In those days not only was the Chief Justice a member of the Upper House, but the Judges of the King's Bench were not ineligible for election to the Lower House, and some, or all of them, contrived to get seats there. It does not appear that the Chief Justice was in the Upper House a mere government tool, for Sir Robert Milnes most bitterly complained to the Duke of Portland, of the opposition to certain measures, which he had met with, from Chief Justice Osgoode, who, even in public, treated him contemptuously. But it is yet probable that some of the judges in the Assembly, were less the representatives of the people who had elected them, than the mouth-pieces of the government, to whom they were indebted for their appointments to the Bench, and on whose good pleasure, their continuance on the judgment seat, depended. Be that as it may, the Assembly were jealous of their presence in the House, and accordingly, this session of Parliament, a motion was introduced into the Assembly, declaring it to be expedient that the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, the Provincial Judges of the Districts of Three Rivers and Gaspe, and all Commissioned Judges of any Courts that might afterwards be established, should be incapable of being elected, or of sitting, or of voting in the House of Assembly. The motion was adopted, and a bill framed upon the resolution, passed the Assembly. Unfortunately, heedless of the pressure of public opinion, the Legislative Council threw out the bill! The Assembly were greatly incensed, and the idea of expelling the judges was entertained; but for a while relinquished.

Mr. Ezekiel Hart appeared at the Bar of the House to take his seat for Three Rivers, Mr. Lee, the previous representative of that town, had died in the course of the previous session, and Mr. Hart had been elected to succeed him. Mr. Hart was a merchant of good standing. Of the most spotless private character, he stood in high esteem with his neighbours and fellow townsmen. But Mr. Hart was not faultless. He was, by birth, education, and religion, a Jew. When he prayed, he placed the ten commandments next his heart. In him, those devoted members of the Society of Jesus, found neither a sympathizer nor a persecutor. A Christian Legislative Assembly, like that of Canada, of which Sir James Craig afterwards privately expressed an opinion so ludicrously high, could not be contaminated with the presence of a Jew. By a vote of twenty-one to five, it was resolved:—"That Ezekiel Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish religion, cannot take a seat, nor sit, nor vote in this House." Ezekiel departed. The word "baruch," was on his tongue, the signification of which, like that of the French word "sacre," may signify, according to the humour of the utterer, either an anathema or a blessing. The Assembly being, however, ignorant of the Hebrew tongue, Mr. Hart was not sent to gaol for breach of privilege, nor was he even required to apologize. These were the chief topics of debate, and much time was occupied with them. A sum was voted to repair the Castle of St. Louis then tottering to decay. The Militia and the Alien Acts were continued for another year. A bill for the trial of controverted elections was passed, and in all thirty-five bills were carried through, all of which His Excellency, the Governor, sanctioned, except that relative to gaols in Gaspe, which, though afterwards sanctioned, was reserved for the pleasure of the King to be expressed on it. On the 14th of April the Parliament was prorogued. The speech was somewhat lengthy, and on the whole, it was a good one. Sir James was induced to put a period to the session that he might be enabled to issue writs for a new House. The critical situation of affairs made him anxious for legislative assistance, under circumstances, that would not be liable to interruption from the expiration of the period, for which one of the branches was chosen. He was glad that so much attention had been paid to business. He was very much pleased to find that a sum of money had been granted for the repair of the Chateau. Events of great magnitude had taken place in Europe. Napoleon had succeeded in exciting Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to hostilities, against England, and the Ministers of those Courts had demanded their passports to retire from the Court of St. James. Napoleon had done more than that. The disturber of mankind had subverted the government of Portugal, but that magnanimous Prince, Don Pedro, had emigrated with his Court to the Brazils, rather than submit to the degrading chains of such a master. His Majesty, the King of Great Britain, had offered the Americans reparation, immediately and spontaneously, for the unauthorised attack upon the Chesapeake, but the American government taking advantage of the state of affairs in Europe, were endeavoring to complicate the difficulty, to the injury of that power which alone stood between it and an inevitable doom to the worst of tyranny. And in conclusion, he begged the representatives of the people to instruct their constituents, by the influence of their education and knowledge; to point out to them a sense of their duties in due subordination to the laws; to advise them to be faithfully attached to the Crown; to let them into the knowledge of their true situation; to conceal not the difficulties by which the empire was surrounded, but, at the same time, to point out the miseries Britain was combatting to avoid; and to assure them that while Britons were united among themselves, there was no dread of the result of the present struggle between liberty and despotism.

The war had had its effect upon the trade of the country. The revenue had fallen off nearly L1,000, being only L35,943, while the civil expenditure had increased to L47,231.

In May the general election took place. The contests were not marked by much bitterness. As before, in the larger towns, the two origins were equally represented. Even in the counties, several gentlemen of English extraction, were returned to the Assembly. Mr. James Stuart, the Solicitor General, now no friend to the Governor nor to his sub rosa adviser, Mr. Ryland, was returned for the East Ward of Montreal. Mr. Stuart, a lawyer of excellent acquirements, of great independence of spirit, and of extraordinary mental capacity, instead of being raised to the Attorney-Generalship, on the elevation of Mr. Sewell to the Chief Justiceship, in the room of Mr. Chief Justice Alcock, who had died in August, had been superseded by Mr. Edward Bowen, a barrister of very limited acquirements, and, being then only a young man, professionally, very inexperienced. Nay, he was soon afterwards dismissed from the Solicitor-Generalship, by the Governor, to whom he had, in some mysterious way, given offence. The Honorable Mr. Panet, Speaker of the Assembly for the four previous parliaments, was nominated for the Upper Town of Quebec, and went to the hustings. He presided at an election meeting, at which there was something like plain-speaking, a particular kind of speaking most distasteful to the Acting Paymaster General of Burgoyne's army, an army with which even Sir James Craig had himself served. All the official class of the city, "including the resident military officers, and dependents upon the Commissariat, Ordnance, and other departments in the garrison," entitled to vote, voted in favor of another French gentleman, more acceptable to the government. The Quebec Mercury was strongly opposed to the Speaker, who, by his plainspeaking, had become offensive to Mr. Ryland, the confidant of Sir James Craig. Mr. Panet lost his election for Quebec, but was returned to the Assembly for Huntingdon. The Governor and his Secretary were very much displeased, and the Mercury was inspired to speak against the bilious spleen of the triumphant Panet, who was connected with that vile print, the Canadien. During the election for Quebec, a handbill had appeared, calling the government feeble. Those who issued that handbill, the Mercury exultingly remarked, would have felt that they were not quite under the government of King Log. The Canadien was, in abuse, the freest of any paper in the province. It was licentious. It no more consulted that which it was expedient for a free press to do, than did the House of Assembly consider that which was suitable to it, a few years past, on the article of privilege. Mr. Ex-Speaker Panet was connected with the Canadien. He was also a Colonel of Militia. It occurred to Mr. Ryland that the position of a militia officer was incompatible with the proprietorship of a newspaper. Accordingly, a few days after the return of Mr. Panet for Huntingdon, Mr. "H. W. R." the Private Secretary of the Governor General, was directed to inform Messrs. J. H. Panet, Lieutenant-Colonel, P. Bedard, Captain, J. T. Taschereau, Captain and Aid-Major, J. L. Borgia, Lieutenant, and F. Blanchet, Surgeon, proprietors of the Canadien, that the Governor-in-Chief considered it necessary for His Majesty's service to dismiss them from their situations as Colonel, Captain, Aid-Major, Lieutenant, and Surgeon, of the Militia. With regard to the Honorable Mr. Panet, in particular, His Excellency could place no confidence in the services of a person whom he had good reason for considering as one of the proprietors of a seditious and libellous publication, disseminated through the province, with great industry, to vilify His Majesty's government, to create a spirit of dissatisfaction and discontent among his subjects, and to breed disunion and animosity between two races. Had it been the purpose of the Canadien and of its proprietors to breed discord between the two races of settled inhabitants, the censure of Sir James Craig would have been deserved. But that was not its purpose. It aimed only at equality of privileges, and complained of the sway of officials having no abiding interest in the country. It was a war between the imported official class and the native-born or naturalized classes which the Canadien waged. Doubtless, it went, occasionally, too far. Doubtless, it forgot to make such distinctions between the officials and the traders or agriculturists of British origin. Doubtless, it did remember that the French Canadians had been captives at the conquest, and their souls revolted at the idea of being lorded over still, though no longer captives, but British subjects, anxious for the honour of their King, and ready to defend him from his enemies.

