as should profess 
 the said religion." There was also added the condition, 
 " that it should be lawful for His Majesty to make such 
 provision out of the rest of the said accustomed dues and 
 
 "^ All the preceding enactments, with the exception of the first, which relates 
 to the abolition of the Council (created by the Act of 1774), were repealed by the 
 Union Act (3-4 Vic. cap. 35, sec. 2). 
 
 t other provisions, with regard to appeals, were afterwards made by the 
 Legislatures of both Provinces, under the powers given by this section. 
 
120 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 rights for the encouragement of the Protestant religion, 
 and for the maintenance and support of a Protestant 
 clergy within the said Province, as he should think neces- 
 sary and expedient." 
 
 The present Act of 1791 having recited the above clause 
 of the Act of 1774, went on to state : that, on the 3rd 
 of January, 1775, the King, under his " Royal Sign 
 Manual," directed that no incumbent professing the reli- 
 gion of the Church of Rome, appointed to any parish in 
 the said Province, should be entitled to receive any tithes 
 for lands or possessions occupied by a Protestant ; but 
 that such tithes should be received by such persons as the 
 Governor should appoint. The tithes were to be reserved 
 by the Receiver-General of the Province, for the support 
 of a Protestant clergy to be actually resident within the 
 same, and not otherwise.* All growing rents and profits 
 of a vacant benefice were, during such vacancy, to be re- 
 served and applied to the like uses. 
 
 The provisions of the Act of 1774, and those contained 
 in the Royal Instructions of 1775, were now, by this Act 
 of 1791, declared to remain and continue in full force and 
 effect in each of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Can- 
 ada. To the Legislatures of both Provinces power was 
 given to vary or repeal the provisions of the Act of 1774, 
 and those of the Royal Instructions. But this power was 
 
 * " Tithes were abolished in Upper Canada by 2 Geo. IV. cap. 32, and are not 
 paid in Lower Canada by Protestants ; so that the section seems unlikely to 
 have any efifect, except as maintaining the Roman Catholic clergy in Lower 
 Canada in their right to tithes from Roman Catholics."— " Consolidated Stat' 
 utes of Canada," p. xvii. (1869). 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 12 1 
 
 only to be exercised under a certain restriction, to be 
 afterwards mentioned. The present Act provided that the 
 King might authorize the Governor of each Province to 
 make allotments of land for the support of a Protestant 
 clergy. The allotments were to be made out of the lands 
 of the Crown, and were to " bear a due proportion " to the 
 amount of lands which had in time past been granted by 
 the Crown. All future grants were to carry with them 
 " a proportionable allotment and appropriation of lands " 
 for clerical purposes. No grant of land was to be " valid 
 or effectual," unless containing a specification of the lands 
 allotted for ecclesiastical uses. These clerical grants were 
 to be, " as nearly as the circumstances and nature of the 
 ca«e would admit, of the like quality" as the secular 
 grants which they accompanied. Further, they were to 
 be equal in value to the seventh part of the secular lands. 
 The rents arising from these ecclesiastical grants were to 
 be devoted solely to the maintenance and support of a 
 Protestant clergy. 
 
 It was- further provided that the Governor, with the 
 advice of the Executive Council, might erect parsonages, 
 endow them, and present incumbents to them. The incum- 
 bents were to enjoy their benefices as in the case of the 
 incumbents in England. The presentations to parsonages 
 and the enjoyment of them were to be subject to the 
 jurisdiction granted to the Bishop of Nova Scotia.* 
 
 * The Imperial Act 3-4 Vic. cap. 78, s. 11, repeals so much of the enact- 
 ments just cited as relates to any such clerical land reservations thereafter 
 to be made. The Provincial Act 14-15 Vic. cap. 175. repeals the enactments 
 
 H 
 
122 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 The Legislative Council and Assembly of each Pro- 
 vince were empowered to vary or repeal the provisions 
 respecting the ecclesiastical lands. But it was provided 
 that before such variation or repeal became law, it was to 
 be laid before both Houses of Parliament in Great Bri- 
 tain. It was not to be lawful for the King to assent to 
 such Act until thirty days after it had been laid before 
 both Houses. Nor was it to be lawful for the King to 
 give his assent in case either House of Parliament, with- 
 in such thirty days, addressed him to withhold his assent.* 
 The same reservation applied to the King's prerogative 
 touching the granting of the waste lands of the Crown 
 within the two Provinces. 
 
 In future all lands to be granted in Upper Canada 
 were to be in free and common soccage ; and the same 
 privilege was to be extended to Lower Canada if the 
 grantee so desired it. The privilege, however, was sub- 
 ject to such alterations with respect to the nature and 
 consequences of such tenure of free and common soccage, 
 as the Legislature of Lower Canada might choose to make. 
 
 relating to incumbencies, saving past rights if found valid, and directing how 
 the presentation to any incumbency which is found to have been legally estab- 
 lished, shall thereafter be made. The said Provincial Act was passed under 
 the authority given in a section just cited, of the Act of 1791.— "Con. Stats. 
 Can.," p. xvii. 
 
 * This section (the 42nd) of the Act of 1791, requiring that Bills respecting 
 ecclesiastical rights and waste lands of the Crown should be reserved and laid 
 before the Imperial Parliament, before receiving assent, was repealed by the 
 Imperial Act 17-18 Vic. cap. 118, sec. 6. This enactment enables Her Majesty 
 to assent to any Bill of the Canadian Legislature without its being laid before 
 the Imperial Parliament ; and the Governor to assent to any Bill without re- 
 serving it for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure.—" Con. Stats. Can.," 
 p. xviii. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 123 
 
 The provision was inserted in the interest of the seigniorial 
 tenures. 
 
 There was a clause which at length emancipated, from 
 the feudal tenures, the settlers in Western Canada. It 
 was enacted that any person in Upper Canada, holding 
 his or her lands by virtue of any certificate of occupation 
 derived under the authority of the Governor and Council 
 of the Province of Quebec, and having power to alienate 
 the same, might obtain a re-grant in free and common 
 
 3cage. 
 
 The forty-sixth clause of the Act establishes a principle 
 which, had it been conceded in season, might have pre- 
 served the Thirteen Colonies for the Empire. The clause 
 was one of high importance to British America ; for it 
 pledged the faith of King, Lords and Commons to the 
 renunciation of the taxing power, " except only such 
 duties as it may be expedient to impose for the regulation 
 of commerce." 
 
 The clause in question recites an Act passed in the 
 18th year of the King.* In this Act it was declared, 
 " that the King and Parliament of Gi^eat Britain will not 
 impose any duty, tax or assessment whatever, payable 
 in any of His Majesty's Colonies, Provinces and Planta- 
 
 * This Act, intended to win back tlie revolted Thirteen Colonies to their alle- 
 g'iance, was entitled "An Act for removing all doubts and apprehensions con- 
 cerning taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain in any of the Colonies, 
 Provinces and Plantations in North America and the West Indies ; and for re- 
 pealing so much of an Act made in the seventh year of the reign of his 
 present Majesty as imposes a duty on tea imported from Great Britain into 
 any Colony or Plantation in America, or relates thereto." 
 
\ 
 
 124 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 01* CANADA. 
 
 tions in North America or the West Indies, except 
 only such duties as it may be expedient to impose for the 
 regulation of commerce ; the net produce of such duties to 
 be always paid and applied to and for the use of the 
 Colony, Province or Plantation in which the same shall 
 be respectively levied, in such manner as other duties 
 collected by the authority of the respective general Courts 
 or general Assemblies of such Colonies, Provinces and 
 Plantations are ordinarily paid and applied." 
 
 This Act of 1791 now declares that it is necessary for 
 the general benefit of the British Empire that such power 
 of regulation of commerce should continue to be exercised 
 by His Majesty, and the Parliament of Great Britain ; 
 subject, nevertheless, to the condition hereinbefor reecited 
 with respect to the application of any duties which may 
 be imposed for that purpose. 
 
 It was then provided that nothing in this Act of 1791 
 should prevent the operation of any Act of Parliament 
 establishing prohibitions or imposing duties for the regu- 
 lation of navigation and commerce. And, further, that 
 neither of the Provincial Legislatures should have power 
 to vary or repeal any such law or laws, or in any manner 
 to prevent or obstruct their execution. But the Act 
 declared that the net produce of such duties should be 
 applied to the use of the respective Provinces. 
 
 The Act concluded by providing that its powers should 
 come into force not later than the 31st of December, 
 1791. Further, that the time for the issuing of the Writs 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 125 
 
 of Summons and Election should not be later than the 
 31st of December, 1792. 
 
 Pitt stated that the concession of the Habeas Corjms 
 Act of England was to be a principal characteristic of 
 the new Constitution. There is nothing in the Constitu- 
 tional Act which, in express and precise language, guaran- 
 tees Habeas Cm-pus. The Act only grants it in the terms 
 of the thirty-second clause, which declares " that all laws, 
 statutes and ordinances which shall be in force on the 
 day to be fixed for the commencement of this Act within 
 the said Provinces . . . shall remain and continue 
 to be of the same authority and effect ... as if 
 this Act had not been made, and as if the said Pro- 
 vince of Quebec had been divided." The Habeas Corpus 
 Act was put in force by the ordinance-«f.J^785. It was 
 therefore a law when the Constitutional Act came into 
 effect. But the clause gave the Legislature power to 
 repeal or vary the laws, statutes and ordinances in force 
 at the time it came into operation. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE DEFECTS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ACT. 
 
 The marvellous political prescience of Charles James 
 Fox was never, perhaps, so truly and so sadly exemplified 
 as in the objections which he raised against the Constitu- 
 tional Act. The greatest Liberal of his age seemed to 
 stand, as it were, upon the mountain peak of the Consti- 
 tution, and project his vision, clear with the light of po- 
 litical prophecy, forth like an arrow's flight, right into 
 the far and misty Future. Almost everything to which he 
 took exception proved, in the after years of Canadian 
 history, a source of heartburning to the people, and of 
 imminent peril to the State. He opposed a Legislative 
 Council nominated by the Crown ; the appropriation of 
 the public lands for ecclesiastical purposes ; the division 
 of the Province and the consequent isolation of the in- 
 habitants of both races. The first two of these questions 
 were destined, for over half a century, to be the political 
 plagues^ of Canada, and the chronic perplexity of Great 
 Britain. The third question is left to Time, the great 
 alchemist who transmutes, in his slow, creative labora- 
 tory, the elements of doubt and danger of to-day into 
 forces of safety in the hereafter. 
 
 William Pitt, in one respect, was no less a prophet than 
 Fox. He defended his division of Canada on the ground 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 127 
 
 that if there were but one Assembly, and parties nearly- 
 equal, there would be perpetual faction. The Federal 
 system under which we live, the sixth experiment in gov- 
 ernment which Canada has made in the period between 
 1760 and 1867, is proof of the keen political foresight 
 of the great Tory statesman.* 
 
 The Constitutional Act was a sop thrown to Canada : 
 not a full constitutional concession. In all charity, the 
 intent of the British Ministry must be conceived to have 
 been good. But, in matters of government, the practical 
 effect of an intent, good soever as the intent may be, is 
 useless, worthless and wasted, if there be not taken into 
 account the historical traditions, the immediate wants, 
 the aspirations of a people. And, in the matter of aspi- 
 rations, colonies, dependencies, weaker states — every race 
 that has a Past — looks forward to and lives in the Future. 
 The Constitutional Act failed to recognise these facts. It 
 sought to dig round Canada a moat, guarded by the gib- 
 bering spectre of Mediaevalism, to frighten back Liberty 
 from her assault on privileges whose claim to pre-emi- 
 nence was Age, not native and inherent excellence and 
 utility. 
 
 The Constitutional Act failed the most mischievously 
 in this, that under its future operations the people of 
 Canada had no real and beneficial representation. There 
 
 * Our changes of government were : In 1760, Military Rule ; in 1763, the 
 introduction of the laws of England ; in 1774, the Quebec Bill ; in 1791, the 
 Constitutional Act ; in 1841, Union of Upper and Lower Canada ; in 1867, 
 the Federal system. 
 
128 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOBY OF CANADA. 
 
 was, it is true, in each Province a House of Assembly. 
 But power it had none, except to give utterance to the 
 grievances of the people. The Legislative Councils, no- 
 minated by the Crown, held the Legislative Assemblies 
 by the throat, kept them prostrate and paralysed them. 
 
