There

cession, there arose an exciting controversy among some of the leading statesmen of the time, whether it should be retained or restored to France, and the island of Guadaloupe be added to the British dominions in its stead. seems to have been a prevalent fear, that, if Canada were kept, the Colonies, rid of all apprehensions from the French, would increase at an alarming rate, and finally throw off their dependence on the mother country. A tract was published in support of this view, supposed to have been written either by Edmund or William Burke, to which Dr. Franklin replied in his happiest and ablest manner.* Nor did the dispute end here; for the charge was openly made, that the treaty of peace which restored to France Bellisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, and Havana, which guarantied to her people the use of the Newfoundland fisheries, and which retained an acquisition of so doubtful value as Canada, was the result of corrupt bargaining; and Junius, in his celebrated letter to the Duke of Bedford, who negotiated the treaty, openly accuses him of having received bribes.

The Colony was now placed under a military government, though the king, by proclamation, announced his intention of granting, as soon as circumstances would permit, a legislative assembly. That this promise was not redeemed for twenty-eight years was at once an error of policy, and a breach of the royal faith. For four years, officers of the army were both governors and judges; and for a considerable period afterwards, orders in council were the only checks on their will, and the only protection thrown around the Canadian's rights. In 1774, it was deemed expedient by the ministry to pay some attention to the abuses that had grown up, and to introduce into parliament a bill designed ostensibly to correct them. This bill provided for the restoration of the Customs of Paris in regard to the transmission of property, for the introduction of the English criminal law and the trial by jury, and it lodged the legislative and executive power in a governor and council; but as it contained no provision for an assembly, it gave great dissatisfaction to the British emigrants who had settled in Can

Mr. Sparks says, that this reply "was believed to have had great weight in the ministerial councils, and to have been mainly instrumental in causing Canada to be held at the peace."

ada in the hope of enjoying the same privileges as the subjects of the mother country.

As the passage of this bill is one of the twenty-six grievances enumerated by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, it may be worth further notice. In the Lords, the measure seems to have encountered no very formidable opposition; but in the Commons, it produced a most angry debate. Several witnesses were examined at the bar, among whom were the governor, the chief justice, and the former attorney-general of Canada, the advocate-general, and a Canadian gentleman. In the testimony and opinions of these dignitaries there was little harmony. The governor declared, that the Canadians disapproved of the trial by jury, because they thought it "very extraordinary, that English gentlemen should believe their property safer, in the hands of tailors, shoemakers, and people in trade, than in those of the judges"; he said, they disapproved of the introduction of English civil law, because they do not know what it is"; and that they desired no assembly, on account of the disputes which they saw prevailing between the crown and the representative bodies of the other Colonies. On this latter point, the chief justice was of the same opinion; for, as he pithily said, their only idea of an assembly was "that of a house of riot and confusion, which meets only to impede public business, and to distress the crown." Very different were the sentiments of the French noble, who believed that his conquered countrymen were very desirous of having an assembly, but had refrained from making their wishes known, because they understood that they would be compelled to bear the expense which its introduction would cause; and such a burden they were unable to endure. With regard to their preference for the English or French code of law, he was of opinion, that the former would be unobjectionable, if the tenures of land were allowed to remain unaltered. Upon the point of descents, dower, and transfer of lands, the former Colonial attorney-general expressed the same views; and he was convinced also, that, in other respects, the people would be satisfied with the abolition of the system which had been established by France.

The speeches which preceded and followed this examination were printed, and they show the warmth of the debate.

Opposed to the bill were Dunning, who declared upon his conscience, that he thought it "destructive of every principle of freedom, and abounding with mischief of a most serious tendency"; Barré, who said it was "the most flagrant attack on the constitution, that had hitherto been attempted"; and Townshend, who affirmed, that it "established a despotic government." "Little did I think," continued he, "that a country as large as half of Europe, and now within the dominions of the crown of Great Britain, was going to have the Romish religion established in it as the religion of the state. Little did I think, that so many thousand men, entitled by birth to the rights of Englishmen, settling on the faith of the king's proclamation, should, contrary to that assurance, contrary to every idea of the constitution, be subjected to French Papists and French laws, in a country where, for full twelve years, nothing has prevailed but anarchy and confusion."

