CHAP. LXX. 1791. He disclaims all future steady adherence to the British constitution placed him in such a dilemma, he would risk all; and, as public duty and public prudence taught him, with his last words exclaim: " Fly from the French constitu"tion." [Mr. