A message came to the Assembly from the Governor. It had reference to certain grievances submitted by the Assembly to the King. The Governor had been commanded to inform the Assembly that the Lieutenant-Governor had been ordered to repair to Quebec, and to reside in the province during his tenure of office; that a Lieutenant-Governor for Gaspe was necessary and should be provided for; that the successor to the Provincial Secretary should be a resident officer, but that the present absent incumbent was not to be dispossessed without adequate compensation; and that the present agent of the province, in the colonial office, had not been guilty of misconduct, and the office of agent which he held was not to be abolished. The message was anything but satisfactory, and the Assembly grumbled audibly.

Another message was sent to the Assembly informing the House that the Governor intended to apply the territorial and casual revenues, fines, rents, and profits, which were reserved to the French King, at the conquest, and belonged to the King of Great Britain on the surrender of the country, the monies raised by statutes of the imperial parliament, and the sum of L5,000 sterling raised by the provincial statute 35th George the Third, chapter 9, towards the support of the civil government and the administration of justice. And he called upon the Assembly, as they had refused the civil list, to defray the cost of certain local establishments, the expenses of the legislature and the necessary expense of collecting the revenue. The Assembly assured the Governor of their great satisfaction that he had not questioned the constitutional doctrine which they had enunciated, that the public money should only be applied conformably to law. They were indeed sorry that the standing rules of the Council prevented their House from entertaining even the hope that its invariable disposition to provide for the necessary expenses of the civil government could have its proper and legal effect. But they would grant no supplies whatever. This manoeuvre might have been most successfully practised upon the government of Lower Canada, if it had not also affected Upper Canada. The supplies of Upper, as well as of Lower Canada, were cut off. Quebec was the only seaport the two provinces had. It was in Lower Canada that the duties on imports were levied. Of these import duties Upper Canada was now entitled to a fifth, instead of an eighth, as at first agreed upon. And if the whole was sacrificed, the value of a fifth of the whole would not amount to much. The government, and, indeed, the whole people of Upper Canada were annoyed at the loss of revenue inflicted upon the country, for the sake merely of principle. But that was not all. Upper Canada was already so rapidly increasing in population that a fifth of the whole duties collected was not looked upon as her fair share of receipts. Her commissioners desired a larger share of the incomings. Lower Canada would not grant the increase and there was another difficulty between the provinces. The subject was brought under the consideration of the imperial parliament, by Upper Canada, through the instrumentality of an agent, in London, appointed to communicate with the government at home. The parliament of Lower Canada was prorogued on the 18th of February. Lord Dalhousie was satisfied that no benefit to the public could be expected from a continuance of the session, and had come to prorogue the parliament. He regretted that the supplies had been withheld, but neither the civil government, nor the officers of justice, nor any of the officers of the government or of the courts would be at all affected. The mischievous effects of their proceeding would fall upon trade and of course be highly injurious to His Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, who should know how to bring about a remedy. He was much pleased with the conduct of the Council. The Governor General had received an idea from Mr. Ryland, with which he was quite delighted. It now seemed to His Excellency that he would soon bring the Commons of Canada to their senses. Had Mr. Ryland been called upon to point out a remedy for the existing difficulties in the government, he would have said to lord Dalhousie:—either unite the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada, or, by giving a fair representation to the townships, secure an English influence in the House of Assembly. Perfect the constitution by creating an hereditary aristocracy, for which the Crown Reserves were originally set apart, and make the Legislative Council so respectable as to render a seat therein an object of ambition to every man of character and talent. Exercise decidedly the patronage of the Romish Church, and give the Romish Bishop clearly to understand that the slightest opposition on his part to this regulation would put an end to his allowance of L1,500 sterling per annum. Admit no more coadjutors, secure a permanent revenue, adequate or nearly adequate to the expenses of the civil government. Ascertain to a farthing the monies that actually are or ought to be in the Receiver General's chest. Give to that officer an adequate salary, and take effectual means to prevent one shilling of the public monies from being employed by him in future in commercial speculations. Accomplish these objects, as you easily may, and be assured that good sense and upright intentions, on the part of His Majesty's representative, will thereafter be fully adequate to get the better of every difficulty that has hitherto attended the provincial government. This scheme of a remedy for existing difficulties was submitted by the Earl of Dalhousie to the government of England. A bill was indeed introduced into the imperial parliament, for a legislative union of the two provinces, and for the regulation of trade in Canada. A majority of the Commons of England would not, however, listen to the proposal for a legislative union of the provinces, for which no desire had been expressed by either Upper or Lower Canada. The sense of the inhabitants of the Canadas should first have been obtained. To this opposition the imperial ministry were compelled to yield, and therefore that part of the bill which related to the union was relinquished. The other part of the bill, afterwards known as "The Canada Trade Act," became law. By it the claims of Upper Canada were recognised, and to guard that province against the caprice of the lower province, all the duties payable under Acts of the legislature of Lower Canada, on imports, were to be permanently continued, according to the latest agreement, in July, 1819. The two temporary provincial Acts, 53 and 55, George III, chapter 2, and 85, George III, chapter 3, including that which had been suffered to expire were revived, and became permanent Acts, only liable to repeal or alteration, by Lower Canada, with the concurrence of Upper Canada. New duties on imports by sea could not be imposed by Lower Canada without the consent of Upper Canada, without the special interference of the imperial parliament. It was no wonder that Lord Dalhousie spoke ironically of the effect to be produced by the stoppage of the supplies. The measure was not, however, judicious. It was in the highest degree irritating to Lower Canada. It was a positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or feudal tenure into free and common soccage was given to the censitaire in transactions with the crown.