The new Parliament met on the 9th of April, 1809. The Assembly were directed to choose a Speaker. Out of doors and indoors, in the Governor's Castle, at the official desk, in the merchant's counting room, in the baker's shop, in the Council, and in the Assembly itself, the choice of a Speaker by the Assembly, was a matter of interest. It was whispered that Mr. Panet had incurred the Governor's displeasure, and that all the toadies would vote against him. It was blandly hinted that Mr. Panet having been dismissed from the Militia, the House, having, regard to its own dignity, could not call him to the Chair. It was said in conversation that Mr. Panet was an excellent and most impartial Speaker, and it was a pity that he had suffered himself to have been connected with the seditious and libellous Canadien. Only for Mr. Panet's unfortunate position, no more suitable person, for the highly honorable office of Speaker, could have been thought of. But he must not be Speaker under present circumstances. The Assembly thought otherwise and, acting independently and fearlessly, elected Mr. Panet as their Speaker. His Excellency the Governor did not much relish the choice. He did not, however, refuse to confirm Mr. Panet as Speaker of the Assembly. It was thought that he would be refused confirmation. But when he appeared at the Bar, with the House at his heels, and supported by the Mace, the Honorable the Speaker of the Legislative Council was only commanded to tell Mr. Panet, that having filled the Chair of Speaker, during four successive Parliaments, it was not on the score of insufficiency that he would admit an excuse on Mr. Panet's part, nor form objections on his own part. He had no reason to doubt the discretion and moderation of the present House of Assembly, and as he was, at all times, desirous of meeting their wishes, so he would be particularly unwilling not to do so, on an occasion, in which they were themselves principally interested. He, therefore, allowed and confirmed Mr. Panet to be Speaker. His Excellency, though somewhat ironical in his mode of confirmation, acted liberally and prudently. In His Excellency's speech from the throne, allusion was made to the unfavourable posture of affairs with America; to the revolution in Spain and to the generous assistance afforded that country by Great Britain; again to the emigration of the Royal Family of Portugal to Brazil; to Wellington's victory at Vimeira, by which Portugal had been rescued from the French; he cautioned the members of the Legislature against jealousies among themselves, or of the government, which could have no other object in view than the general welfare; and alluded to the non-intercourse and embargo policy of the United States, which, so far, had operated favourably for the Canadian trade, particularly in the article of lumber, which, owing to the exclusion of British shipping from the Baltic, had become a staple export. The House was not pleased at the hints about jealousies, nor very much pleased with His Excellency's remarks in confirming their Speaker. The reply was not quite an echo of the speech. It was more. It was a quiet remonstrance against governmental insinuation. On proceeding to business, the propriety of expelling the judges was again discussed. A motion to expel them was even made, but it was negatived. Some even who were averse to the judges having seats in the Assembly were not prepared to go the length of expelling them from the House. All that was wanted was that, in future, judges should be ineligible for seats in the Assembly. To this end, a committee was appointed to inquire into the inconvenience resulting from the elections of judges to the Assembly, with orders to report to the House. The committee inquired and reported, and of course, reported unfavourably to the judges. A bill to disqualify the judges was re-introduced and read a first time. Mr. Hart again appeared at the Bar to take his seat for Three Rivers. He had been re-elected. He was still a Jew, and showed no disposition to recant his error. Nor would the House recant their error. The resolution which had been adopted against Mr. Hart's taking his seat in the previous Parliament was repeated in this. The House of Assembly went still farther. A bill to disqualify all Jews from being eligible to seats in the Assembly, was introduced and read twice. Five weeks had elapsed and the public business had not begun. The Governor was very much annoyed. The refractory spirit of the House, as regarded the judges, was most distasteful to him. Suddenly, on the 15th of May, he went down to the Legislative Council, assented to five bills, and summoned the attendance of the Commons. "When I met you, said the now irate Sir James, at the commencement of the present session, I had no reason to doubt your moderation or your prudence, and I therefore willingly relied upon both. I expected from you a manly sacrifice of all personal animosities. I hoped for a zealous dispatch of your public duty. I looked for earnest endeavours to promote the general harmony. I looked for due and indispensable attention to the other branches of the Legislature. It was your constitutional duty. It was due to the critical juncture of the times. I have been disappointed in every hope on which I relied. You have wasted in frivolous debates, or by frivolous contests on matters of form, that time and those talents to which the public have an exclusive title. You have abused your functions. In five weeks, you have only passed five bills. You have been so intemperate in debate that moderation and forbearance is scarcely to be looked for without a new Assembly. Gentlemen, Parliament is dissolved. A new Parliament will be convened as soon as convenience will permit. My object in thus acting, is to preserve the true principles of the free and happy constitution of the Province." He turned with peculiar satisfaction from lecturing to the Assembly, to offer his acknowledgements to the gentlemen of the Legislative Council, for their unanimity, zeal, and unremitting attention to the public business, manifested in their proceedings. They were not to blame for the waste of time and for the little that had been done for the public good. The Assembly were surprised. It never entered the head of a single member that Sir James Craig, who, on first meeting a Canadian Parliament, had been so courteous, would have been so abruptly censorious. A prorogation was anticipated, when the Usher of the Black Rod commanded, by order of His Excellency, their presence at the Bar of the Upper House, but the possibility of a dissolution of Parliament never occurred to any one. The constitution, boasted so much of, was certainly a happy one. The representatives of the people were suddenly sent back to their constituents as unfitted for their business. And for some time, the country, tickled with the bluntness of the Governor, applauded the act. Had Sir James desired to be absolute, the country, before it had had time to consider, would have assisted His Excellency in a coup d'etat. It was not until the Canadien had taken the matter up energetically that any of the discarded legislative materials could obtain a hearing from their constituents. After the Canadien had criticised the speech from the throne, and had commented on the Bill of Rights, in allusion to the Governor's measures, with respect to the Assembly, and as applicable to the existing circumstances of the Province—"Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois,"—public opinion gradually turned round in favor of the Assembly.