 The Act endeavoured to establish a Canadian aris- 
 tocracy. But the effort failed. No Governor ever 
 attempted to stand up against the twin-giants, the People 
 and the Age, to do battle for this feudal anachronism. 
 It is only where the bones and sweat of a score of genera- 
 tions of peasant-serfs fructify the soil, that the tree of aris- 
 tocracy ever strikes root and finds nutriment. And here, 
 in Canada, the free soil, unlike that of Europe in the past 
 centuries, was destined for nobler purposes than to en- 
 slave the toiler in his life and forget him in his death. 
 In a word, the Act was a body without a soul. It was 
 a corpse, breathed upon by the breath of Authority, robed 
 in the threadbare and discarded rags of the British Con- 
 stitution, sent to Canada to be erected as an idol, where, 
 after having stirred up hatreds for half a century, it 
 was finally, with few tears and many rejoicings, buried 
 out of sight, as the repulsive mummy of a principle dead 
 
 for generations in the Mother Land. 
 
 Earl Russell, glancing at this portion of our history, 
 
 says :* — 
 
 "In 1791, Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville had given 
 
 to that Province (Canada) an impracticable Constitu- 
 
 ' Sec his wcrk "On the English Government," Introduction, pp. Ixvi.-lxvii. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 129 
 
 tion. The Province was inhabited by Frenchmen of 
 the age of Louis XIV., with no taint of the Kevolution, 
 and no mark of improvement. It should have been the 
 task of the English Government to infuse into the pro- 
 vince English freedom, English industry and English 
 loyalty. 
 
 " Instead of that sensible course, it was the object of 
 Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville to separate English energy 
 from French inertness ; to shut up the industry of the 
 English in the upper part of the colony, and to preserve 
 the lower province as a sort of museum, where a French 
 noblesse, with feudal titles and orders of knighthood, and 
 tithes and seigniorial rights, might be preserved for ever 
 as a memorial of the happiness of France before her 
 Jacobin Eevolution. But 'Fancy's fairy frostwork' 
 melted away before the light of human progress. The 
 titles and orders projected never were created ; all fell 
 into confusion." 
 
 With all deference to such a man as Earl Russell, it 
 must be said that it is hard to see, in the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the country, what other course was open 
 to Pitt except to divide the Provinces. A Whig will 
 admit that a people has a right to choose its own form of 
 government. It would, therefore, have been unjust to 
 deny this right to the French Canadians. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF UPPER CANADA. ABOLITION OF 
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 In the month of August, 1791, the King, by an Order 
 in Council, defined the division line of the new Provinces 
 of Upper and Lower Canada.* On the 18th of Novem- 
 ber, 1791, Lieutenant-Governor Clarke, at Quebec, issued 
 a Proclamation announcing that, on the 26th of December 
 following, the Constitutional Act should come into opera- 
 tion in the new Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. 
 
 On the 18th of September, 1792, the pioneer Parlia- 
 ment of Upper Canada, numbering altogether sixteen 
 members, assembled at Newark, now Niagara. The an- 
 nals of the North American continent present no incident, 
 in the momentous science of government, to surpass, in 
 the elements of political faith, hope and heroism, the 
 opening of the first Parliament of the "Western Province. 
 
 - * The line, which remains unchanged, is as follows :— " Commencing at a stone 
 boundary on the north bank of Lake St. Francis, at the cove west of the Point 
 au Baudet, in the limit between the township of Lancaster and the seigniory of 
 New Longueil ; running along the said limit in the direction of north, thirty- 
 four degrees west, to the westernmost angle of the said seigniory of New Lon- 
 gueil ; thence along the north-west boundary of the seigniory of Vaudreuil, 
 running north, twenty-five degrees east, until it strikes the Ottawa River; 
 to ascend the said river into Lake Temiscaming ; and from the head of the 
 said lake, by a line drawn due north until it strikes the boundary line of 
 Hudson's Bay ; including all the territory to the westward and southward of 
 the said line, to the utmost extent of the country commonly called or known 
 by the name of Canada." 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 131 
 
 The members had been summoned by Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Simcoe, foster-father of Upper Canada, an admin- 
 istrator "who combined the rare qualities of statesman and 
 soldier. The Parliament assembled in a hut, within the 
 booming of the thunders of the Cataract. South of them 
 and behind them, was a dissevered and an unsympathising 
 people. West, east and north of them was the scowling 
 and unknown wilderness repellent, and terrible in the 
 majesty of its mystery. But those sixteen men were not 
 appalled by these things. In their minds was the kindly 
 memory of the Mother Land ever before them, a benign 
 and visible presence. With that aptitude for government 
 hereditary in the Island Races, they at once addressed 
 themselves to deal with the pressing problems of the 
 hour. They were no visionaries, nor drones, but earnest, 
 laborious men ; British Islanders in their love of liberty 
 and of ancestral precedent ; Spartans in their endurance 
 and in their simplicity. Like the Athenian statesman, 
 if they could not play upon the lute, they could teach 
 how small communities might become great. 
 
 It is not the intention of this work to anticipate what 
 may be part of a task hereafter ; which task may be to 
 exhibit in a complete picture the legislation of Upper 
 Canada. But it is only just to notice, in this place, a 
 few of the efforts of our earliest law-makers. Their first 
 proceeding was to repeal that part of the Quebec Bill 
 which provided " that in all matters of controversy, rela- 
 tive to property and civil rights, resort should be had to 
 the laws of Canada." They declared that this provi- 
 
132 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 vision was "manifestly and avowedly intended for the 
 accommodation of His Majesty's Canadian subjects." But, 
 since the passing of the Quebec Bill, " that part of the late 
 Province of Quebec now comprehended within the Pro- 
 vince of Upper Canada, having become inhabited princi- 
 pally by British subjects . . unaccustomed to the 
 laws of Canada," it was inexpedient that the aforesaid 
 provision '' should be continued in this Province." There- 
 fore, " by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with 
 the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and As- 
 sembly of the Province of Upper Canada," the provision 
 was repealed. It was further enacted, that "the authority 
 of the said laws of Canada, and every part thereof, as form- 
 ing a rule of decision in all matters of controversy rela- 
 tive to property and civil rights, shall be annulled, made 
 void and abolished throughout this Province." It was 
 provided, however, that the repeal of the clause should 
 not affect claims on real property, or contracts or securi- 
 ties already executed. 
 