This rude assault upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an unfortunate period. Both provinces were suffering. Agriculture and commerce were in distress. Agricultural and commercial distress had also afflicted the mother country. People were unwillingly idle, and consequently, discontented. The regulations then existing in Great Britain, with respect to the importation of grain and flour from the Canadas were alleged to amount almost to a prohibition. To the operation of these regulations Canadian distress was attributed. Unless relief were speedily obtained, the certain ruin of the entire farming and commercial interests was expected to ensue. The difficulties occasioned by the obstruction to Canadian navigation, in winter, rendered it impossible for the Canadian farmer to compete fairly or with a reasonable chance of success, in the English markets, with the United States. American produce was admitted into Lower Canada, for consumption, free of duty, to the prejudice of Upper Canada, and was a direct violation of the reciprocity which ought to exist between the two provinces, as it depressed the price of Upper Canada produce, and rendered nugatory the laws existing for its protection. And unless the flour of Upper Canada should be admitted into the English market on terms of greater favor, the imports from Great Britain would entirely cease. The Upper Canadians wished the repeal of the corn bill. They wanted the monopoly of the supply of the West Indies. They desired a corn bill for themselves. And they did not know precisely what they desired for the riddance of their distress. It was at this season that the "Canada Trade Act" came into force, and that the propriety of uniting the two provinces was to be considered by the people. In Lower Canada the contemplated re-union of the provinces was not relished. Upper Canada was indifferent and perhaps rather in favor than opposed to the scheme. To Lower Canada it forboded the loss of caste, usages, and religion, while to Upper Canada it indicated only a more extended sphere of legislative action, and the direct control of the general revenue for improvements. The Union Bill was well conceived. The Governor was to have erected the townships, previously unrepresented, into counties, of six townships each, with a member for every county. The qualification for a seat in the Assembly was to be the unincumbered possession of landed property to the value of L500 sterling. The House was to consist of not more than one hundred and twenty members, and of not more than sixty members for either province. Four ministers were to have seats in the House and to have the liberty of speech without the right of votes, in the shape of two members from each of the Executive Councils of Upper Canada and of Lower Canada. The duration of the parliament was to be five years. There was to be no power of imprisonment for alleged contempts given to either House. The proceedings of both Houses were to be recorded in the English language, and in fifteen years afterwards, the English language only was to be made use of in debate. The free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was to be respected, subject to the king's supremacy, and to the collation or induction into cures—a privilege until then enjoyed by the Bishop superintending the Romish Church in Canada. Here was Mr. Ryland's scheme to the letter. It gave evidence of some ability. It was the scheme of a lifetime, of one zealous in the cause of the Church of England. How the Lower Canadians were to have been induced to consent, is not easily guessed at. It is true Mr. Ryland intimates that the Bishop's salary could be withdrawn, and that no more coadjutors should be allowed. But the Bishop was not the only clergyman of the Church of Rome in the province, and the See of Rome has its instruments in every ecclesiastical grade. The priests, as a body were very much annoyed at the Union Bill. They did not fail to declaim against it. Nor were they to be blamed. The French Canadians were indeed, to a man, opposed to the union. The English population were, of course, in favor of the scheme. Horrified at popery, an Englishman honestly believed that popery had no rights in a country possessed by a protestant king. It could be tolerated but not legally maintained. Of course when the King became Bishop of the Church in Canada, the Pope was virtually deposed, and the deposition of the Pope in England is indeed the most essential difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The people of Montreal were most actively in favor of Mr. Ryland's admirable scheme of religious conversion. Of 80,000 people who had come into the province since the American war scarcely a twentieth part had remained within the limits of the province, the rest having been induced by the foreign character of the country in which they had sought an asylum, and the discouragements they experienced, to try their fortune in the United States. The division of the Province of Quebec, into Upper and Lower Canada, had been impolitic. Had a fit plan of representation been adopted the British population would have now exceeded the French, and the imports and exports of the country have been greatly beyond their present amount.[34] It is not a little extraordinary to find that the English speaking inhabitants of the province complained of the unreasonable extent of political rights which had been conceded to Lower Canada. Mr. Neilson was not of these complainants. Mr. James Stuart was. The Canadians had deserted Mr. Stuart and he now deserted them. Mr. Neilson had not been yet deserted by those whom he had served, and he had not therefore cause for desertion. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau went home in charge of petitions against the contemplated union of the provinces, while Mr. Stuart went to London with the petition of the unionists in his pocket. The mob was merely prejudiced. There was no politics in the heads of the ordinary people, whether of French or English extraction. But the English hated the French, and the French disliked the English, because neither understood the other. It was enough for the English speaking population that the government was English, to secure their sympathies to the government, and it was enough for the French speaking part of the population to know that the Assembly was chiefly Franco-Canadian to secure their sympathies to the Assembly. Lord Dalhousie and the red-tape-nobility looked upon both only as canaille. His lordship was the emperor; the judges, the bishops, and the secretaries, were the marshals and princes of an empire of serfs—of crown serfs and of serfs of the soil. But, however that may have been, two events of some importance had occurred. The Lieutenant-Governor of the province, Sir Francis Burton, had arrived at the scene of his labors, and Sir John Caldwell, the Receiver General, had become insolvent towards the province, in the sum of L100,000. The difficulties of Lord Dalhousie's reign were on the increase. The union and intended extinction of Lower Canadian nationality was not a matter to be so easily effected as at first anticipated. His lordship again assembled parliament on the 10th of January, 1823. The Clerk of the Assembly informed the noble Earl, at the head of the government, that the Speaker, Mr. Papineau, had gone to England. The Governor ordered the Assembly to elect another Speaker in his stead. They did so, and their choice fell upon Mr. Vallieres de St. Real. The choice was approved of. Lord Dalhousie thereupon opened the session. He told the Houses that an Act had been passed regulating the trade of Lower Canada with the United States of America, and the intercourse between Upper and Lower Canada, an adjustment of the differences subsisting between the two provinces being provided for. He further intimated that the imperial government contemplated the union of the two provinces, but had withdrawn the measure until the next session of the imperial legislature, with the view of ascertaining the sentiments of the Canadian people on the matter. He hoped that the subject would receive attention, and the deliberations of the parliament be distinguished for moderation. He had been somewhat embarrassed by the stoppage of the supplies, but had done as much as he could to avert inconvenience, by paying up the usual expenses for the half year then current, though he had not felt himself justified in doing so beyond that period, and there consequently remained a very considerable arrear due to the public servants. A full statement of the receipts and expenditures for the year would be laid before the Assembly, together with an estimate of the probable expense in the present year of those local establishments for which the Assembly were bound in duty to provide. He trusted that the whole financial accounts would be brought to a clear and final arrangement. He was convinced that the Assembly regretted that the progress of the public interests had been interrupted. And without dwelling upon the past, he would earnestly recommend them to consider the incalculable injuries which had been accumulated on the province, while the executive branch of the constitution remained disabled from exercising its just and legitimate and most useful powers. The Assembly were pleased to learn that the imperial parliament had suffered the measure for the union of the two provinces to lie over until the opinion of the Canadian people had been ascertained, and indeed they fairly echoed in their reply the speech from the throne. A call of the Assembly was ordered for the 21st of January, to consider the union question. The Upper House, with the exception of the Honorables John Richardson, Herman W. Ryland, Charles W. Grant, James Irvine, Roderick McKenzie, and Wm. B. Felton, were decidedly opposed to the contemplated union. The Assembly believed that the union of two provinces, having laws, civil and religious institutions, and usages essentially different, would endanger the laws and institutions of either province; and that there would thence result well-founded apprehensions respecting the stability of those laws and institutions, fatal doubts of the future lot of these colonies, and a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people, and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the mother country. The resolutions of both Houses were embodied in addresses to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. Those to the King the Governor was requested to transmit, and those to the two Imperial Houses of legislation were forwarded to the delegates of the anti-unionists, Messrs. Neilson and Papineau.

[34] To-day an agitation has begun for a repeal of the present Act of Union.