Sir James Craig's opinion of the Canadians had undergone a very considerable change for the worse. In a despatch to Lord Liverpool, some short time afterwards, on the state of affairs in Canada, which Mr. Ryland was sent to London with, Sir James speaks of Canada as being a conquered country, a fact never to be put out of view. He spoke of a colony usually estimated to contain a population of 300,000 souls. Of these, 20,000, or 25,000 only, might have been English or Americans, and the remainder were French. They were in language, religion, in manners, and in attachment, French. They were bound to the English (officials) by no tie, but that of a common government. They looked upon the government of the province with mistrust, jealousy, envy, and hatred. He was certain his opinion of them was well founded. There were very few French Canadians in the country who were not tainted with the sentiments he had imputed to them generally. Common intercourse hardly existed between the French and English. The lower class, to strengthen a word of contempt, added the word Anglais to it. The upper classes, who formerly associated with the English upper classes, had entirely withdrawn themselves. The Canadians, generally, were ignorant, credulous, and superstitious. He did not perceive that they had any great vice except one. Drunkenness was the prevailing vice. When drunk they were brutal and quarrelsome. Like other people, suddenly freed from a state of extreme subjection, they were apt to be insolent to their superiors. They were totally unwarlike and averse to arms or military habits, though vain to an excess, and possessing a high opinion of their prowess. They had been so flattered and cajoled about their conduct, in the year 1775, that they really believed they stood as heroes, in history, whereas no people, with the exception of a very few individuals, behaved worse than they did on that occasion. Now came the teachings of Mr. Secretary Ryland, which that gentleman did not think it prudent to bore Sir James with until he had ascertained how far the incomparable man's sentiments accorded with his own. The Superintendent of the Church of Rome in Canada, had been designated Roman Catholic Bishop, by other Governors, which was both dangerous and wrong, in view of the Queen's supremacy. The Bishop did as he pleased, in the appointment of cures. His patronage was at least equal to that of the government. The Bishop was cautious not to perform any act that might be construed into an acknowledgement of His Majesty's rights. He would not obey a Proclamation of the King for a fast or thanksgiving, but issued a "mandat," of his own, to the same effect, but without the least allusion to His Majesty's authority. The arms of Great Britain were nowhere put up in the churches. With the cures no direct communication with the government existed. The church selected its ecclesiastics, the Governor knew not why, from the lower orders. The Bishop was the son of a blacksmith. The Coadjutor was brother to a demagogue, the Speaker of the Assembly, an "avocat." The cures saw in Buonaparte the restorer of the Catholic religion. The Legislative Council, an object of jealousy to the Lower House, was composed of everything that was respectable in the Province. There were about 300,000 French inhabitants to 25,000 English and American, yet there never had exceeded fourteen or fifteen English members in the House of Assembly, while then there were only ten, and it was desired to get rid of the judges! The interests of certainly not an unimportant colony, was in the hands of six petty shopkeepers, a blacksmith, a miller, and fifteen ignorant peasants, a doctor or apothecary, twelve Canadian "avocats" and notaries, and four people respectable so far as that they did not keep shops, together with the ten Englishmen, who composed the Legislative Assembly. Some of the habitants could neither read nor write. Two members of a preceding Parliament had actually signed the roll by marks, and there were five more whose signatures were scarcely legible, and were such as to show that to be the extent of their writing. Debate was out of the question. A Canadian Parliament did not understand it. The habitant M.P., openly avowed that the matter, whatever it was, had been explained to him. The "moutons" were crammed at meetings held nightly for the purpose. There was one singular instance, of a habitant, who, in every instance, voted against the prevailing party. But that was the solitary exception to a general rule. The Canadians voted en masse, as directed—not by the government. The government was entirely without influence. The Assembly was the most independent in the world, for the government could not obtain even that influence which might arise from personal intercourse. He could not be expected to associate with blacksmiths, millers, and shopkeepers. Even the avocats and notaries he could nowhere meet, except during the actual sitting of Parliament, when he had a day in the week expressly appropriated to receiving a large portion of them at dinner. The leaders in the House were mostly a set of unprincipled avocats and notaries, totally uninformed as to the principles of the British constitution, or parliamentary proceedings, which they, nevertheless, professed to take for their model. Without property to lose, these men had gradually advanced in audacity, in proportion as they had considered the power of France as more firmly established by the successes of Buonaparte in Europe. They were obviously paving the way for a change of dominion. Without one act by which to point out either injury or oppression, the people of the Province had been taught to look upon His Majesty's government with distrust, and they publicly declared, while avowing such distrust, that no officer of the Crown was to be elected into the House. The English in general and their own seigneurs were entirely proscribed. Except in the boroughs or cities these classes had no chance of election. A paper called the Canadien, had been published, and industriously circulated in the country, for three or four years, to degrade and vilify the officers of government, under the title of gens en place; and to bring the government itself into contempt, by alluding to the Governor as a ministere, open to their animadversions. Nothing calculated to mislead the people had been omitted in this vile print. The various circumstances that brought about the abdication of James the Second, had been pointed out, with allusions, as applicable to the government here. "La nation Canadienne," was their constant theme. Religious prejudices, jealousy, and extreme ignorance, forbade the expectation of any improvement in the Assembly. Questions before the Houses were always viewed as affecting or otherwise some temporal right of their clergy, or having some remote tendency to promote the establishment of the Protestant interest. How the Act for the establishment of Public Schools had passed had always been matter of surprise to him. There was much jealousy at the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were settled by American loyalists. The country was beginning to look up to the members of the Assembly as the governors of the country. Formerly the cry was—"La Chambre to the devil!" He thought that the only remedy for the state of things which he had described was to deprive the province of its constitution, as the provincialists termed their charter. The people were unfitted for liberty. And here are the Governor's reasons for saying that a people were incapable of free institutions. "That spirit of independence, that total insubordination among them, that freedom of conversation, by which they communicate their ideas of government, as they imbibe them from their leaders, all which have increased wonderfully within these five or six years, owe their origin entirely to the House of Assembly and to the intrigues incident to elections. They were never thought of before." One really wonders that even a general officer could have ventured upon sending to England such trash, a country which had produced a Charles Fox, who took at the passing of the Separation Act so opposite a view of human nature. Doubtless, the habitants are precisely, even at this day, as Sir James represented them to be. But it was superlative impudence in a man of plebeian extraction to say that he could not associate with members of Parliament, who followed the occupation of shopkeeping for a living. It surely was enough for Buonaparte to have stigmatized England as a nation of shopkeepers. Sir James might have left it alone, after having experienced the independent energies of a nation of wooden clock and wooden nutmeg makers. The "gens en place" had badly advised him, and he was too blind to see it. Sir James was an Indian Governor with a vengeance.

The fortifications of the City of Quebec had been much improved during the summer of 1808, and the foundations of the four martello towers, which now stand outside of the fortifications, on the land side, at the distance of nearly a mile, were laid.

After the dissolution of the Parliament, about the middle of June, the Governor set out on a tour through the Province. He was attended by a numerous suite, travelled in great state, and was well received wherever he halted. At Three Rivers, Montreal, St. Johns, and William Henry, addresses were presented to him. He was applauded and even thanked for having stretched the royal prerogative so far as to dissolve the House without any sufficient reason. What was gained by the fulsome adulation is not particularly apparent, unless it be that the Canadien had an opportunity afforded it for not very flattering criticisms. The opportunity was not by any means lost. The Canadien grinned at the gens en place, and even ventured to laugh at the royal prerogative himself. But the gens en place were not to be laughed out of countenance by a vile print, which only could appeal to French passions and Romish prejudices. They only waited until His Excellency returned to Quebec, to renew their congratulations. The citizens of Quebec, on Sir James' return to the Chateau, waited upon him with an address. They approved of his judicious and firm administration. Sir James, perfectly elated, expressed, in a particular manner, his satisfaction. It was most gratifying to have received such an address from those whose "situations" afforded them the more immediate opportunity of judging of the motives by which he might be actuated on particular occasions.

In November of this year, the first steamer was seen on the St. Lawrence. At 8 o'clock on the 6th of that month, the steamboat Accommodation arrived at Quebec, with ten passengers from Montreal. She made the passage (180 miles) in sixty-six hours, having been thirty hours at anchor. In twenty hours, after leaving Montreal, she arrived at Three Rivers. The passage money was only eight dollars for the downward trip and nine dollars for the trip upward. Neither wind nor tide could stop the Accommodation, and the Accommodation was eighty-two feet long on deck. The accommodation afforded to passengers was not, however, very great. Twenty berths were all that cabin passengers could be accommodated with. Great crowds visited her saloons. The Mercury told its readers that the steamboat received her impulse from an open, double-spoked perpendicular wheel, on either side, without any circular band or rim. To the end of each double-spoke, a square board was fixed, which entered the water, and by the rotatory motion, acted like a paddle. The wheels were put and kept in motion by steam, which operated in the vessel. And a mast was to be fixed in her for the purpose of using a sail, when the wind was favourable, which would occasionally accelerate her headway. After the Accommodation had made several trips, Upper Canada began to "guess" about the expediency of having "Walks-in-the-Water." The Accommodation was built by Mr. John Molson, of Montreal, an exceedingly enterprising man of business, and for a number of years, his enterprise secured to him a monopoly of the steam navigation of the lower St. Lawrence. He died an "honorable," only a few years ago.

During 1808, 334 vessels, or according to the Harbour Master's statement, 440 vessels, arrived at Quebec from sea, making up 66,373 tons of shipping, in addition to which, 2,902 tons of shipping were built at the port. The revenue was L40,608, and the civil expenditure L1,251 sterling. The salaries and contingencies of the Legislature amounted to L3,077. The salary of the Governor-in-Chief was L4,500 sterling, and that of the Lieutenant-Governor, who had been three years absent in England, L1,500. On the 28th of November, in this year, Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton, whose brother was Marquis of Cunningham, succeeded Sir Robert Shore Milnes, in the now sinecure office of Lieutenant-Governor, where he remained to enjoy the otium sine dignitate.