 The Act further declared, that from and after the day 
 of its passing,* " in all matters of controversy relative to 
 property and civil rights, resort shall be had to the laws 
 of England, as the rule for the decision of the same." 
 But it was forbidden to make alteration in the existing 
 provisions respecting ecclesiastical rights or dues within 
 the Province, or to introduce any of the laws of England 
 respecting the maintenance of the poor, or respecting 
 bankrupts. 
 
 * Oct. 16, 1792, 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 133 
 
 The second Act of this first session was to establish 
 trials by jury. The preamble has the true ring and stamp 
 of the Constitutional Races : — " Whereas the trial by jury 
 has been long established and approved in our mother 
 country, and is one of the chief benefits to be attained 
 by a free Constitution." Then it was enacted that, after 
 the first of December in the same year, all issues of fact 
 were to be determined by the verdict of twelve jurors, 
 " conformably to the law and custom of England." The 
 proceedings of the first Parliament were satisfactory to 
 Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, as was shown in his des- 
 patches to the Colonial Secretary.* 
 
 The second session of the Parliament of Upper Canada, 
 convoked at Newark on the 31st May, 1793, was memor- 
 able on account of stamping with the seal of law the 
 n®ble principle of liberty for the enslaved African. In 
 1709, the poison of negro slavery was in pestilent flow 
 through the social system of French Canada ; for in that 
 year it had been officially recognised by an edict of the 
 Intendi^nt. By the 47th Article of the Capitulation, 
 the French Canadians were permitted to retain their 
 slaves. 
 
 But Upper Canada was determined that human slavery 
 should form no part of her social superstructure. And 
 so, in 1793, her Parliament, the first Legislative Body in 
 the Empire to lift up an authoritative hand against 
 negro bondage, pronounced for evermore the doom of the 
 
 * See D*. Canuifl'8 "Settlement of Upper Canadft," p. 537— a valuable and 
 patriotic work. 
 
134 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 accursed thing. This Act was the first ennobling utter- 
 ance of a Voice that has ever since raised itself high, loud 
 and forceful at every epoch in our history when right 
 and liberty needed a pleader or a champion. This Par- 
 liament, at a time when settlers were few, when labour 
 was a thing of paramount need, when necessity and 
 avarice clamoured to the baser feelings of human nature 
 with a might that to most men would have proved irre- 
 sistible, passed an Act " To prevent the further intro- 
 duction of slaves, and to limit the term of contracts for 
 servitude within this Province." 
 
 The preamble opens with this honourable and exalted 
 declaration : — " Whereas it is unjust that a people who 
 enjoy freedom by law, should encourage the introduction 
 of slaves ; and whereas it is highly expedient to abolish 
 slavery in this Province, so far as the same may gradu- 
 ally be done without violating private property."* Then 
 follows a series of well-considered enactments to carry 
 out this beneficent legislation, t There was declared to 
 
 * See "Statutes of Upper Can,, 1791-1831," pp. 41, 42. 
 + Here are the names of these philanthropists and statesmen of the wilder- 
 ness—the first on the bead-roll of Upper Canadian worthies :— 
 
 Robert Gray, Solicitor-General, and principal promoter of the Act of 
 
 Emancipation. 
 John McDonnbll. Huoh McDonnbll. 
 
 Joshua Booth. Benjamin Pawlino. 
 
 * * * Baby, NATHANiEii Pettit. 
 
 Alexander Campbell. David Wm. Smith. 
 
 Peter Van Alstinr. Hazlbton Spencer. 
 
 Jeremiah French. Isaac Swazy, 
 
 Ephraim Jones. * * * Young. 
 
 William Mocomb. John White. 
 
 —Dr. Canniff, pp. 634-673. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 135 
 
 be repealed so much of an Imperial Act passed in 1790,* 
 " as may enable the Governor or Lieut.-Govemor of this 
 Province, heretofore parcel of His Majesty's Province of 
 Quebec, to grant a licence for importing into the same 
 any negro or negroes." The Act then proceeded to de- 
 fine the means by which the negro slavery which had 
 been imported into Upper Canada should be for ever 
 extinguished within the territory of the Western Pro- 
 vince. 
 
 The object of the Imperial Act of 1790, the most 
 repulsive provision of which the Fathers of Upper Ca- 
 nadian liberty nobly and daringly abolished, was to 
 attract immigration from the United States "to the 
 Bahama, or Bermuda, or Somers Islands, or to any part 
 of the Province of Quebec or Nova Scotia, or any of the 
 territories belonging to His Majesty in North America." 
 The Act made it lawful for any person emigrating from 
 the United States to any of the above-mentioned coun- 
 tries — having first obtained a licence from the Governor 
 or Lieut. -Govern or for that purpose — " to import into 
 the same, in British ships owned by His Majesty's sub- 
 jects, and navigated according to law, any negroes, house- 
 hold furniture, . . . free of duty." 
 
 The Legislature of Lower Canada refused to follow the 
 noble example set by its compeer of the Upper Province 
 in vindication of the natural rights of man. But the 
 British Bench came forward to do what the law-makers 
 
 * This Act, 30th George III. cap. , was entitled " Au Act for Encourafi:inff 
 new Settlers in His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in America." 
 
136 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 of Lower Canada ought to have been proud to perform. 
 In Montreal, in 1803, in the city where, at the time, 
 mercantile avarice choked the pleadings of human nature, 
 and struggled to make slavery perpetual. Chief Justice 
 Osgoode declared negro bondage to be at variance with 
 the laws of the country. And, in so doing, he gave 
 liberty to the slaves of Lower Canada.* 
 
 As Upper Canada began, so, as a rule, whenever, in 
 times past, her people were permitted to act through the 
 Legislature, has she continued. In every movement for- 
 ward, Upper Canada has been the Vanguard Province. 
 And now, at the present hour, she is reaping the rich 
 rewards of her principle of action in the Past, which was 
 this^to reverence whatever is noble and valuable in the 
 Old ; to welcome whatever is excellent in the New. 
 
 * See Dr. Cannifif, pp. 670-578, for a highly interesting account of slavery in 
 Canada. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE GIFT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY TO CANADA. 
 