A message was sent to the Assembly, officially informing the House of the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Burton. The message contained another bit of information to the effect that it was necessary that a residence should be provided for His Excellency. It stated still further that a furnished House had been taken for His Excellency, at a yearly rent of L500, for which it was desirable that the Assembly should provide. And the message concluded by recommending the addition of L1,000 a year to the salary of His Excellency, which was then only L1,500, so that with L2,500 a year, and house rent free, he might live in becoming style. The Assembly cheerfully voted these extra allowances to the Lieutenant-Governor. A bill was this session passed, erecting, for judicial purposes, the Eastern Townships into the Inferior District of St. Francis. There was to be a provincial court in the district, and a resident judge, who was to have jurisdiction in personal actions of L20 sterling. A Court of Quarter Sessions in the district was also established. The bill was introduced into the Assembly, and passed, to increase the representation, by giving the Eastern Townships a representation precisely as recommended in the contemplated Act of Union; but the Assembly, to counterbalance the effect which might result from the introduction of six new members into the Assembly, also created an overbalancing number of new French constituencies. The Council consequently rejected the representation bill. Then the estimates of supply were submitted by message. They had been classed into two schedules. One comprehending the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, certain officers attached to the Governor-in-Chief, including the provincial agent in London, the Surveyor General and contingencies of his department; the judges and officers of the Courts; the Executive Councillors (L100 a year each); the Clerk of the Council, and the contingencies of his office and of the committee of audit; the Inspector General of Accounts; the Receiver General's department; and the Clerk of the Terrars, the whole sum to be supplied being L32,083 11s. 3d. sterling. The second schedule included the local establishments—the legislature and its officers; the cost of printing the laws; the salaries to public schoolmasters; the pension list; rents and repairs of public buildings, and the salaries and disbursements in connection with such buildings; the expense of collecting the revenues: the expenses of the Trinity House; the militia staff and contingencies; the expenses for criminals and houses of correction; and miscellaneous expenses, such as the salaries of the Grand Voyer and others, the grants to residents on Anticosti, for the assistance of shipwrecked seamen; and the assessments on public buildings, in all amounting to L30,225 sterling. The Assembly voted the local schedule but not the other. Indeed they protested against being required to do so in the particular manner required. The Assembly next passed bills to reimburse and indemnify His Majesty for monies expended without the sanction of the legislature. The Council did not think it decorous to speak of "indemnifying" the King and rejected the bills. There was yet another money bill to pass the Council. A bill to defray the expenses of the local establishments, in which the different items of expenditure were specified, was sent up for concurrence and was only not rejected on account of the distress to individuals which its rejection would have caused. The Assembly had appropriated monies for the payment of the local establishments, which was to be taken from the general funds of the province. The Council passed the bill under protest because by the term "general," appropriated as well as unappropriated monies might be indicated as under the control of the Assembly. An attempt was made to induce the Council to agree to the nomination of Mr. Marryatt as agent for the province, but the Council refused, and the Assembly allowed the matter to drop. To render the proceedings of the Assembly still more attractive, a breach of privilege case occurred again this session. The Montreal Times, a stiffishly unionist paper, had dealt harshly both with the Assembly and Council, in speaking of these two august bodies, as anti-British. The Council was quite indifferent to the imputation, but the Assembly pronounced the assertion of the Times to be a false and scandalous libel upon the House, and a breach of its privileges. In accordance with this judgment, Mr. Speaker was instructed to issue warrants for the arrests of the editor and publishers of the Times. One offender, Mr. Ariel Bowman, was taken into custody, but Mr. Edward Sparhawk, the other offender, could not be found. Mr. Bowman was not long a prisoner. He escaped from custody soon after being taken, and neither of the offenders were subsequently caught during the session, so that both eluded the punishment due to an offence which was very heinous only in the sight of the Assembly. After this important matter was disposed of, the Governor General intimated that he had advanced L30,000 to the Receiver General, out of the military chest, to enable him to pay the expenses of the civil government, for the half year ending in May, 1822. He called upon the House for re-payment. The reply was pertinent. The House would at once have authorised the Receiver General to return the money out of the sum of L100,000, the balance of the public money which should have been in his hands, if it could have been done, but a balance being due to the province, the Assembly could only look upon the accommodation afforded to the Receiver General as a personal favor to that officer. Indeed the Assembly voted all the sums required for other public purposes, without taking into any account whatever the emptiness of the public chest. The financial affairs of the province were in a curious condition. "My earnest entreaties," says Lord Dalhousie to Mr. Vallieres de St. Real, "to ascertain the state of our finances, have been unavailing. Whilst the legislature has been contending about forms, the substance of the treasury has been used, and the province now stands without any funds which can be called its own, or, worse than that, it has incurred a debt to the military chest of L30,000, advanced in 1822, and L30,000 more advanced this summer of 1823, to which must be added the amount of all unpaid appropriations in last session, a sum not less than L240,000, exclusive of the grant of the Chambly Canal:

Our debt contracted is L 60,000 Appropriations of 1823 unpaid 24,000 Our necessary expenses for 1824 70,000 Our probable appropriation, including the award to Upper Canada 25,000 ————- L179,000 And our revenue to meet this 90,000."

The recent declaration and exposure of the Receiver General undoubtedly did shew the evils arising from not annually settling the public accounts. The Receiver General had not, however, positively wasted the public revenue. Largely engaged in business he had built sawmills, dammed rivers, and constructed viaducts. He was an enterprising man of business, and doubtless his enterprise had indirectly enriched the province, although as far as the immediate recovery of the money was concerned, for the payment of the civil expenses of the government, the investments had been somewhat selfish and rather injudicious. The Receiver Generalship should not have been in the hands of a person engaged in trade. That was the mistake, and it was one, which the Assembly even had endeavored to remedy when perhaps it was too late.

There were still some other matters of finance meriting legislative attention. The "Canada Trade Act" of the imperial parliament had wonderfully deranged the siege operations of the House. The Assembly was now on the defensive, the governor of the province having been very considerably re-inforced by the energetic measures of the imperial authorities. It was not even considered prudent to make further zigzag approaches. The Assembly resolved upon keeping within their own lines and to defend themselves as well as they could from the vigorous sorties of the enemy, led on by Mr. Ryland. They requested that copies of any addresses to His Majesty by the Legislative Council of Lower Canada or by the Parliament of Upper Canada to the King, or his representative in Lower Canada, might be laid before them. The Governor sent to them an able report of a joint committee of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, alluding to the fruitless negotiations, which had been carried on between the duties' commissioners of the two provinces, a document which had had such weight with the imperial parliament as to have led to the passage of the Canada Trade Act. The Assembly scanned the paper carefully but did nothing. They only said that the Act would receive their most serious attention in the next session of the parliament. They were rather inclined to do business on a more liberal scale than they had manifested at the previous session. An Act was passed to enable the province to commence the construction of a canal between the town of St. Johns, in Canada East, and the village of Chambly, which the company, incorporated in 1818, had been unable, for want of funds to commence. Fifty thousand pounds were appropriated for this purpose. They voted also twelve thousands pounds as an additional appropriation towards the construction of the Lachine Canal; two thousand one hundred pounds for the encouragement of agriculture; eight hundred and fifty pounds were granted to the Montreal General Hospital Society; two hundred pounds were awarded to the Education Society of Quebec; Chief Justice Monk was pensioned in the sum of five hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year; and Mr. Justice Ogden was voted a retiring annual pension of four hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The House then applied to the Governor for a copy of his instructions relative to the application of the Jesuits' Estates Revenues for educational purposes; but the Governor refused to comply with the Assembly's request, because he had not been specially permitted to lay his instructions before the Assembly. The business of the session was concluded, and Lord Dalhousie went down in State to the Legislative Council Chamber, to prorogue the parliament. In his closing speech he expressed the satisfaction with which he had witnessed so much diligence and attention to the business of the country. He was exceedingly well pleased to have had to give the royal assent to the Acts passed to facilitate the administration of justice, to encourage agriculture, to construct canals, to assist trade, and to aid charitable and educational institutions. He thanked the Assembly for the supplies. He regretted that offices for the enregistration of property had not been established. He had transmitted the addresses of both Houses on the subject of the union of the provinces to the king. And he assured the Houses that he esteemed the result of the session at once honorable to parliament and useful to the country.

There was still much anxiety in the country about the contemplated union. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had not, however, been idle in London. They had strongly pointed out to the imperial government the probability of a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people of Lower Canada and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the mother country, if the union was consummated, and their representations weighed with the government, for not long after the prorogation of the Lower Canada parliament it was officially announced by Lord Dalhousie that His Majesty's government had, for the present, determined to relinquish the proposed measure for the legislative union of the provinces.