In defence of the bill appeared Lord North, AttorneyGeneral Thurlow, and Solicitor-General Wedderburn. They affirmed, that English laws, however much prized in England, "would be the greatest curse imaginable to the Canadians." But the minister, being sorely pressed, at last disavowed all knowledge of the paternity of the bill. "I know not," said he, "who drew it up"; all he did know about it was, that it is a bill from the other House"; but, said he, "all circumstances considered, I think the bill is the best that can at present be devised." Should we guess what these "circumstances were, we might say, that his Lordship knew he had already quite as many Colonial assemblies to deal with as was for his comfort, or as he could well manage; and that he wished for no more to quarrel with "at present."

In America, the "Quebec Act" caused the most profound sensation. On turning to the doings of the Congress of the thirteen Colonies, we find that a committee was directed to prepare an address "to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec"; and the form which they reported, having been debated by paragraphs, was adopted, and ordered to be translated, printed, and distributed. This address embodied many of the objections which had been urged in parliament, and concluded with an eloquent appeal to the Canadians to unite with their American brethren, and thus to gain the influence of the whole people of the conti

nent in their behalf. In a petition to the king, which immediately followed, this act is enumerated among the injuries of which they complain. Of those who assented to both of these papers were Deane of Connecticut, whose political prospects closed in sorrow and dishonor, and Galloway of Pennsylvania, who abandoned the Whigs and became a most virulent and influential Loyalist. Congress followed up its protest of 1774, and, in the memorable document which declared the British empire dismembered, gave utterence to its indignation at the treatment of the Canadians in no measured words.

The form of government established by this obnoxious Quebec Act continued until the year 1791, when Mr. Pitt devised and carried through parliament, in opposition to Fox and the other British Whigs, a plan which, with some modifications, is in operation at the present time, not only in Canada, but throughout British America. The scheme provided for a House of Assembly, elected by freeholders and leaseholders, for four years; a Legislative Council, appointed by the king, for life; and an Executive or Privy Council, the members of which, as well as the lieutenantgovernor, were to be appointed by the crown; — thus imitating the three estates of the British constitution. Full power was given to raise, control, and expend all taxes and duties, and to pass such laws as might be deemed expedient, and not contrary to the acts of parliament; subject, however, to the royal veto. Under this system, the practice has grown up of allowing the judges who were actually performing judicial duties to hold seats also in both the legislative and executive councils. Another object of Mr. Pitt was to divide the province into two parts, giving them the names of Upper and Lower Canada, which they retained until the late reunion. Of the wisdom of this division, and of the reasons assigned for it, we shall speak in another place.

It will be seen at a glance, that, by this system, the power of the crown controls the popular will as expressed in the House of Assembly, and can defeat any measure in two ways; first, by the negative of the Legislative Council, and secondly, by the royal dissent directly expressed. Still, tolerable harmony appears to have prevailed between the different branches of government for a number of years. The first dispute which our limited space will allow us to

mention occurred before the war of 1812, when the Assembly demanded that the judges should be required to vacate their seats as legislators, and to confine their attention to their judicial duties. This demand, and the offer to defray the expenses of the civil administration from means to be provided by the Colony, met with no favor, but, after a sharp contest of some duration, the governor dissolved the body which had brought up the dispute. This was the germ of the difficulties which now prevail, though the removal of Sir James Craig from the administration of affairs, the appointment of the more popular Sir George Prevost, and the rupture with the United States, hushed for a while the clamors of the discontented. At the peace, however, when Prevost relinquished the executive chair to Sir George Gordon Drummond, a second quarrel arose between the judges and a new Assembly, and two of the occupants of the bench were impeached. Drummond was succeeded, in 1816, by Sir John C. Sherbroke, under whose rule there was a period of quiet. On his retirement, his successor, the Duke of Richmond, by abandoning the practice of submitting to the Assembly an estimate in detail of the sums required to be voted for each branch of the public service, and adopting instead the plan of naming aggregates only, added another element of discord to those previously existing. The refusal of the Assembly to appropriate money in this way and "by chapters," and the passing of the supply bill in the usual form, produced an angry and protracted controversy. The Legislative Council, in this affair, as in the matter of the judges, took sides with the representative of the crown, and withheld their assent to the bill; whereupon the governor obtained the money he had applied for by drawing upon the receiver-general. After the death of the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Dalhousie was transferred from Nova Scotia to Canada, where he renewed the dispute as to appropriations, by determining the sum that would probably be wanted, and soliciting a grant of it for a term of years to come. The popular body refused to comply, and passed the bill of supplies in the usual form, specifying the precise objects to which the money voted should be applied. The Legislative Council again interposed their negative, and the Earl, like his predecessor, had recourse to the receiver-general; but going a step further, he drew for a sum larger than