 To the world, to humanity, to a principle of sublime 
 import, the British Conquest brought a boon never, until 
 that time, presented to Canada. This boon was the 
 bestowal and establishment of religious liberty. Here- 
 tofore in our history, this momentous event had achieved 
 no recognition. 
 
 A few years following the last successful attempt of 
 France to colonize Canada, and while the seventeenth 
 century was yet young, the Court of France gave stringent 
 orders that the Huguenots should be prevented from 
 entering the Province.* The historian, cited below, avers 
 that, during the first twenty years of the Colony, it was 
 observed that certain of the Huguenots, who had taken 
 part in the work of foundingNew France, cherished a 
 marked preference for England. In reference to this 
 assertion, it is necessary to observe that the Huguenot 
 side of the story is wanting. There was no one to place 
 on record the counter-statement of these persecuted 
 French Christians, had the charge been made to their 
 faces ; nor, had they made a denial, would it have been 
 accepted by their enemies at the Court and in the Colony. 
 These Huguenots, with all their faults, were the lights, 
 
 * See Abb6 Ferland's " Cours d'Histoire du Canada, j vol. i. pp. 168, 169. 
 I 
 
138 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 the thinkers and the workers of France. Might they 
 not have been the same in Canada ? In the New Eng- 
 land Colonies, where they were welcomed, they left the 
 deep and permanent impress of their moral and civic 
 excellence.* To their mother country, which so cruelly 
 persecuted and banished them, they left only a memory. 
 But this memory, like an incense to liberty, floats up- 
 ward from dungeons, from scaffolds, from blazing homes 
 and houses of prayer : it soars above the poison vapours 
 of the history of Monarchical France : it ascends and 
 purifies, remaining for the after ages a memorial of 
 heroism and suffering for conscience sake, a perpetual 
 protest against religious persecution, t 
 
 The world owes it to Great Britain that her conquest 
 of Canada opened, through the jungle and wilderness of 
 intolerance, the broad and beneficent pathways of reli- 
 gious liberty. 
 
 The Conquest is a matter about which the Canadians 
 of the present day may speak without prejudice or bitter- 
 ness. The ancestors of both races share in a common 
 renown. The victory of the one was untarnished ; the 
 defeat of the other was full of more of the elements of 
 
 * See M. Chas, Weiss' " History of the French Protestant Refugees," vol. ii. 
 pp. 284-333. 
 
 t The historian already quoted treats this grand question of religious liberty 
 in a manner which is at once evasive and equivocal. He says : — " Quelles 
 que soient les opinions qu'ou puisse entretenir sur I'article de la tolerance 
 religieuse, il faut avouer que I'exclusion des Huguenots a eu pour effet de 
 procurer plus de liaison entre les differents elements de la societ6 Canadieime, 
 et d'empficher de graves divisions h rinterieur."— " Cours d'Histoire," vol. 1, 
 p. 276. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 139 
 
 heroifim than are to be found in many triumphs. The 
 sudden extinction of the French power in Canada was 
 naturally, for many a year, a subject on which a gallant 
 race could not be expected to dwell with pleasurable 
 remembrance. But this feeling, soothed by the anodynes 
 of time and justice, has long since passed away. It can- 
 not be denied, in the light of experience, that, unwelcome 
 as may have been the rule of Britain at first, that rule 
 was eventually the best for Canada. 
 
 Montcalm may be accepted as one of the most single- 
 minded and earnest men that ever represented France on 
 the American continent. Yet he could write : — '' Let us 
 beware how we allow the establishment of manufactures 
 in Canada ; she would become proud and mutinous like 
 the English (Colonies). So long as France is a nursery 
 to Canada, let not the Canadians be allowed to trade, but 
 kept to their wandering, laborious life with the savages, 
 and to their military exercises. They will be less wealthy, 
 but more brave and more faithful to us. . . England 
 made a great mistake in not taxing these Colonies from 
 the first, even ever so little. If they now attempt it — 
 revolt.* 
 
 * See Warburton's "Conquest of Canada," vol. ii. p. 364. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CANADA PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 In no other colony of the Empire has the British Con- 
 stitution been subjected to the same strain and tension as 
 in Canada. In no other colony has that Constitution had 
 opportunity to prove so well its marvellous plastic power 
 and universal adaptability. The questions of race and faith 
 entered, at the inception of British rule, into the problem 
 of government ; entangled it and made it difficult of solu- 
 tion. But these troubles have been met and overcome. 
 
 The Constitutional Act was framed with an honest in- 
 tent. Pitt never contemplated that his measure should 
 be prostituted to the purposes of oppressing the people of 
 Canada. But to these purposes it was debased. Wield- 
 ing the Act for nearly half a century, a bulwark of Olig- 
 archy, made up of the drift wood of the Army and manned 
 by the buccaneers of the Law, beat back the people of 
 Upper Canada from the object of their dearest wishes : 
 the prize and native right of self-government. In Lower 
 Canada a British oligarchy opposed itself to the interests 
 and wishes of the French Canadians, and to those of many 
 of its own people. In that Province, furthermore, the 
 malignant element of race antipathies, drawing sustenance 
 from both populations, intensified and embittered the 
 struggle to a degree unknown in Upper Canada. In the 
 
Constitutional history of can ad a. 141 
 
 two Provinces the Governors sent out from time to time 
 were, for the most part, fascinated by the Official anacon- 
 das, fell into their folds and became their prey. The 
 Governors were the puppets and servants of the Olig- 
 archies ; they were ministers to the latter ; the latter 
 were not ministers to them. 
 
 The great principle at stake for nearly half a century, 
 the principle which comprised all the others, was this — 
 which was to rule 1 the Legislative Assemblies elected by 
 the Commons, or the Legislative and Executive Councils 
 appointed by the Governors? In all cases these two 
 auxiliaries of the Constitution set themselves, with politi- 
 cal malice aforethought, to thwart the efforts of the 
 Assemblies to obtain control of the Provincial revenues. 
 
 In 1837 the cod test culminated, in Upper Canada, in 
 the rising of a section of the people ; in Lower Canada, 
 in serious rebellion. The Imperial Parliament suspended 
 the Constitution of Lower Canada. A special Council, 
 nominated by the Governor, assumed the place of Parlia- 
 ment. But in the year 1841, the Union Act brought 
 both Provinces together, conferred on them Eesponsible 
 Government and the full privileges of a free Constitution. 
 