The parliament of Upper Canada was opened on the 23rd of March. Governor Maitland, in his opening address, spoke of the temporary diminution of receipts from Quebec, as having interfered with the prosperity of the province. He recommended the establishment of an additional circuit and of a second assize. He probably addressed the House for the last time, and he took the opportunity of remarking that he had ever found them guided in their deliberations by a scrupulous attention to the interests of the people as by a proper regard for the honorable support of His Majesty's government. And he concluded by alluding to the contemplated union of the two provinces which, if effected, would extend the field of legislation. In the course of the session, the Assembly represented to the Lieutenant-Governor that they found the travelling expenses of the Judges too high, and that the salaries of all the officers of the government and of the courts were too high. It was recommended that there should be retrenchment, and it was suggested that the scale of remuneration, which existed previous to 1796, was sufficient. The Governor would not hear of a retrenchment, which could only have the effect of placing respectable men in the situation of struggling against actual penury, with the gloomy prospect of starving in old age. A second representation was made by the Assembly, to the effect that confusion resulted from the manner in which the public accounts were kept. There was a want of detail which should be obviated. Sir Peregrine Maitland was quite indignant at this representation. He was answerable for the necessities of the public, and the House of Assembly approached him with the deliberate intention of misrepresenting his administration. Any information, solicited by the Assembly, to be afforded by him, as an act of courtesy, would have been most cheerfully afforded. He did not care for secrecy, and any information desired concerning the public accounts he would, at any time, on a proper application, afford. The House respectfully informed His Excellency that they had not the slightest intention of misrepresenting his administration, but merely ventured to suggest an improvement in the mode of keeping the accounts. So the matter ended. The parliamentary session was rather a protracted one. The Kingston Bank Bill had been a long time before the House, and almost at the close of the session some amendments were made to it. An Orange Society Bill was thrown out of the House, by the casting vote of the Speaker.

Mr. Gourlay, when in Upper Canada, in 1819, strongly recommended, in a letter to the Niagara Spectator, the advisability of constructing canals for the improvement of the navigation of the great lakes and the St. Lawrence. His views were most enlightened. He advised the construction of canals on a scale to admit vessels of 200 tons burthen, large enough to brave the ocean, and not inconveniently large for internal navigation. Should it be deemed advisable, says Mr. Gourlay, to have larger vessels in the trade, any additional expense should not for a moment be thought of as an objection. The Lachine Canal is to admit only of boats. This may suit the merchant of Montreal, but will not do for Upper Canada. Indeed I am doubtful if our great navigation should at all touch Montreal, and rather think it should be carried to the northward. As to the line within the province, my mind is made up, not only from inquiries commenced on my first arrival here, but from considerable personal inspection of the ground, as well between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as below. My opinion is that the navigation ought to be taken out of the river St. Lawrence, near the village of Johnstown, in Edwardsburgh, and let into the Ottawa, somewhere below the Hawkesbury Rapids; probably in that part of the river called the Lake of Two Mountains. By a bold cut, of a few miles, at the first mentioned place, the waters of the St. Lawrence might be conducted to a command of level, which would make the rest of the way practicable, with very ordinary exertion. The idea which has been started by some of raising the navigation by two stages, first into Lake St. Francis, and thence to the higher level, may do for boat navigation; but, for vessels of a large scale it is greatly objectionable. Any benefit to be gained from the lake considered as part of the canal already formed, would be quite overbalanced by the want of a good towing path. A boat navigation may, I think, with benefit to the parts adjoining, be brought up so far as Milrush, through Lake St. Francis, and thence be taken into the line of the grand canal. The advantages to Upper Canada from a navigation on a large scale would be infinite. Only think of the difference of having goods brought here from England, in the same bottoms to which they were first committed, instead of being unshipped at Quebec, unboated and warehoused in Montreal, carted to the ditch canal, and there parcelled out, among petty craft for forwarding to Kingston. Then again at Kingston tumbled about for transport across Lake Ontario; and again, if Amherstburgh is the destination, a third time boated, unboated, and reshipped. Think of the difference in point of comfort and convenience to the merchants here. Think of the greater despatch. Think of the saving of trouble and risk. Think of being unburdened of immediate commissions and profits. Think of the closer connexion which it would form between this province and England. Think of the greater comfort it would afford to emigrants, and how much it would facilitate and encourage emigration. With navigation on a large scale, shipbuilding would become an object of great importance here, and new vessels might be ready loaded with produce to depart with the first opening in the spring. There are but few vessels trading from England to Quebec, which make two voyages in a season, and then it is with increase of risk that the second voyage is performed. Every vessel could leave England, proceed to the extremities of Lakes Michigan or Superior, and get back with ease in a season, or every vessel could leave Lakes Erie or Ontario in the spring, proceed to England, get back here, and again take home a second cargo of produce. In time of war what security would such a scale of navigation yield. It would put all competition on the lakes out of the question. Upper Canada would then possess a vast body of thorough bred seamen and ship carpenters, with abundance of vessels fit to mount guns, not only for their own individual defence, but to constitute a navy at a moment's notice. In a commercial competition too, the Great Western Canal of the States would be quite outrivalled by such a superior navigation. Upwards, except at the Falls of St. Mary, where a very short canal would give a free passage, navigation is clear for more than a thousand miles, and when population thickens on the wide-extended shores of the Upper Lakes, only think how the importance increases of having the transport of goods and produce uninterrupted by transhipment. Such was Mr. Gourlay's dream in the jail of Niagara. It is now reality. Ships of war, American and British, have passed from Lake Ontario down the St. Lawrence to the ocean, the ship Eureka embarked passengers for California, at Cleveland, in Ohio, and passed down the St. Lawrence to sea, safely reaching her destination on the Pacific, and sea-going vessels have been built in Kingston to ply between that port and Liverpool direct. Steamships pass up the St. Lawrence canals and down the St. Lawrence rapids. Canada is advancing with giant strides, small as her beginning was. It was in November, 1823, that George Keefer, J. Northrop, Thomas Merritt, William Chisholm, Joseph Smith, Paul Shipman, George Adams, John Decoes, and William Hamilton Merritt, advertised in the Upper Canada Gazette that, as freeholders of the district of Niagara, they intended to petition the legislature at the next session of parliament, to incorporate a company for the purpose of connecting the Lakes Erie and Ontario, by a canal capable of carrying boats of from twenty to forty tons burthen, by the following route:—To commence at Chippewa, ten miles above the mouth of that creek, on the farm of John Brown, from thence to the head of the middle branch of the twelve mile creek, at G. Vanderbarrack's, from thence to John Decoes, passing over to the west branch of the twelve mile creek, on the farm of Adam Brown, and continuing along the said stream to Lake Ontario. From the Chippewa to Grand River, either from the forks of the Chippewa, through the marsh, or from Oswego, whichever may prove most advantageous,—and for the erection of machinery for hydraulic purposes, on the entire route.

There was a beginning by men whose names are familiar to the Canadians. These were some of the pioneers of improvement, and some of them yet living have to combat the vulgar or interested reproach of being possessed with ideas of utopian schemes. But it is time to turn again to the baser things of Lower Canada. Lord Dalhousie, who had paid a visit to Nova Scotia, immediately after the prorogation of the parliament of Lower Canada, returned to Quebec in August. In October he established a new official Gazette. The commission of King's Printer given to Mr. Samuel Neilson, in 1812, was revoked, and Dr. John Charlton Fisher, who had been the editor of the Albion, published in New York, was commissioned as the printer in Canada, to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Dr. Fisher was a man of gentlemanlike exterior, of good address, of superior educational acquirements, of fair mental capacity, and, in a word, a gentleman and a scholar. He was an Englishman, and passionately loyal. But he was no match in shrewdness for Mr. Neilson, who was now more bitterly opposed to the government than ever. Dr. Fisher was, however, beyond any question, better suited for the management of a court journal than Mr. Neilson could have been. Mr. Neilson was a colonist and deeply imbued with that spirit of independence which is natural to the resident of a country far removed from the extremes of majesty and misery. Dr. Fisher had been the resident of a town in England, an officer of the English militia, and having had long to live on smiles, he smiled again to live. He was a courtier.