A continuance of the peace between His Majesty's government and that of the United States was, in the beginning of 1810, considered less probable than ever. After the death of Washington, which occurred on the 4th December, 1799, during the Presidency of Mr. Adams, political excitement ran high in the United States. At the expiration of Mr. Adams' term of office, there were, as candidates for the Chief Magistracy of the Union, and for the Vice-Presidency:—Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, on the one side, and Mr. Adams and Mr. C. D. Pinckney, on the other. Mr. Adams, elected by the Federalist or Tory party, had given much offence to the Democratic party, by his law against sedition, designed to punish the abuse of speech and of the press. By this law a heavy fine was to be imposed, together with an imprisonment for a term of years, upon such as should combine or conspire together, to "oppose any measure of the government." No one, on any pretence, under pain of similar punishment, was to write or print, utter or publish, any malicious writing against the government of the United States, or against either House of the Congress, or against the President. In a word, the liberty of discussion was annihilated. A more extraordinary law could not possibly have been put upon the Statute Books of a country, where every official, being elective by the people, his conduct, while in office was, in a common sense point of view, open to popular animadversion. As far as producing the effect contemplated was concerned, the law was altogether inefficacious. The people met and talked together against their President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Nay, Mr. Adams lost what he designed to secure, his re-election, by it. The Democrats were furiously opposed to him. While Messrs. Jefferson and Burr got each seventy-three votes, the opposition candidates for President and Vice-President, Messrs. Adams and Pinckney only got, for the former, sixty-five votes, and for the latter, sixty-four. Messrs. Burr and Jefferson having each an equal number of votes, it became the duty of the House of Representatives, voting by States, to decide between these pretenders to the chief power in the State. The constitution provided that the person having the greatest number of votes should be President, and that the person having the next highest number of votes should be Vice-President. For several days the ballot was taken. The Federalists or Tories supported Mr. Burr, and the Democrats Mr. Jefferson. At last the choice fell upon the latter, and Mr. Burr was elected to the Vice-Presidency. It is well to know these circumstances in connection with subsequent events. Mr. Jefferson annihilated the minority of the republic. He had as much contempt for them as Sir James Craig or Mr. Ryland could have had for the conquered Canadians. He swept them from every office of profit or emolument under the State. When remonstrated with, by the merchants of New Haven, respecting the removal of the Collector of Customs at that port, merely because he was a Federalist or tory, the President quietly replied, that time and accident would give the Tories their just share. Had he found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the Democratic party with whom he acted, his removals and substitutions would have been less sweeping. But their total exclusion called for a more prompt corrective. And he would correct the error. When the error was fully corrected then he would only ask himself concerning an applicant for office, these questions:—"Is he honest?" "Is he capable?" and "Is he faithful to the Constitution?" The Tories were almost inclined to burn the White House.

Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1802; in 1804, Colonel Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, killed General Hamilton in a duel; Mr. Jefferson was re-elected President in 1804, and Mr. George Clinton, of New York, instead of Burr, now deservedly unpopular with all but the filibustering classes, Vice-President; in 1805, Michigan became a territorial government of the United States; and in the autumn of 1805 the outcast President Burr was detected at the head of a project for revolutionizing the territory west of the Alleghanies, and of establishing an independent empire there, of which New Orleans was to be the capital, and himself the chief. To the accomplishment of this scheme, Burr brought into play all the skill and cunning of which he was possessed. And it was not a little. He had his design long in contemplation. He pretended to have purchased a large tract of territory, of which he conceded to his adherents considerable slices. He collected together, from all quarters where either he himself, or his agents, possessed influence, the ardent, the restless, and the desperate, persons ready for any enterprise analogous to their characters. He also seduced good and well-meaning citizens, by assurances that he possessed the confidence of the government, and was acting under its secret patronage. He had another project, in case of the failure of the first. He designed to make an attack upon Mexico and to establish an empire there. He failed. Before his standard was raised, the government was made aware of his designs, and he was brought to trial, at Richmond, on a charge of treason, committed within the district of Virginia. It was not proved, however, that he had been guilty of any overt act, within the State, and he was released. It was probably to find employment for that restless and desperate class of persons, with which the United States even then abounded, that the government of America sought cause of quarrel with Great Britain, as well as to produce that spurious activity among the industrial classes, which is ever the result of warlike preparations.

In 1809, Mr. James Madison was elected President of the United States. During Mr. Jefferson's administration, commercial intercourse with France and Great Britain had been interdicted. When, however, Mr. Madison was fairly established in the Presidency, he showed a disposition to renew intercourse, and was seconded in his endeavours by Mr. Erskine, then British Minister at Washington. Mr. Erskine non-officially intimated to the American Secretary of State, that if the President would issue a Proclamation for the renewal of intercourse with Great Britain, that it was probable the proposal would be readily accepted. It was done. But the British government refused to rescind the Orders in Council of January and November 1807, so far as the United States were concerned, which would have given the benefit of the coasting trade of France to the Americans, recalled Mr. Erskine for having exceeded his instructions, and sent Mr. Jackson to Washington in his stead. A correspondence was immediately after Mr. Jackson's arrival at the American seat of government, opened with Mr. Madison's Secretary of State, and was as suddenly closed. Mr. Jackson was, as a diplomatist, rather blunt. Repeatedly, he asserted that the American Executive could not but have known from the powers exhibited by Mr. Erskine, that in stipulating, as he had done, he had transcended those powers, and was, therefore, acting without the authority of his government. The American Executive deemed such an assertion equivalent to a declaration that the American government did know that Mr. Erskine had exceeded his instructions. Mr. Jackson denied that his language could be so interpreted. The American Executive at once replied that Mr. Jackson's tone and language could not but be looked upon as reflecting upon the honor and integrity of the American government, and the correspondence was closed. The British government, not considering Mr. Jackson's diplomatic efforts as particularly happy, recalled him. He escaped, however, more direct censure.

These events had just occurred, across the line '45, when Sir James Craig, now more anxious than ever, to obtain legislative assistance, under circumstances that would not be liable to interruption from the expiration of the period for which one of the branches was chosen, ordered the writs to be issued for a new general election. The elections took place in October, 1809, when, contrary to the expectation of His Excellency, most of the gentlemen who held seats in the parliament which, in the previous May, had been so unexpectedly dissolved, were again returned. There were some substitutions. But those only who halted between two opinions, in fearing the government, while representing the people, were supplanted by men who would echo the vox (populi) et preterea nihil, in the Chamber of Deputies. They were called together on the 29th of January, 1810. They were told to elect a Speaker, which they did, by selecting the former Speaker, Mr. Panet. They were told to appear at the Bar of the Upper House. And they did appear in the confusion usual on all similar occasions. The Governor, graciously confirmed their choice of a Speaker, and Mr. Panet having bowed his acknowledgments, His Excellency expressed his concern that, far from an amicable settlement of the existing differences, between the British and American governments, as was anticipated from the arrangement agreed upon by His Majesty's Minister at Washington, circumstances had occurred that seemed to have widened the breach, and to have removed that desirable event to a period scarcely to be foreseen by human sagacity; the extraordinary cavils made with a succeeding minister; the eager research to discover an insult which defied the detection of "all other penetration;" the consequent rejection of further communication with that minister, and indeed every step of intercourse, the particulars of which were known by authentic documents, evinced so little of a conciliatory disposition, and so much of a disinclination to meet the honorable advances made by His Majesty's government, while these had been further manifested in such terms, and by such conduct, that the continuance of peace seemed to depend less on the high sounded resentment of America, than on the moderation with which His Majesty might be disposed to view the treatment he had met with; he felt it to be unnecessary to urge preparation for any event that might arise from such a condition of things; he persuaded himself that in the great points of security and defence one mind would actuate all; he assured the country of the necessary support of regular troops should hostilities ensue, which with the "interior" force of the country would be found equal to any attack that could be made upon the province; the militia would not be unmindful of the courage which they had displayed in former days, (when, of course, they behaved worse, with the exception of a few individuals, than any people ever did![12]) the bravery of His Majesty's arms had never been called in question; he congratulated the legislature on the capture of Martinique, and triumphantly alluded to the battle of Talavera, which had torn from the French that character of invincibility which they had imagined themselves to have possessed in the eyes of the world. He recommended the renewal of those Acts which were designed to enable the Executive to discharge its duty against dangers, which could not be remedied by the course of common law; he drew attention to the numerous forgeries of foreign bank notes, and recommended a penal statute for their suppression; and he remarked that the question of the expediency of excluding the Judges of the King's Bench from the House of Representatives had been, during the two last sessions, much agitated, and that, although he would not have himself interdicted the judges from being selected by the people to represent them in the Assembly, had the question ever come before him, he had been ordered by His Majesty to give his assent to any proper bill, concurred in by the two Houses, for rendering the judges ineligible to a seat in the Assembly.