 To our Canadian statesmen who represented the wishes 
 of the people, and who, through good report and evil re- 
 port, loaded with obloquy and blackened with calumnious 
 charges of treason and hostility to the British Constitu- 
 tion, knocked at the door of the Empire until those wishes 
 met with favom^ and compliance, the Mother Country 
 owes m.uch ; but we owe more. To the wise, just and 
 
142 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 sympathetic statesmen of Great Britain, who bore with 
 the importunities of Canada, who overlooked much that 
 was hasty and inconsiderate, and who gave us the boon 
 and privilege of Responsible Government,* Canada and 
 the Empire stand indebted for ever. These far-sighted 
 men refused to be frightened from doing right, by the 
 ravings of those who prophesied that a freer measure of 
 self-government would plunge us into the whirlpool of the 
 Republicanism of the United States. This it has not 
 done, and will not do. Canada knows the abyss ; shrinks 
 back from it ; will resist to the death being driven into it, 
 
 Canada feels she enjoys a fuller measure of liberty than 
 any country in the world, not even excepting the land in 
 whose Constitutional glories we are proud to be partici- 
 pants. In Ontario, the greatest Province of the Con- 
 federation, a Municipal System, without parallel for the 
 scope it affords for local liberty, brings home the benefits 
 of domestic self-government to every community of 750 
 individuals. But our people are an educated people. 
 By their intelligence they won their privileges ; with 
 their intelligence they can develop and preserve them. 
 Political ignorance could work no such system as ours, 
 nor handle it with safety or advantage. 
 
 In the year 1864 was exemplified the truth of the 
 prophecy of Pitt in 1791, that, if the two Provinces were 
 represented in the one Parliament, and parties were 
 equally balanced, legislation might become an impossi- 
 
 * In 1841. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 143 
 
 bility. The Union Act of 1841 gave to Upper and 
 Lower Canada an equal number of representatives. Be- 
 tween this period and 1864, the population of Upper 
 Canada had gained upon and far exceeded that of Lower 
 Canada. To the demand of the Upper Province for 
 increased representation, the Lower Province persistently- 
 refused to accede. Parties were in such critical equipoise, 
 that, in 1864, one vote defeated a Conservative Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It was now seen that the Constitution would have to 
 undergo an organic change. A Federal system was 
 adopted ; the one under which we now live and thrive, 
 and promise still more to flourish. To bring about the 
 new form of Government, Sir John A. Macdonald, the 
 leader of the Conservative Party, and the Hon. George 
 Brown, the leader of the Liberal Party — the Party which 
 demanded for Upper Canada Parliamentary representa- 
 tion based on the principle of population, magnanimously 
 resolved to sink their political differences ; and, moved 
 by a common patriotic impulse, entered into a union of 
 political peace. The Federal system has been in operation 
 since 1867, and every day adds proof to its excellence. 
 
 In a country like Canada, peopled by diverse races, a 
 Federal Government is the one under which may best be 
 preserved that healthy national individualism which, in 
 its ennobling rivalry, stimulates to its full extent the 
 action of those vital political and social forces that give 
 to a State vigour, freshness and valiant self-reliance. Our 
 
144 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CANADA. 
 
 past history proves that it would be unjust and impos- 
 sible to endeavour to reduce our nationa elements to a 
 dead and waveless level. And our past history also 
 teaches to those in power this lesson : That, to concede 
 in season and in justice is to disarm discontent and 
 danger ; is to satisfy and to retain. 
 
 END VOLUME T. 
 
INDEX 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Capitulation of Canada 9 
 
 Free exercise of Eoman Catholic Eeligion granted... 10 
 
 Military Rule 10 
 
 Treaty of Paris. Peace between Great Britain and 
 
 France 10 
 
 French King cedes Canada 10-11 
 
 English King grants, conditionally, liberty of Ro- 
 man Catholic Religion '. 11 
 
 Canadian Seigniors and Vassals ... ... ... 11 
 
 Feudal prerogatives of the Seigniors ... ... 11 
 
 Vassals oppressed by King and Seignior 12 
 
 Conquest brings relief to the Vassals ... 12-13 
 
 Population, noble and plebeian, at the Conquest ... 13 
 
 Antipathy between Vassal and Seignior 13 
 
 French Nobility in Canada 14 
 
 The Conquest causes emigration of the French No- 
 bility 15 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Royal Proclamation introduces laws of England ... 16 
 
146 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Quebec erected into a Province; boundaries de- 
 fined 16 
 
 King promises, under conditions, a House of As- 
 sembly 16-17 
 
 Royal protection for laws of England ... ... 17 
 
 Oaths of Members of future Assembly ... ... 17 
 
 A Council appointed .. . ... ... 17 
 
 Constitutional question : " Great Seal of Great Bri- 
 tain" V. " Royal Signet and Sign Manual" 17-18 
 Legislative powers of the Council ... ... ... 18 
 
 Canadian Noblesse dislike laws of England ... 18-19 
 
 Number of British and French in Canada in 1770... 19 
 Royal promise as to House of Assembly unfulfilled. 
 
 Disappointment of British Colonists ... ... 20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 British Colonists petition for House of Assembly ... 22 
 British Ministry unfavourable to Petition ... ... 23 
 
 Sacrifice demanded of British Colonists to gain House 
 
 of Assembly 23 
 
 French Canadian Seigniorial and Legal classes peti- 
 tion 24 
 
 They prefer military government with French laws to 
 
 civil government with English laws ... ... 25 
 
 British Ministers on the point of re-enacting the 
 
 Criminal Law of France {Note) ... ... 25 
 
INDEX. 147 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Change of Government for Canada. The Quebec 
 
 Bill 27 
 
 Bill founded on French Petition. British Petition 
 
 disregarded ... ... .. ... ... 27 
 
 Indecent haste of British Ministry 28 
 
 Burke, Fox, Barr6 oppose Bill ... ... ... 28 
 
 Lord North and Cabinet refuse concessions to Bri- 
 tish Colonists ... ... ... .., ... 28 
 
 Habeas corpus for Canada voted down by Ministers.. 29 
 
 Earl of Chatham protests against Bill. It passes ... 30 
 Lord Mayor of London and Common Council attempt 
 
 to petition King 30 
 
 King assents to Bill. His opinion of measure ... 31 
 Real intent of Ministers. Solicitor-General Wed- 
 
 derburne's speech ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Object of Bill, purposely to discourage British set- 
 tlement ... ... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Analysis and substance of Bill ... ... ... 32 
 