There was a considerable immigration both in 1822 and 1823. In 1822, 10,465 immigrants had arrived at Quebec. This year 10,188 immigrants had arrived. Nearly 60 families, consisting of 200 persons, the majority of whom were Quakers, had come from Bristol, in England to settle in Upper Canada.

The legislature of Lower Canada was again summoned to meet for the despatch of business, on the 25th of November. It was the last session of the parliament. Lord Dalhousie in opening the session apologised for the statements about financial difficulties, which he was obliged to make so frequently. He entreated the House to proceed with the public business harmoniously. He recommended the further consideration of the judicature bill, and his message of the 4th of February, calling attention to the expediency of enacting a law for the public registry of instruments conveying, changing, or affecting real property, with a view to give greater security to the possession and transfer of such property, and to commercial transactions in general, which had been overlooked in the previous session. And the Assembly proceeded to business. Thereupon Lord Dalhousie officially informed the House that he had suspended the Receiver General from the performance of the duties of his office. The Governor had directed his attention after the close of the previous session, to ascertain the state of the funds upon which large appropriations had been granted, and there appeared to be L96,000 in the hands of the Receiver General. But when His Excellency had called upon that officer to declare whether he was prepared to meet warrants to that amount, various accounts and statements shewing claims on the part of the province, on the imperial treasury, and the military chest, the payment of which into his hands would enable him to meet the demands of the government and, in time, to pay up the actual balance of his accounts with the public men, were submitted to him. He was not then prepared with the balance required to meet the warrants for the public salaries, and he requested that the warrants might not be issued until the 1st of July, when the revenue of the current year would place funds in the chest. Lord Dalhousie agreed to the Receiver General's request, concerning the time of issuing the warrants; but the question as to the repayment of the sums claimed by the Receiver General as due to the province, being one on which His Majesty's government alone could decide, Mr. Davidson was sent to England, on the part both of the government and of the Receiver General, with voluminous papers to be submitted to the Lords of the Treasury. When, however, Lord Dalhousie returned to Quebec from Nova Scotia, he was informed by the Receiver General that he was unable to meet any further warrants to be drawn upon him. Under such circumstances it only remained for the Governor-in-Chief to appoint a commission of two gentlemen to inspect and control the operations of the Receiver General; and he took upon himself the responsibility of granting loans from the military chest, to meet the urgent necessities of the civil government. But two days before the House had been assembled, no intimation having been received from the imperial authorities, that the claims advanced by the Receiver General, on the part of the province, would be admitted, he had been compelled to suspend the Receiver General until the pleasure of the king should be known with regard to him, or, at least, until arrangements should be made for replacing the deficient balance in the public chest. Mr. Caldwell was to be pitied, if not excused. His father, his predecessor in the Receiver Generalship, had left him a defalcation of L40,000 to be made good from a salary of L500 a year. Mr. Caldwell was compelled to engage in trade, and he did engage in trade successfully. He acquired large property. His estate at Lauzon was worth L1,500 a year, but then he bought his estate, to make good his father's deficiencies, by trading on the public monies, and he entailed the estate on his son, to prevent its falling into the hands of the province, with whose means he had improved it, previously to announcing that he was a defaulter towards the province to the extent of L96,117. This was not honorable and deserves neither pity nor excuse. The courts of law would not countenance the entail. The pretended entail was dismissed in the Canadian courts and dismissed in the courts of law in England. It was not to be supposed that Mr. Caldwell could keep an estate improved at the public expense, on the condition only of paying, during his life, L1,500 a year, out of it, to government. But Mr. Caldwell had a claim upon the province. He had paid out large sums of money, for which he was as much entitled to 3 per cent as was the Receiver General of Upper Canada. He and his father had received a million and a half, the per centage on which, at 3 per cent, was L45,471, which ought in equity to be allowed him. He would pay, moreover, L1,000 a year, in the event of his restoration to office, with a provision, by the legislature, suited to its responsibility. Now it does seem that if Mr. Caldwell was prepared to pay so many thousands a year, on certain conditions, there was no necessity for his default. The House would have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Caldwell. He was not their officer, and he was a defaulter. The imperial government were bound to make good the Receiver General's defalcation, and they would address His Majesty on the subject. They did so. It was alleged that Mr. Caldwell was an officer of the imperial government, over whom the provincial government had no control, and that he had lost to the province L96,117 13s. and one farthing, which it was right that the government of England should make good to the government of Canada. The Assembly proceeded to another matter. On the motion of Mr. Bourdages a committee was appointed to consider the propriety of erecting an equestrian statue "in memoriam illustrissimi viri D. Georgii Prevost, Baroneti, Hujusce Provinciae, Gubernatoris, Atque Copiarum Ducis Canadarum Servatoris." The statue was never erected, the excuse being simply "no funds." The subject of tea smuggling was brought before the House. The revenue had been seriously affected by the illicit importation of Bohay, Souchong, and Oolong, from the United States. Canada was desirous of obtaining "Gunpowder" from other and more profitable sources, and addressed the king to know if tea could not be obtained direct, either by some arrangement with the East India Company, for an annual supply, or by granting to His Majesty's subjects the benefit of direct importation. The king's ministers advised the East India Company to have no more colonial tea difficulties, and tea sufficient for the consumption of the province of Canada was annually sent to Quebec, in the company's ships, until the company ceased to be concerned in the tea trade. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had returned to Quebec from London, and had reported that the consideration of the union of the provinces would not be resumed without previous notice being given to the inhabitants of the province. The Canada Trade Act was discussed and defended by Mr. Papineau on the plea of necessity. The supplies were then considered, voted as before, item by item, and twenty-five per cent discounted on every salary, to make up for the Receiver General's defalcation. The Legislative Council rejected the supply bill as soon as it appeared in their chamber, and implored His Majesty to consider the state of the province, out of tenderness to his loyal subjects in Lower Canada, and to grant a remedy for the withholding of the supplies. But there was a subject of somewhat greater importance brought to the attention of the parliament in a message to Congress by the President of the United States. The American government claimed the right of freely navigating the St. Lawrence from their territories, in the west, to the sea. It certainly was a pity that the right was not conceded. The whole province of Canada would have gained by the increase of shipping to its waters. The Council were, however, much alarmed and addressed the Governor, deprecating such a concession, as contrary to the law of nations, in similar cases; dangerously calculated to affect the dependence of the colony, on the parent state; as having a tendency to systematize smuggling and as pernicious to British interests, in a variety of ways. They had further learned that Barnharts' Island, in the St. Lawrence, situated above Cornwall, in the Upper Province, was to be conceded to the Americans. They were apprehensive that the navigation of the St. Lawrence, between Upper and Lower Canada, was to be impeded or placed at the mercy of the States, and they suggested a reciprocal right of navigation, during peace, of the several channels of the St. Lawrence, south of the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, although they had prayed the king not to grant the reciprocal right of navigation in the St. Lawrence, north of that latitude, in time of peace. The Assembly paid no attention to the matter.