[12] Sir James' letter to Lord Liverpool.

The Assembly, very naturally, entertained the opinion that the Imperial government had not approved of the conduct of Sir James Craig in dissolving the previous Parliament. Indeed, even before taking the speech from the throne into consideration, the Assembly resolved that every attempt of the executive government and of the other branches of the legislature against the House of Assembly, whether in dictating or censuring its proceedings, or in approving the conduct of one part of its members, and disapproving that of others, was a violation of the statute by which the House was constituted; was a breach of the privileges of the House, which it could not forbear objecting to; and was a dangerous attack upon the rights and liberties of His Majesty's subjects in Canada. There were, not ten only, but thirteen members of British origin now in the House of Assembly, and the vote, for the adoption of the resolution, exhibited a wonderful degree of unanimity of opinion with regard to the right of freedom of opinion and the freedom of debate. There were twenty-four affirmative to eleven adverse votes, and, among those who voted with the minority, were some officials of French origin. In reply to the address from the throne, the House expressed its unalterable attachment to Great Britain, they were grateful and would be faithful to that sovereign and nation which respected their rights and liberties; it was unnecessary to urge them to prepare for any event that might arise, they would be prepared; and the militia, not unmindful of the courage which they had, in former days, displayed, would endeavour to emulate that bravery, natural to His Majesty's arms, which had never been called in question. Nay, the House was exuberant with loyalty. No sooner was the address in reply presented to the Governor than an address, congratulating the King on the happy event of having entered upon the fiftieth year of his reign, was unanimously adopted, and transmitted to the Governor for transmission to England. The expediency of relieving the Imperial government of the burthen of providing for the civil list of Canada was next discussed. It was considered that the sooner the payment of its own government officers devolved upon the province, the better it would be for all classes inhabiting it. Ultimately, the province would be required to defray the expenses of its own government, and the sooner it did so the less weighty would the civil list be. The minority were very much opposed to the proposed change. Some, who, twenty-seven years before, were most anxious to present L20,000 to the King, by a tax on goods, wares, and merchandise, to assist in enabling His Majesty to prosecute the war against France vigorously, now that the province was more than paying her expenses, could not see the necessity of saddling the country with a burthen which would make it, as they alleged, necessary to impose duties to the amount of fifty thousand pounds a year. At first, the very ignorant[13] country people, not knowing that which was going on, became alarmed at the startling information conveyed to them by the majority. They expressed their fears that their friends were betraying them. They were soon pacified. Their members informed them, or they were informed by the Canadien, that when the House of Assembly had the entire management of the civil list, they would not fail to reduce the sum necessary to keep up the hospitality of Government House, and only, consequently, consideration for the Governor-in-Chief; nor would they fail to retrench the several pensions, reduce the heavier salaries of the employees, cut off the sinecurists, and, in a variety of ways, lessen the public burthens. The habitants were no longer alarmed at the additional taxation of L50,000 a year, with which they were threatened. A series of resolutions passed the Assembly, intimating that the province was able to supply funds for the payment of the civil list. The province was able to pay all the civil expenses of its government. The House of Assembly ought "this session" to vote the sums necessary for defraying the expenses of the civil list. The House will vote such necessary sums. And the King, Lords, and Commons of England, were to be informed that the Commons of Canada had taken upon itself the payment of the government of the province and that they were exceedingly grateful to England for the assistance hitherto afforded, and for the happy constitution, which had raised the province to a pitch of prosperity so high that it was now able and willing to support itself. Ten gentlemen of British extraction voted against these resolutions and only one Canadian. The address to the King, pursuant to the resolutions, was carried by a vote of thirteen to three. Many members appear to have been afraid of themselves or rather of the consequences to be apprehended from the offence which the adoption of such resolutions was calculated to give the Imperial advisers of the representative of the King in a colony. Nay, the Governor-in-Chief did not much relish the resolutions. He turned them over in his mind, again and again. There was something more than appeared upon the surface. He disrelished the idea of getting his meat poisoned by its passage through Canadian fingers. He was sure the King, his master, would pay him well, but, as for the Canadians, they might stop the supplies. The Assembly waited upon His Excellency with their addresses. They requested that His Excellency would be pleased to lay them before His Majesty's ministers for presentation. Sir James hesitated. The addresses were so peculiarly novel as to require a considerable degree of reflection. The constitutional usage of Parliament, recognised by the wisdom of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, forbade all steps on the part of the people towards grants of money which were not recommended by the Crown, and although by the same parliamentary usage all grants originated in the Lower House, they were ineffectual without the concurrence of the Upper House. There was no precedent of addresses to the House of Lords, or Commons, separately, by a single branch of the Colonial Legislature. He conceived the addresses to be unprecedented, imperfect in form, and founded upon a resolution of the House of Assembly, which, until sanctioned by the Legislative Council, must be ineffectual, except as a spontaneous offer on the part of the Commons of Canada. The resolutions were premature. He regretted that he could not take it upon himself to transmit these addresses to His Majesty's ministers. In his refusal he was impressed by a sense of duty. But, besides the sense of duty, His Majesty's ministers, unless commanded by His Majesty, were not the regular organs of communication with the House of Commons. Even were he to transmit those addresses, he could not pledge himself for their delivery, through that channel. He would have felt himself bound upon ordinary occasions to have declined any addresses similar to those then before him, under similar circumstances. He would on the present occasion transmit to the King his own testimony of the good disposition, gratitude, and generous intentions of his subjects. He thought it right that His Majesty, "by their own act," should be formally apprised of the ability and of the voluntary pledge and promise of the province to pay the civil expenditure of the province when required. He then engaged to transmit the King's address to His Majesty, with the understanding that no act of his should be considered as compromising the rights of His Majesty, of his Colonial Representative, or of the Legislative Council. He significantly hoped that the House of Assembly might not suppose that he had expressed himself in a way that might carry with it an appearance of checking the manifestation of sentiments under which the House had acted. A committee of seven members were, on the receipt of His Excellency's answer, appointed to search for the precedents and parliamentary usages alluded to by the Governor-in-Chief, with instructions to report speedily. And, that there might be no excuse, with regard to the improper introduction of a money matter, for a refusal to sanction any bill that the Assembly might think proper to pass, a resolution was adopted by the Assembly to the effect that the House had resolved to vote, in the then session, the sums necessary for paying all the civil expenses of the government of the province, and to beseech that His Excellency would be pleased to order the proper officer to lay before the House an estimate of the said civil expenses. The practice of these avocats, shopkeepers, apothecaries, doctors, and notaries, was tolerably sharp. The House went again to work upon the expediency of appointing a Colonial Agent in England, and introduced a bill with that object, which was read. A bill to render the judges ineligible to sit in the Assembly passed the Assembly; but the Council amended the bill, by postponing the period at which the ineligibility was to have effect, to the expiration of the parliament then in being, and sent it back to the Assembly for concurrence. Indignant at this amendment, the Assembly adopted a resolution to the effect that P. A. DeBonne, being one of the Judges of the King's Bench, could neither sit nor vote in the House, and his seat for Quebec was declared to be vacant. The vote was decisive. There were eighteen votes in favor of the resolution and only six against it, the six being all English names. McCord, Ross, Cuthbert, Gugy, and such like. If the practice of the avocats was sharp, the practice of the Governor was yet sharper. Down came the Governor-in-Chief in two days after the search for precedents had begun in the Assembly, in not the best of humour, to the Legislative Council Chamber. On the 26th of February, the uncontrollable Assembly were summoned before the representative of royalty. He informed the two Houses that he had come to prorogue the legislature, having again determined to appeal to the people by an immediate dissolution. It had been rendered impossible for him to act otherwise. Without the participation of the other branches of the Legislature the Assembly had taken upon themselves to vote that a judge could not sit nor vote in their House. It was impossible for him to consider what had been done in any other light than as a direct violation of an Act of the Imperial Parliament. He considered that the House of Assembly had unconstitutionally disfranchised a large portion of His Majesty's subjects, and rendered ineligible, by an authority they did not possess, another, and not inconsiderable class of the community. By every tie of duty, he was bound to oppose such an assumption. In consequence of the expulsion of the member for Quebec, a vacancy in the representation of that county had been declared. It would be necessary to issue a writ for a new election, and that writ was to be signed by him. He would not render himself a partaker in the violation of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and to avoid becoming so he had no other recourse but that which he was pursuing. He felt much satisfaction when the Parliament met, in having taken such steps as he thought most likely to facilitate a measure that seemed to be wished for, and that, in itself, met his concurrence; but as, in his opinion, the only ineligibility of a judge to sit in Parliament arose from the circumstance of his having to ask the electors for their votes, he could not conceive that there could be any well founded objection to his possession of a seat in the Assembly, when he was elected. He believed that the talents and superior knowledge of the judges, to say nothing of other considerations, made them highly useful. He lamented that a measure, which he considered would have been beneficial to the country, should not have taken effect. But he trusted that the people, in the disappointment of their expectations, would do him justice, and acquit him of being the cause that so little business had been done.