 Injustice to British Colonists within and beyond 
 
 Canada 36 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Canada protests against the Quebec BiU 37 
 
 Petition against Bill sent to the King ... ... 37 
 
 Evil results of Bill enumerated ... ... ... 38 
 
 Petition to Lords ... ... ... ... ... 38 
 
148 INDEX. 
 
 tAGE 
 
 Lords disregard Petition and refuse to repeal Bill ... 39 
 
 Petition to Commons 39 
 
 Eepeal of Quebec Bill moved in Commons ... 41 
 Lord North threatens to arm Roman Catholics of 
 
 Canada against Thirteen Colonies ... ... 41 
 
 Charles James Fox's charge against Lord North ... 41 
 
 Commons refuse to repeal Bill ... ... ... 41 
 
 French Canadian majority displeased with Bill ... 42 
 They offer to join British in opposition ; are with- 
 held by their superiors ... ... ... 42 
 
 The Thirteen Colonies incensed against Bill ... 43 
 Congress address people of Great Britain, complain- 
 ing of Bill 44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 British Ministry achieve their object ; they gain 
 
 over clergy and seigniors ... ... ... 46 
 
 First taxes imposed by Britain since Conquest .. .46-47 
 
 Composition of Legislative Council... ... ... 47 
 
 Address of Congress to inhabitants of Quebec ... 48 
 
 Serious result of address on Canadian population ... 49 
 
 Congress attempt to deceive Canada ... ... 50 
 
 Martial Law proclaimed ; Militia called out ... 51 
 Malign influence of Quebec Bill on defence of Pro- 
 vince ... ... ... ... ... 51-52 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Hostility of Peasants to Quebec Bill and Seigniors 53 
 
INDEX. 149 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Peasants rebel against Seigniors 53-55 
 
 Reason of revolt of Peasants ... ... ... 55 
 
 Population of the towns detest Quebec Bill ... 66 
 
 French Canadian Militia make Governor promise to 
 
 use his efforts for its repeal ... ... ... 56 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Status of Roman Catholic Church in Canada ... 57 
 Penal laws of British Islands do not extend to Colo- 
 nies 57 
 
 Mgr. Briand elected Bishop of Quebec ... ... 58 
 
 King consents that Bishop should be invested by the 
 
 Pope 58 
 
 High-handed proceedings of Bishop towards his 
 
 flock 59 
 
 He exhorts his people to oppose American invaders 59 
 Threatens with excommunication those who refuse 59-60 
 The people disobey and satirize the Bishop... 60-61 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Perilous situation of Canada 62 
 
 The Governor deceived in his Militia ... ... 62 
 
 French Canadians assist Americans ... ... 62 
 
 Some of British Colonists sympathise with Ameri- 
 cans ... .. ... ... ... ... 63 
 
 General Montgomery takes possession of Montreal 63 
 
150 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Americans hold all Canada, except Quebec 63-64 
 Montgomery assaults Quebec. His death. Failure 
 
 of the invasion ' ... 64 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Colonial misgovernment ... ... ... ... 66 
 
 Eesponsibility of Colonial authorities for maladmi- 
 nistration. ... ... ... ... ._ 66 
 
 British Ministers kept in ignorance of Canadian 
 
 grievances ... ... ... ... ... 67 
 
 Canadian Governors deceived by Canadian Oligar- 
 chies ... ... ... ... ... ... 67 
 
 Quebec Bill based upon partial information ... ... 67 
 
 British Ministry desire to mitigate some evils of the 
 
 Bill 68 
 
 Habeas Corpus about to be re-established in Canada 68 
 French Canadian Legislative Councillors oppose it 68-69 
 American Invasion assists to postpone Habeas Cor- 
 pus 69 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Introduction of English laws by Royal Proclamation 
 
 of 1764 70 
 
 Constitutional argument against introduction of 
 
 English laws ... ... ... ... 70-71 
 
 Nature of the supplanted French laws 71 
 
INDEX. 151 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Judges — sessions of courts — power of appeal — Su- 
 preme Council ... ... ... ... ... 71 
 
 Composition of Supreme Council ; its powers 71-72 
 
 Attorneys for the King ; their duties ... ... 72 
 
 Court of the In tendant ; its jurisdiction .. ... 73 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The laws of inheritance. No primogeniture ... 74 
 Restraints on the Seigniors as to subdivisions of 
 
 inheritance ... ... ... 74 
 
 Restraints in the case of the Peasants ... ... 75 
 
 Defect of the French jurisprudence ... ... 75 
 
 Re-establishment of the French civil laws ... ... 76 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 77 
 77 
 78 
 79 
 80 
 
 Feudal tenure ; Peasant servitudes... 
 
 Tenure by which the Seigniors held of the King 
 
 Peasant tenures ; burdens and restraints ... 
 
 Redeeming feature of the Seigniorial system 
 
 Immense territorial grants to the Seigniors 
 
 King of England endeavours to perpetuate feudal 
 
 system in future Province of Upper Canada 80-81 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Canadian Reign of Terror ... ... ... ... 82 
 
 Despotic Character of Legislative Council ... ... 82 
 
152 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Military Tyranny established by Council 83 
 
 Commercial Code of England introduced j Courts of 
 
 Oyer and Terminer established ... ... 83 
 
 Tyranny of Governor Haldimand ... ... ... 84 
 
 Council vote down introduction of the Laws of Eng- 
 land 85 
 
 Military arrests ; their injustice ... ... ... 85 
 
 Kobbery of Mails by Government 85-86 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Peace between Great Britain and the United States 87 
 
 Liberation of Canadian Political prisoners ... ... 87 
 
 Territorial gluttony of United States 87 
 
 British Ministry wish to revive Habeas Corpus 87-88 
 
 Legislative Council make delays ... ... ... 88 
 
 Habeas Corjpus wrung from the Council ... ... 8 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 British and French petition Home Government for 
 
 Constitutional changes 89 
 
 Legislative Council resist petition 89 
 
 Lord Sidney's unjust opinion of petitioners ... 89 
 British Ministry at length condescend to notice 
 