The Lower House, however, was beginning to be, on the whole, somewhat factiously disposed. For the most part, the positions assumed by the Commons of Canada, were correct positions, but they were not incapable of doing mischievously silly things. Indeed, while jealous to an extreme, of power in others, they claimed extraordinary powers, rights, and privileges for themselves. They would not have their proceedings commented upon either by the Governor, the Legislative Council, or the press. The slightest attempt to curb them was a breach of privilege, a simple remonstrance was something malicious, false, or libellous. They were occasionally pettish. A war losses Act had been passed in Upper Canada. The brunt of the war of 1812, had fallen upon the inhabitants of the Upper Province. There, whole villages, had been burned, by the enemy, and grain fields laid waste. It was only right to indemnify the sufferers. Upper Canada was, however, totally destitute of means. The cost of her civil government had been altogether defrayed out of the imperial treasury, until very recently. She only received, for all purposes, a fifth of the duties on imports collected at Quebec. To enable the government of Upper Canada to carry out the objects sought to be attained by the passage of the War Losses Act, the British government had consented to a loan of L100,000, the interest on one half of which the British government guaranteed. The other half, L2,500, was to be provided for by Upper Canada. How to manage it was the difficulty. Already the government had been compelled to resort to the miserable stratagem of heavily taxing traders, so that any dumb inhabitant of the province, and every implement of trade appeared to be the absolute property of the government, distributed among the people for a consideration. Neither a man's ox nor ass was his own. He paid to government a consideration, not for the land on which the cattle grazed, nor on the profits which they yielded, but for using them. It was a similar kind of stupidity to that which in Scotland and England refused to permit a man to make a pair of trowsers, sole a boot, or set up types, however capable he might have been, unless he had served an apprenticeship to the craft of seven years. It was not considered that while the horses of a pleasure carriage would be a proper source of revenue to a government, a carter's horse is not a proper subject for taxation. It was not considered that the laborer should give of the fruits of his labor an offering to the State which countenances and protects him, while labor is not to be prevented by taxation. It was not considered that while manufactured goods are properly dutiable, it is unwise to tax the raw material. An occupation ought not to be taxed. It is a wrong policy to tax an auctioneer, a pedlar, a carter, a merchant, a tavern keeper, or an editor, because of his occupation; but the stuffs which are traded in may very properly be taxed. Yet occupations were taxed in Upper Canada, and, of course, rather to the disadvantage than advantage of the province. It would not do to increase the taxation on inn keepers, pedlars, hawkers, boatmen, and on public carriages on land or water. The only way in which money could be raised was by the imposition of higher duties on imported goods, and the Upper Canada Assembly therefore requested the Assembly of Lower Canada to impose new duties on imports sufficient to make up the annual interest on the war losses loan, required from Upper Canada. But the Lower Canadian Assembly would not impose new taxes upon imports for any such purpose. They sympathised with the sufferers, but as all the disposable resources of both provinces had been employed in resisting the unjust charges of the war, it was not now expedient to increase the taxation on imported goods, such as wines, refined sugar, muscovado sugar, or by so much per cent, according to value, on merchandise. The Assembly of Lower Canada would not do anything in furtherance of the views of those who had made such representations to England as had led to the "Canada Trade Act." They did not of course say so. They, however, immediately afterwards, passed a vote of thanks to Sir James Mackintosh and some other members of the House of Commons, who had succeeded in persuading His Majesty's ministers to relinquish their support of a bill introduced into the imperial parliament in 1822, with the view of altering the established constitution of Canada, and the remains of which bill was the "Canada Trade Act." Upper Canada had another way to obtain money from Lower Canada. The Upper had a claim upon the Lower province. There were arrears of drawbacks due by Lower Canada upon importations into Upper Canada during the war, of which no exact entries had been made at the Custom House. The "Canada Trade Act" had provided that the amount due was to be decided by arbitration, and arbitrators appointed, in 1823, had awarded to Upper Canada L12,220. Upper Canada applied to Lord Dalhousie for the money, but his lordship was so embarrassed with financial difficulties that he was compelled to refer the matter to the Assembly. The Assembly would not pay the same sum twice. The Governor had used the money in paying the public officers of Lower Canada, inasmuch as the award had been made in 1823, and from the time of the award the amount due to Upper Canada was not at the disposal either of the government or of the Assembly, but should have been paid to Upper Canada. The Governor had virtually suspended the execution of the Canada Trade Act and had, in consequence, exposed Lower Canada to the misfortune of a renewal of the difficulties with Upper Canada. Lord Dalhousie was pestered with considerable ingenuity. The Assembly of Lower Canada were rapidly becoming conservative or non-progressive. They reported against any attempt being made to abolish the seigniorial tenure, or change any of the institutions of the country, the continuance of which was granted by the capitulations of the colony. They were liberal enough in matters which did not peculiarly interest the French-Canadian population. The Church of Scotland, in Canada, having applied for a proportion of the lands reserved for the clergy of the protestant churches, which had hitherto been exclusively claimed by the clergy of the Church of England, in Canada, the Assembly at once consented and addressed the king on the subject. They were strongly of opinion that even protestant dissenters, from the Churches of England and Scotland had an equitable claim, if not an equal right to enjoy the advantages and revenues to arise from the reserves in proportion to their numbers and their usefulness. The Church of England, in Canada was wroth. It was a pretty thing, indeed, for a Roman Catholic House of Assembly, to presume to represent to the King of Great Britain, and the head of their church, that the word "Protestant" was not exclusively the property of the Church of England. It was high time to close the session, and accordingly, the Governor-in-Chief went down to the Council Chamber, on the 9th of March. He was not pleased. He said, in his prorogation speech, that he did not think the session would prove of much advantage to the public. He would most respectfully tell both Houses his sentiments upon the general result of their proceedings. A claim had been made to an unlimited right, in one branch of the legislature, to appropriate the whole revenue of the province according to its pleasure. Even that portion of the revenue raised by the authority of the imperial parliament and directed by an Act of that parliament to be applied to the payment of the expenses of the administration of justice, and of the civil government of the province, the Assembly claimed the control of. By the other two branches of the legislature that claim had been denied, but it had, nevertheless, been persisted in by the Assembly, and recourse had been had to the unusual course of withholding the supplies, except on conditions, which would amount to an acknowledgment of its constitutional validity. The stoppage of the supplies had caused incalculable mischief to the province; but the country was, nevertheless, powerfully advancing in improvement. The people, generally, were contented. He had hitherto averted the unhappy consequences of the stoppage of the supplies, by taking upon himself certain responsibilities, but as his advice with regard to the payment of the civil list, had been, even yet, unavailing, he would in future guide the measures of the government by the strict letter of the law. He thanked the Council for the calm, firm, and dignified character of their deliberations. And he fervently prayed that the wisdom of the proceedings of the Legislative Council would make a just impression upon the loyal inhabitants of the province and lead them to that temperate and conciliating disposition which is always best calculated to give energy to public spirit, to promote public harmony, and ensure public happiness, the great advantages which resulted from a wise exercise of the powers and privileges of parliament. The Governor-in-Chief of Lower Canada was on his knees fervently praying for that which was not very likely to happen. Energy or public spirit does not ordinarily spring from the temperate and conciliatory tone of such inhabitants of a province as Lord Dalhousie would have considered loyal.