[13] Sir James' letter to Lord Liverpool, accompanied by the explanatory Mr. Ryland.

Such is human nature, that, on leaving the Council Room, Sir James Craig was loudly cheered. His manliness, combined with stupidity, and his real honesty of purpose, had its temporary effect upon those who admire pluck as much in a Governor as in a game cock. Not only was His Excellency cheered on leaving the Parliament buildings, addresses poured in upon him from all quarters. Quebec, Montreal, Terrebonne, Three Rivers, Sorel, Warwick, and Orleans, complimented Sir James. A more cunning man would have flattered himself that he had acted rightly. But there was to be a day of retribution. The late members of the late House of Assembly were not idle. Nor was the Canadien silent. Every means that prudence could dictate, and malevolence suggest, were resorted to, with a view to the re-election of the dismissed representatives. The "friends" of the government suggested that there were plans of insurrection and rebellion. It was insinuated that the French Minister at Washington, had supplied the seditious in Canada with money. It was even broadly stated that the plenipotentiary's correspondence had been intercepted by the agents of the government. And that which was not said is more difficult of conjecture than that which was said.

The revenue was this year L70,356, and the expenditure L49,347 sterling; 635 vessels, consisting of 138,057 tons, had arrived from sea; and 26 vessels had been built and cleared at the port.

At this time there were five papers in Lower Canada. The Quebec Gazette, the Quebec Mercury, Le Canadien, the Montreal Gazette, and the Courant. The three former were published in Quebec, the other two in Montreal. The Gazettes were organs of the government, the Mercury and Courant were "namby-pamby," and the Canadien was as the voice of le peuple.

The elections were, in the month of March, again about to take place, and the government conceived the magnificent idea of carrying a printing office by assault. When everything was prepared, then was the time to act. Headed by a magistrate, a party of soldiers rushed up the stairs leading to the Canadien printing office. The proprietor received them with a low bow, and much annoyance was felt that no opposition was offered. The premises were searched. Some manuscripts were found, and, "under the sanction of the Executive," the whole press, and the whole papers of every description, were forcibly seized, and conveyed as booty to the vaults of the Court House. In this action one prisoner was made. The printer was seized, and "after examination," was committed to prison. And, as if an insurrection were expected, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and patrols sent in every direction. The public looked amazed, as well it might. The Mercury did not know whether most to admire the tyrannical spirit or the consummate vanity of the Canadians, and of No. 15, of the Canadien, which contended that the Canadians had rights. As a striking proof of Canadian tyranny, the Canadien would not allow any but the members of the Assembly to be a judge of the expediency of expelling Judge DeBonne! and it was even said that of all those who signed the address to His Excellency, presented in the name of Quebec, not one was capable of understanding the nature of the question. In a dependence, such as Canada, was the government to be daily flouted, bearded, and treated with the utmost disrespect and contumely? "He" expected nothing less than that its patience would be exhausted, and energetic measures resorted to, as the only efficient ones. From any part of a people conquered from wretchedness into every indulgence, and the height of prosperity, such treatment, as the government daily received was far different from that which ought to have been expected. But there were characters in the world on whom benefits have no other effect than to produce insolence and insult. The stroke was struck, the Mercury would say no more. The greatest misfortune that can ever happen to the press is for it to be in the possession of invisible and licentious hands. It said no more, because "the war was with the dead!"

Sir James was not very sure that he had acted either wisely or well. He thought it necessary to explain. Divers wicked and seditious writings had been printed. Divers wicked and seditious writings had been dispersed throughout the province. Divers writings were calculated to mislead divers of His Majesty's subjects. Divers wicked and traitorous persons had endeavoured to bring into contempt and had vilified the administration, and divers persons had invented wicked falsehoods, with the view of alienating the affections of His Majesty's subjects from the respect which was due to His Majesty's person. It was impossible for His Majesty's representative longer to disregard or suffer practices so directly tending to subvert His Majesty's government, and to destroy the happiness of His Majesty's subjects. He, therefore, announced, that with the advice and concurrence of the Executive Council, and due information having been given to three of His Majesty's Executive Councillors, warrants, as by law authorised, had been issued, under which, some of the authors, printers, and publishers of the aforesaid traitorous and seditious writings had been apprehended and secured. Deeply impressed with a desire to promote, in all respects, the welfare and happiness of the most benevolent of sovereigns, whose servant he had been for as long a period as the oldest inhabitant had been his subject, and whose highest displeasure he should incur if the acts of these designing men had produced any effect, he trusted that neither doubts nor jealousies had crept into the public mind. He would recall to the deluded, if there were any, the history of the whole period during which they had been under His Majesty's government. It was for them to recollect the progressive advances they had made in the wealth, happiness, and unbounded liberty which they then enjoyed. Where was the act of oppression—where was the instance of arbitrary imprisonment—or where was the violation of property of which they had to complain? Had there been an instance in which the uncontrolled enjoyment of their religion had been disturbed? While other countries and other colonies had been deluged in blood, during the prevalent war, had they not enjoyed the most perfect security and tranquillity? What, then, could be the means by which the traitorous would effect their wicked purposes? What arguments dare they use? For what reason was happiness to be laid aside and treason embraced? What persuasion could induce the loyal to abandon loyalty and become monsters of ingratitude? The traitorous had said that he desired to embody and make soldiers of twelve thousand of the people, and because the Assembly would not consent, that he had dissolved the Parliament? It was monstrously untrue, and it was particularly atrocious in being advanced by persons who might have been supposed to have spoken with certainty on the subject. It had been said that he wanted to tax the lands of the country people, that the House would only consent to tax wine, and that for such perverseness he had dissolved the Assembly. Inhabitants of St. Denis! the Governor General never had the most distant idea of taxing the people at all. The assertion was directly false. When the House offered to pay the civil list, he could not move without the King's instructions. But in despair of producing instances from what he had done, the traitorous had spoken of that which he intended to do. It was boldly said that Sir James Craig intended to oppress the Canadians. Base and daring fabricators of falsehood! on what part of his life did they found such assertions? What did the inhabitants of St. Denis know of him or of his intentions? Let Canadians inquire concerning him of the heads of their church. The heads of the church were men of knowledge, honor, and learning, who had had opportunities of knowing him, and they ought to be looked to for advice and information. The leaders of faction and the demagogues of a party associated not with him, and could not know him. Why should he be an oppressor? Was it to serve the King, the whole tenor of whose life had been honorable and virtuous? Was it for himself that he should practice oppression? For what should he be an oppressor? Ambition could not prompt him, with a life ebbing slowly to a close, under the pressure of a disease acquired in the service of his country. He only looked forward to pass the remaining period of his life in the comfort of retirement, among his friends. He remained in Canada simply in obedience to the commands of his King. What power could he desire? For what wealth would he be an oppressor? Those who knew him, knew that he had never regarded wealth, and then, he could not enjoy it. He cared not for the value of the country laid at his feet. He would prefer to power and wealth a single instance of having contributed to the happiness and prosperity of the people whom he had been sent to govern. He warned all to be on their guard against the artful suggestions of wicked and designing men. He begged that all would use their best endeavours to prevent the evil effects of incendiary and traitorous doings. And he strictly charged and commanded all magistrates, captains of militia, peace officers, and others, of His Majesty's good subjects to bring to punishment such as circulated false news, tending, in any manner, to inflame the public mind and to disturb the public peace and tranquillity.