 Canada 90 
 
 Mr. Grenville transmits to Canada scheme of a Con- 
 stitution 90 
 
 Wretched social condition of the Province 91 
 
 Disgraceful state of the Judiciary ... ... ... 91 
 
INDEX. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Nation-Builders of Upper Canada 93 
 
 The Loyalists of the Thirteen Colonies 93 
 
 Persecution of the Loyalists 94 
 
 They take refuge in Western Canada 94 
 
 Imperial favours conferred on the exiles 95 
 
 Political opinions of the Loyalists 95 
 
 They protest against feudal tenures ... ... ... 96 
 
 They claim a Parliament of their own 96 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Canada in the British Parliament 97 
 
 King's Message ; Division of the Province ; A Pro- 
 testant Clergy 97 
 
 William Pitt's motion based on Message ... 97-98 
 
 He introduces a Bill to settle future Government of 
 
 Canada 98 
 
 Provisions of the new Bill .. 98-100 
 
 Charles James Fox on the Measure. Favours self- 
 
 Government for Canada 100 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 British Merchants of Quebec oppose Constitutional 
 
 Act 102 
 
 Mr. Lymburner, their agent, heard at bar of the 
 
 Commons ... ... ... ... ... 102 
 
 He depicts juridical confusion of Quebec 103 
 
154 INDEX. 
 
 PAOlE 
 
 Opposes desire of Western Loyalists for division of 
 Province ... ... ... ... ... 103 
 
 Protests against aristocratic enactments of the Act 104 
 
 Points out defect in representation of American 
 Colonies ... ... ... ... ... 105 
 
 Entreats for postponement of payment of Provincial 
 
 Civil List 105-106 
 
 Makes certain requests on behalf of his constituents 106 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Fox and Pitt on the New Constitution 107 
 
 Fox opposes the limited representation proposed ... 107 
 He objects to Septennial Parliaments for Canada ... 108 
 Disapproves of excessive electoral qualification ... 108 
 Contends against introduction of hereditary powers 
 
 and honours in Canada ... ... 108-109 
 
 Combats reservation of lands for ecclesiastics 109-110 
 Comments unfavourably on proposed division of 
 
 Quebec 110-111 
 
 Shows how Britain may retain Canada ... ... Ill 
 
 Present Act only shadow of British Constitution ... Ill 
 Pitt's doubts as to greater numerical representation 112 
 
 He defends Septennial Parliaments 112 
 
 Contends for a non-elective Legislative Council ... 113 
 Upholds ecclesiastical laud reserves ; and division 
 
 of Province ... ... ... ... ... 113 
 
 Points out inconvenience of a single House of As- 
 sembly ... . . 114 
 
INDEX. 155 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fox moves to abolish hereditary principle. Nega- 
 tived ' ... 114 
 
 Moves for increased representation for Lower Cana- 
 da. Negatived; Bill passed 114-115 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 The Constitutional Act of 1791 116 
 
 Provisions of the Act repealed by Union Act of 1841 119 
 Tithes for a Protestant Clergy (abolished in Upper 
 
 Canada) 120 
 
 Lands for a Protestant Clergy (subsequent Imperial 
 
 and Provincial restrictions) 121 
 
 Provincial Legislation prescribed as to ecclesiastical 
 
 lands (subsequent freedom of Legislation) ... 122 
 
 Free land tenures for Upper Canada 122 
 
 British Parliament renounce the right of internal 
 
 taxation in Canada 123-124 
 
 Habeas Corpus not guaranteed in the Act. How it 
 
 became law ... ... ... ... ... 125 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Defects of the Constitutional Act 126 
 
 Fox's political predictions ... ... ... ...126 
 
 Pitt's political foresight 126-127 
 
 Legislative Assemblies shorn of their power ... 128 
 Failure of the Act to establish a Canadian Aristo- 
 cracy .*. 128 
 
156 'index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Earl Kussell on the Constitutional Act ... 128-129 
 Inconsistency of his position ... ... ... 129 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 First Parliament of Upper Canada ... ... 130 
 
 They repeal " civil rights" clause of Quebec Bill ... 131 
 English laws made the rule of decision ... ... 1 31 
 
 Poor laws and bankrupt laws of England excluded 131 
 
 Trials by Jury established 133 
 
 Negro slavery in French Canada 133 
 
 Upper Canada, the first member of the Empire to 
 
 abolish negro slavery ... ... ... 133-134 
 
 Legislature of Upper Canada repeal Imperial Act of 
 
 1790, authorizing importation of negroes ... 135 
 Lower Canada Legislature refuse to follow example 
 
 of Upper Canada 135-136 
 
 Chief Justice Osgoode, in Lower Canada, in 1803, 
 
 decides against negro slavery 136 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Conquest confers religious liberty on Canada ... 137 
 The Huguenots excluded in the early days of French 
 
 Colonization ... ... ... 137 
 
 Charges made against the Huguenots 137 
 
 New England welcomes the Huguenots and profits 
 
 by them 138 
 
 Feelings excited by the Conquest no longer exist 138-139 
 
INDEX. 157 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Montcalm's singular opinions as to the Government 
 
 of French Canada 139 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Canada past and present 140 
 
 Strain on the British Constitution in Canada ... 140 
 Perversion and debasement of the Constitutional 
 
 Act 140 
 
 Canadian Oligarchies and Canadian Governors 140-141 
 Principle for which Legislative Assemblies con- 
 tended 141 
 
 Opposition of Legislative Councils — Outbreak of 
 
 1837 , 141 
 
 Union of Upper and Lower Canada, 1841. Respon- 
 sible Government conceded ... ... ... 141 
 
 Canadian and British Statesmen : efforts of former ; 
 
 magnanimity of latter ... ... ... 141-142 
 
 False prophets. United States Republicanism 
 
 spurned in Canada 142 
 
 Ontario — Comprehensiveness of her local liberties. 
 
 Her Municipal Institutions ... ... ... 142 
 
 Pitt's prediction fulfilled in 1 864 1 42 
 
 Failure of the Union Act of 1841 143 
 
 Sir John A. Macdonald and Hon. George Brown, 
 
 opposing Party leaders 143 
 
 They unite to originate a New Constitution ... 143 
 
 Our Federal system. Its advantages in a country of 
 
 diverse races ... ... ... ... 143-144 
 
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