It is desirable to know what Sir Peregrine Maitland was about in Upper Canada. He had made a speech to parliament which he considered to be his last. It was little wonder—Sir Peregrine Maitland was intolerably tyrannical. He had gagged Mr. Gourlay. He had destroyed conventions. He had suppressed public meetings. And he had been censured for it by Sir George Murray. In 1822 the Honorable Barnabas Bidwell was returned to the Upper Canada Assembly as a reformer. Mr. Bidwell was a man of very considerable ability. He was eloquent, and his ideas of civil and religious liberty were liberal. Born a British subject, during the period of the revolution, but too young to take a part in it, he remained in the United States, after the declaration of independence. It was not long before he attained an elevated station in Congress. His talents, however, coupled with his independence of spirit and love of truth made him enemies. A hostility so vindictive was raised against him by his political enemies, that he removed to Upper Canada, in disgust, there only to meet with similar treatment, the result of similar causes. No sooner did the people of Upper Canada begin to show an appreciation of his talents, than the Upper Canadian oligarchy saw in him a formidable rival to be got rid of by any means. A special Act was passed to incapacitate Mr. Bidwell from holding a seat in the Assembly. He was to be considered an alien and to be treated as an alien as the Act directed. Mr. Barnabas Bidwell was expelled. The spirit of opposition to a bad government was not, however, lessened by such a course of action. New champions of the people's privileges arose. Colonial red-tapism and colonial empiric aristocracy could with difficulty sustain itself. Mr. Bidwell's son was brought to the hustings by the supporters of his father. He was not, without difficulty to obtain a seat. At the first election, the returning officer, one of the original Timothy Brodeurs, contrived to give his adversary a majority. A protest was entered, however, and after distinguishing himself in an able defence of his rights at the Bar of the House, the return was set aside.[35] Another election ensued, and the returning officer refused to receive any votes for Mr. Bidwell, on the ground of his being an alien. The return was again protested against, and the election again set aside. At last a fair election was allowed, when Mr. Bidwell, junior, was triumphantly returned to parliament. In 1824, many other reform members were elected to parliament, and on several questions, there was a decided majority against the faction. A new expedient was hit upon to get rid of these intruders. An "Alien Bill," to make aliens of those who had taken advantage of the various proclamations to United Empire loyalists to enter and settle in the province was attempted to be carried. Sir Peregrine Maitland and his advisers were not content with interdicting liberty of speech and liberty of action. They attempted to seize the property and very means of those to whom the faith of the government was pledged for protection. They attempted to sweep out of the country those who had received their titles to lands, thirty years back, and had, for that length of time occupied their farms. And they, consequently, attempted to alienate, and so get rid of men who had enjoyed, for a great length of time, the full privileges of British subjects, and who were British subjects in sympathy and in reality as in law. Indeed it was only by the united exertions of the people that the calamity was turned aside. The concoctors of the scheme took nothing by their motion. Had they succeeded, the advantage would only have been temporary, and the reaction more terrible than it was. Having failed in a design, which the word iniquitous is scarcely sufficient to characterise, the House of Assembly decidedly assumed a progressive or reform character. It was while this silly, as well as unjust measure was being attempted to be carried that an attack of a novel kind was made upon Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie. Mr. Mackenzie had some years previously emigrated to Toronto, from Dundee, in Scotland, where he had been engaged in business, as a merchant's clerk. An excellent accountant, he was probably instrumental in causing it to be pointed out to Sir Peregrine Maitland that the public accounts of Upper Canada were not properly kept. He would have had at any rate no hesitation in doing so. Very small in stature, he had a large head, ornamented with a moderately sized and sparkling light blue eye, and with a nose peculiarly short, and in comparison with his other features, altogether ridiculously small. His nose was in wonderful contrast with a massive fore-head and well-shaped mouth, which even when his tongue stood still, rare as that occurrence was, ever moved. He was peculiarly thin-skinned. The blue veins of his fair face made him seem to have been tatooed. Mr. Mackenzie was then astonishingly active, persevering, and intelligent, as he still is. A more able or a more indefatigable exposer of colonial abuses could not have appeared at a more fitting time. He was undoubtedly the right man in the right place. He had engaged in business, and prospered, in York. He was, at this period, the proprietor of a periodical called the Colonial Advocate, wherein the corruptionists of the period were unmasked with very little ceremony or consideration. The "corruptionists," very naturally, desired to put him down. It was a matter, however, daily becoming more difficult to put a man in prison and toss him out of the country on the plea that he entertained opinions which he might give expression to, and revolutionize the country. It was suspected, indeed, by the magnates, that the state of feeling in the country was such that prosecutions could not be maintained against Mr. Mackenzie. It was even believed that they would increase his popularity. Mr. Mackenzie travelled often to pick up information. He went about not so much to create a public opinion as to ascertain it. He was at Niagara with this view when a mob of "gentlemen" stormed his printing office in York. Like all other assaults of the kind, it was, of course, a night attack, and being well managed was quite successful! It was not. In the broad light of day, the press was captured and destroyed, and the type of the Colonial Advocate seized and thrown into Lake Ontario. Nor was this all. Mr. Mackenzie's family and his infirm old mother received the most brutal treatment.[36] The authorities took very little notice of the occurrence. But Mr. Mackenzie appealed to a jury, who, "to the no small discomfiture of the tories, from Sir Peregrine Maitland, down to the lowest menial employed in the political shambles," gave exemplary damages. This had some effect, but not the weight which punishment for the crime would have produced. The risk of having to pay for damages would certainly not have prevented similar violence. The employees or relatives of the Executive Councillors, the Judges, the Attornies, and Solicitors General, and of such distinguished families at home would have continued to destroy presses to this day, gaining more by the suppression of truth and the prevention of free discussion, than they lost in damages, had not an obstacle stood in their way, which it was dangerous to encounter. The liberal press took up a bold position. The speeches in the Assembly, by the leading independents, told upon the country. A spirit of retributive justice had been stirred up, which awed and intimidated the ruling compact. Open violence could not again be resorted to. The subtleties of the law were, however, brought into requisition. Under a show of justice and a pretended bridling of licentiousness, the press might be muzzled or compelled to play one monotonous hymn of praise to the powers above. The libel laws were sufficiently odious to accomplish anything. Mr. Mackenzie was prosecuted for libel. Prosecution followed prosecution, and where truth constitutes a libel, it is surprising how he escaped. The juries would not convict. The eyes of the whole country had been opened, and the conspiracies against the public liberties were observable. Besides, Mr. Mackenzie defended himself, and gave his persecutors nothing to boast of in the rencontres. He never failed to improve these occasions. He entered into every swindling transaction with greater severity than he could have done in his newspaper. Mackenzie always succeeded in an appeal to the people. There were others of his class not so fortunate. A gentleman named Francis Collins, lately arrived in the country, from Ireland, with a small competency, established a newspaper which he called The Canadian Freeman. Mr. Collins commented on the ruinous policy of the administration. But he did it too fervently for the tories. Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Governor, ordered him to be prosecuted, and upon what grounds may be gained from the fact of the trial being put off, and the proceedings afterwards discontinued. The end was answered. Smarting under a sense of ill-usage, he became more severe upon the government, and perhaps did ascribe to them more than was true. He was prosecuted by Mr. Attorney General Robinson, a wonderfully able man then, and now Sir John Beverly Robinson, and Chief Justice in Canada West, and with the aid of Messrs. Justices Hagerman and Sherwood, a verdict of guilty was brought in against him. According to a "resolution" of the House of Assembly an "oppressive and unwarrantable sentence" was passed upon him. Whether or no, he was thrust into prison. The House of Assembly applied to the Governor for his release in vain. It was not until the king came to hear of his situation that he was released, with a broken constitution, which brought him to the grave in the flower of his manhood. It was so that Sir Peregrine Maitland and the clique who surrounded him persecuted the press, with the view of concealing from England the true state of public opinion, in the colony. Men submit to terrible injustice before they rebel. An able despot might so manage as to inflict almost unheard of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of their rights. In a colony there are thousands who bring with them recollections of home and of home institutions, and who cannot be brought to believe that an English gentleman will pursue a course of policy, as the governor of a colony, which the Queen of England has too much good sense to assume, even if she could do it, in the United Kingdom. Indeed, if a glance is taken behind the curtain, English statesmen will be noticed to have been liberal and well inclined towards the colonists, and have only erred when purposely misled by those whom they had appointed to places of which it was and is a serious mistake for any ministry to have the patronage. Sir Peregrine Maitland did not confine his persecuting operations to gentlemen who gathered statistics, or printed newspapers, and wrote political articles, commenting on an administration for which he only was responsible to the Secretary of State for the colonies. He was not satisfied with having seen a printing press destroyed and the types of a newspaper office sunk in Ontario, but must needs throw a building belonging to a private gentleman over the Falls of Niagara. He was recalled because, in the supposition that the law was too slow for redress, and impatient of contradiction, as some military men are, he caused an armed force to trespass on the property of a gentleman named Forsyth, on the plea that his land belonged to the Crown. The property was situated at the Falls of Niagara. A building stood upon a part of the land claimed for the Crown by Sir Peregrine. The soldiery tumbled the building over the precipice, and the land was free of all incumbrances. The House of Assembly interfered in this matter too. They attempted to obtain the evidence of the officers engaged in the business, but the government would not permit them to testify, the consequence of which was that the Assembly imprisoned them for contempt. So far was their reluctance to give evidence carried, that the Serjeant-at-Arms was compelled to enter by force the house in which they had barricaded themselves. The king was made aware of the whole proceedings, Mr. Forsyth's claim for redress acknowledged, and Sir Peregrine Maitland recalled. It was not too soon. Before this, His Excellency managed to juggle Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier, and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow. Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript of the British constitution. A peninsular officer, Captain Matthew, a member of the Assembly, who would not receive "new light" at command was set upon by spies. The object was the contemptible one of robbing him of his half-pay. A spy declared that he had once heard him call for "Yankee Doodle," at a play in the metropolis. It was a grievous offence, certainly, even had it been true. But it was enough to deprive a man who had served his country in battle of his half-pay. Indeed, he only could get it back again on condition of repairing to England. He went there to seek redress and died. There were yet other sufferers. Mr. Justice Willis had been elevated from the English bar to the Bench of Upper Canada. There were but three Judges of the King's Bench, in the country, the Chief Justice Campbell and two Puisne Judges. The Chief Justice went to England in search of a knighthood. Mr. Willis was not in favor at Court. He had studiously abstained from mixing himself up with politics. He had indeed refused to be an obsequious Jefferies, and was looked upon, therefore, as opposed to the administration. When term time came, the Chief Justice being in England, Mr. Willis refused to go on with the business of the Court, because there was no one to decide in case of a difference of opinion between him and his brother Justice. It was enough. Sir Peregrine Maitland dismissed him, and appointed Mr. Hagerman, pro tempore, in his stead. The newly appointed Judge must have been surprised at his elevation. He was at the very moment of his appointment discharging the onerous and important duties of an officer of the Customs at Kingston. Mr. Willis appealed to the English government and was sustained in the position which he had assumed, but instead of being reinstated in Canada, another office was provided for him in Demerara. The Chief Justice shortly afterwards returned from England as Sir William Campbell, and resigned to make way for the election of Mr. Attorney General Robinson. Hagerman was succeeded by Mr. M'Aulay, a barrister of six years standing, and very cheerfully accepted the humbler office of Solicitor General. Again the House of Assembly interfered with Sir Peregrine Maitland. They represented that Willis had been grossly ill-used, and explained the cause. It was without effect. The beauties of colonial irresponsible government were as discernible in Upper Canada, where there were no seditious, English-hating, Frenchmen, as in Lower Canada. A private gentleman, two editors of newspapers, a member of parliament, a captain in the army, and a judge had experienced some of the benefits derivable from a constitution, the very transcript and image of that of Great Britain, managed by a General of Division and a clique of placemen. The clique were, on the whole, men of genteel education and refined tastes. They formed an exclusive circle of associates. Officers of the army, on full pay, were admitted to the society of their wives and daughters, and no one else but one of themselves, and indeed the gentry of the country consisted of the Governor, the Bishop, a Chief Justice, the Clerk of the Executive Council, a few of the leading merchants, who were members of the Legislative Council, or who were the descendants of an Executive Councillor, or of an Aid-de-Camp, the Colonels of Engineers and Artillery, with such of the other officers of these corps who cared for the society of an honorable possessor of waste lands or Timber Broker, and the officers of the regiments of the line. In the principal towns the clergy of the Church of Scotland were sometimes looked upon as gentlemen. Elsewhere, in common with the clergy of dissenting congregations, they were only on a footing with those many respectable people who cultivated farms, kept shops, or owned steamboats. The banker had not even yet reached that scale of importance which would have entitled him to be considered one of the gentry. Among Governors, Bishops, Chief Justices, Clerks of Council, and officers of the army, it would have been wonderful had there not been men of literary tastes. These tastes did prevail and required gratification. In Lower Canada, it was suggested to Lord Dalhousie that it would do him honor were he to be the founder of a Literary and Historical Society. Lord Dalhousie—who was a really excellent man—although a blundering governor in Lower Canada, where he had such men as Neilson, Stuart, Papineau and even the supple Vallieres to thwart him—and anxious to benefit the colony as much as he could at once took the hint. He founded it in Quebec, and became its patron. It was founded for the purpose of investigating points of history, immediately connected with the Canadas; to discover and rescue from the unsparing hand of time the records which remained of the earliest history of New France; to preserve such documents as might be found amid the dust of unexplored depositories, and which might prove important to general history and to the particular history of the province. The Society has not been unproductive of good. Indeed it acquired at one time even a distant reputation. There have been both able and educated men connected with it. The Reverend Daniel Wilkie, LL.D., one of the most eminent teachers of youth, which the country has yet known, a man of great learning, and capable of profound thought, contributed many valuable papers to it. The Honorable Andrew William Cochran, an accomplished scholar, was its President. The Skeys, the Badgleys, the Fishers, the Sewells, the Vallieres, the Stuarts, the Blacks, the Sheppards, the Morrins, the Doluglasses, the Reverend Dr. Cook, the Bishops Mountain, the Greens, the Faribaults, and indeed all the men of learning and note in the country were associated with it. But it is decaying. The men, a greater part of whom were, in a political sense, injurious to the country, who were capable of holding up such a society, are being supplanted by more practicable men of inferior literary acquirements, such as the Camerons, the Richards, the Smiths, or the Browns. The literature of the country is increasing in quantity and diminishing in quality, and so it will continue to do until the wealth of the country becomes more considerable. The means for the obtainment of a simply classical education are now at the very door. There are universities in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, but there are yet only a very few men with time sufficient at their disposal, even in winter, to become Icelandically learned. The society should, however, be maintained, and it would reflect credit on any government to vote it a yearly grant of at least L300. Lord Dalhousie was a benevolent and personally upright man. Among other good things which he did, unconnected with politics, was the gift from the Jesuits' Estates Fund of L300, and a large donation out of his privy purse to assist in the enlargement of St. Andrew's Church; which at an expense of L2,300 was completed in 1824. As a gentleman, no man could have been more respected than the Earl of Dalhousie was. There was nothing despicably mean about him. He was liable to be deceived by others. He never intentionally deceived himself or others. He did not like the French. He did not like diplomacy. The trickeries of the hustings were distasteful to him. He rejoiced in being a good soldier and an honest man, and he would have been glad had all the world been as he was. He should not, however, have been the Governor of Canada, or the Governor of any colony with a constitution, which could only be successfully worked by the most skilful manoeuvring and adroit trickery. His Lordship sailed for England on the 6th of June, 1824, and the government of Lower Canada devolved on the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton.

[35] Well's Canadiana, page 162.

[36] Well's Canadiana, page 164.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.