Could anything have been more pitiable than such a proclamation? The existence of a conspiracy on the part of some disaffected persons to overthrow the King's government was made to appear with the view of covering a mistake. The proclamation was the apology for the illegal seizure of a press and types used in the publication of a newspaper, in which nothing seditious or treasonable had in reality been published. It was true that the Canadien upheld the Assembly and criticised the conduct of the Executive, with great severity. It was true that the Canadien complained of the tyranny of "les Anglais." It was true that the Canadien strenuously supported the idea of the expenses of the civil list being defrayed by the province and not by the Imperial government. And it was true that it contended for "nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois." It did nothing more. No hint was thrown out that Canada would be more prosperous under the American, than under the English dominion. It was not even insinuated that Canada should be wholly governed by Canadians. All that was claimed for French Canadians was a fair share in the official spoils of the land they lived in, freedom of speech, and liberty of conscience. Governor Craig asked the inhabitants of St. Denis or any of the other inhabitants of the province to remind him of any one act of oppression or of arbitrary imprisonment. And at that very moment the printer of the Canadien was in prison. Nor was he there alone, there were Messrs. Bedard, Blanchet, and Taschereau, members of the recently dissolved House of Assembly, together with Messrs. Pierre Laforce, Pierre Papineau, of Chambly, and Francois Corbeille, of Isle Jesus, to keep him company, on charges of treasonable practices, concerning which there was not, and never had been, even the shadow of proof, on charges which the government did not attempt even to prove, and on charges which were withdrawn without the accused having ever been confronted with their accusers. Base and daring fabricators of falsehood! Francois Corbeille, an innocent man, the victim only of unjust suspicions, on the one hand, and of diabolical selfishness, on the other, died in consequence of the injury his health received in that prison where tyranny had placed him. But he could issue no proclamation. His voice was not loud enough in the tomb to reach the Court of St. James, surrounded as that Court was, by an impenetrable phalanx of Downing Street Red-tapists. Canada was only mis-governed because England was deceived, through the instrumentality of Governors, honorable enough as men, but so wanting in administrative capacity, as to be open to the vile flattery and base insinuations of those who were, or rather should have been at once the faithful servants of the Crown and of that people who upheld it, who were virtually taken possession of, on arrival, by the "gens en place," and held safely in custody, until their nominal power had ceased. And when power had passed away, then only did many of them perceive, as Sir James Craig is reported to have done, the deception, the ingratitude, and the almost inhumanity of man. There is some excuse to be offered for the extraordinary course of policy pursued by Sir James Craig; and an apology even can be made for the crooked policy of those voluntary advisers who had hedged him in. Great Britain was at war with France. The name of a Frenchman was unmusical in the ears of any Englishman of that period, and it sounded harshly in the ears of the British soldier. It was France that had prostituted liberty to lust. It was France that had dragged public opinion to the scaffold and the guillotine. It was France that held the axe uplifted over all that was good and holy. It was France that was making all Europe a charnel-house. It was General Buonaparte of France, who only sought to subdue England, the more easily to conquer the world. Many an English hearth had cursed his name. Many a widow had he made desolate, and many an orphan fatherless. The "conquered subjects" of King George spoke and thought in French. They held French traditions in veneration. There could only be a jealousy, a hatred, a contempt entertained of everything seeming to be French, in the heart of an Englishman. And these sentiments were doubtless reciprocated. But, still the French of Canada, were only, now, French by extraction. They had long lost that love of the land of their origin, which belongs to nativity. Few men in the province had been born in France. Few Canadians knew anything about the new regime, or took any interest in the "Code Napoleon." And few even cherished flattering recollections of Bourbon rule. The Canadians wanted English liberty, not French republicanism. The Canadians wanted to have for themselves so much liberty as a Scotchman might enjoy at John O'Groats, or an Englishman obtain at Land's-End. And for so desiring liberty they were misrepresented, because of English colonial prejudices, and because of official dislikes and selfishness. When the first Attorney-General of Canada, Mr. Mazzeres, afterwards Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer, in England, of whom Mr. Ryland was but a pious follower, proposed to convert the Canadians to Anglicism in religion, in manners, and in law, assuredly little opposition could have been made to the scheme. Then, the pursuance of Cardinal Richelieu's policy would, in after ages, have exemplified that the pen had been mightier than the sword. Then the whole population of the province could have been housed in one of the larger cities of the present time. But when the province had increased in numbers to 300,000, partially schooled in English legislation, the exercise of despotism was only as impolitic as it was obviously unjust. It was feared by the officers of the civil government of Canada, when this despotism was practised, that the legislature might have the power, which has since been conceded, of dispensing with the services of merely imperial officers, and of filling, with natives to the manor born, every office of profit or emolument in the province. It was feared if the exclusive power were granted to the Colonial Legislature of appropriating all the sums necessary for the civil expenditure of the province, that it would give the Legislature absolute control over the officers of the empire and of the colony, and annihilate, if not actually, potentially, the imperium of Great Britain over her colony. A distinction was drawn between the privileges of a colonist and of the resident of the United Kingdom. While every municipality in the latter was permitted to pay and control its own officers, the voice of a colonist was to be unheard in the councils of the nation to which he was attached, and he was to have no control over the actions of those who were to make or administer the laws, under which he lived. He was patiently to submit to the overbearing assumptions of some plebeian Viceroy, accidentally raised to a quasi-level with the great potentates of the earth, and inclined to ride with his temporary and borrowed power, after that great impersonage of evil, which, it is alleged, the beggar always attempts to overtake when, having thrown off his rags and poverty, he has been mounted on horseback. It is admitted that at this time the province was controlled by a few rapacious, overbearing, and irresponsible officials, without stake or other connection with the country, than their offices,[14] having no sympathy with the mass of the inhabitants. It is admitted that these officials lorded it over the people, upon whose substance they existed, and that they were not confided in, but hated. It is admitted that their influence with the English inhabitants arose from the command of the treasury. And it is admitted that, though only the servants of the government, they acted as if they had been princes among the natives and inhabitants of the province, upon whom they affected to look down, estranging them from all direct intercourse, or intimacy, with the Governor, whose confidence, no less than the control of the treasury, it was their policy to monopolise. To the candidates for vice-regal favors, their smiles were fortune, and their frowns were fate. The Governor was a hostage in the keeping of the bureaucracy, and the people were but serfs.

[14] Christie's History of Lower Canada, vol. 1, page 347.

Nothing has been left on record to show that when Sir James Craig issued his absurd proclamation, treason was to have been feared, unless it be that the clergy were required to read the proclamation from the pulpits of the parish churches, that Chief Justice Sewell read it from the Bench, that the Grand Jury drew up an address to the Court and strongly animadverted upon the dangerous productions of the Canadien, and that the Quebec Mercury expressed its abhorrence of sedition, and chronicled the fact that 671 habitants had expressed their gratitude to the Governor, for his "truly paternal proclamation."

In the April term of the Court of King's Bench, the release of Mr. Bedard from gaol, was attempted, by an attempt to obtain a writ of Habeas Corpus. But the Bench was not sufficiently independent of the Crown. The writ was refused. The State prisoners were compelled to remain in prison, indulging the hope that whatever charges could be preferred against them would be reduced to writing, and a trial be obtained. It was hoping against hope. Some of the imprisoned fell sick, among whom was the printer of the Canadien, and all in the gaol of Quebec, with the exception of Mr. Bedard, were turned out of prison. Mr. Bedard refused to be set at liberty without having had the opportunity of vindicating his reputation by the verdict of a jury. Conscious of the integrity of his conduct, and of the legality of his expressed political opinions, he solicited trial, but the September session of the Criminal Term of the King's Bench was suffered to elapse without any attention having been paid to him. Three of the prisoners were imprisoned in the gaol of Montreal, and were not only subjected to the inconveniences and discomforts of a damp and unhealthy prison, but to the petty persecutions of a relentless gaoler. They were one after the other enlarged without trial, Mr. Corbeil only to die.

In the course of the summer the government had been occupied with the regulation and establishment of a system of police, in Montreal and Quebec, and, with that view, salaried chairmen were appointed to preside over the Courts of Quarter Sessions. The government also determined upon opening up a road to the Eastern Townships, which would afford a direct land communication between Quebec and Boston. Commencing at St. Giles, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, that road to the township of Shipton, which still bears the name of Governor Craig, was completed by a detachment of troops.

On the 10th of December, Parliament again met. The House of Assembly re-elected Mr. Panet to the Speakership, and the Governor approved of his election. In his speech from the throne, Governor Craig had never doubted the loyalty and zeal of the parliaments which had met since he had assumed the administration of affairs. He was confident that they were animated by the best intentions to promote the interests of the King's government and the welfare of the people. He looked for such a disposition in the tenor of their deliberations. He called their attention to the temporary Act for the better preservation of His Majesty's government, and for establishing regulations respecting aliens or certain subjects of His Majesty, who had resided in France. No change had taken place in the state of public affairs, that would warrant a departure from those precautions which made the Act necessary. He did not mean that it should be supposed that he meant to divide the interests of His Majesty's government from the interests of the public, for they were inseparable. But the preservation of His Majesty's government was the safety of the province, and its security was the only safeguard to the public tranquillity. He therefore recommended those considerations together with the Act making temporary provision for the regulation of trade between Canada and the United States to their first and immediate consideration. He entreated them to believe that he should have great satisfaction in cultivating that harmony and good understanding which must be so conducive to the prosperity and happiness of the colony, and that he should most readily and cheerfully concur, in every measure, which they might propose, tending to promote those important objects. And he further intimated that the rule of his conduct was to discharge his duty to his sovereign, by a constant attention to the welfare of his subjects, who were committed to his charge, and these objects he felt to be promoted by a strict adherence to the laws and principles of the constitution, and by maintaining in their just balance the rights and privileges of every branch of the legislature. Sir James Craig's attempts at maintaining a balance of power were the chief causes of all his blundering. He did not himself know the proper balance of power between himself and the governed. He could not possibly perceive when his balance-beam was out of its centre, and if he had seen a slight leaning to one side, and that side not his own, he could not have conceived that the scales of justice would have been very much affected. It never occurred to him that the displacement of it, only to the extent of one-sixteenth half of an inch, on the side of Government and Council, would weigh a quarter of a century against the Assembly, the people and progress. But so it was. The beam with which Sir James Craig would have and did weigh out justice, was one-sided, and, to make matters still worse, the Governor threw into the adverse scale a host of his own prejudices, and of the prejudices of his secret councillors. He would have been glad, had the House expelled Mr. Bedard, one of its members, on the plea that it was prejudicial to its dignity that a representative of the people should be kept in durance, while the House was in session, and still more discreditable that that member should be charged with treason. Hardly had he delivered his speech, and the Assembly returned to their chamber, when the Governor sent a message to the House intimating that Mr. Bedard, who had been returned to Parliament, as the representative of Surrey, was detained in the common gaol of Quebec, under the "Preservation Act," charged with treasonable practices. The House most politely thanked the Governor-in-Chief for the information. The House resolved that Mr. Bedard was in the common gaol of Quebec. The House resolved that Pierre Bedard was, on the 27th day of March, returned to Parliament, as one of the Knights Representative of Surrey. The House resolved that Pierre Bedard, was then one of the members of the Assembly, for the existing Parliament. The House resolved that the simple arrest of any one of His Majesty's subjects did not render him incapable of election to the Assembly. The House resolved that the Government Preserves Act, guaranteed to the said Pierre Bedard, Esquire, the right of sitting in the Assembly. And the House resolved to present a humble address to His Excellency, informing him that his message had been seriously considered, that several resolutions had been passed, which they conceived it to be their duty to submit to His Excellency, and that it was the wish of the House that Pierre Bedard, Esquire, Knight Representative for the County of Surrey, might take his seat in the House. The vote in favor of the resolutions was expressively large. There were twenty-five members present, and twenty voted for the resolutions. Messrs. Bourdages, Papineau, senior, Bellet, Papineau, junior, Debartch, Viger, Lee, and Bruneau, were named a committee to present an address to the Governor, founded on the resolutions, but they managed to escape that honor. When it was moved to resolve that an enquiry be made as to the causes which had prevented the messengers from presenting the address, as ordered by the House, Mr. Papineau, senior, moved that nothing more should be said about the address, and the motion was carried. Nor was anything more said about the unfortunate gentleman who was imprisoned, as the Governor himself afterwards stated, only as a measure of precaution, not of punishment, until the close of the session, when he was released. He was kept in Ham because he might have done mischief, on the principle that prevention is better than cure, and, when Mr. Bedard desired to know what was expected of him, the Governor sent for his brother, the cure, and authorized him to tell Mr. Bedard that he had been confined by government, "only looking to its security and the public tranquillity," and that when Mr. Bedard expressed a sense of that error, of which he was ignorant, he would be immediately enlarged. Mr. Bedard replied courteously, but declined admitting any error, which he had not made, or of confessing to any crime of which he was not guilty. The Governor had heard of the resolutions of the House, and expected the presentation of the address embodying them, when he received an application from the elder Papineau, one of the committee, requesting a private conference on the subject of the resolutions. That conference only drew from His Excellency the remark that:—"No consideration, Sir, shall induce me to consent to the liberation of Mr. Bedard, at the instance of the House of Assembly, either as a matter of right, or as a favor, nor will I now consent to his being enlarged on any terms during the sitting of the present session, and I will not hesitate to inform you of the motives by which I have been induced to come to this resolution. I know that the general language of the members, has encouraged the idea which universally prevails, that the House of Assembly will release Mr. Bedard; an idea so firmly established that there is not a doubt entertained upon it in the province. The time is therefore come, when I feel that the security as well as the dignity of the King's government, imperiously require that the people should be made to understand the true limits of the rights of the respective parts of the government, and that it is not that of the House of Assembly to rule the country." And Mr. Bedard, sensible of having done no wrong, remained in gaol until the Parliament was prorogued, as an example to the people that there was no public opinion worth heeding, in the province, and that the power of the Governor was something superior to that of the Assembly. The Assembly went to work after having made the fruitless attempt to liberate Mr. Bedard, and passed as many bills as were required. The "gaols" bill was temporarily continued: the repairs of the Castle of St. Lewis having cost L14,980, instead of L7,000, as contemplated, the additional outlay was voted; L50,000 were voted towards the erection of suitable parliament buildings. The Alien Act and that for the Preservation of the Government were continued, together with the Militia Act, to March 1813; the bill to disqualify judges from being elected to the Assembly passed both Houses, and to these the Governor assented, proroguing the Parliament afterwards with great pleasure. Communication with Europe had been difficult during the winter, on account of the impediments thrown in the way of American commerce. The Princess Charlotte had died, and the sovereign himself had become alarmingly indisposed. A new Act of non-intercourse had been passed in the American Congress. He had seen among the Acts passed, and to which he had just declared His Majesty's assent, with peculiar satisfaction, the Act disqualifying the judges from holding a seat in the House of Assembly. It was not only that he thought the measure right in itself, but that he considered the passing of an Act for the purpose, as a complete renunciation of the erroneous principle, the acting upon which put him under the necessity of dissolving the last parliament. The country was becoming luxuriantly rich, and he hoped that all would be harmony and tolerance. He would be a proud man who could say to his sovereign that he found the Canadians divided and left them united.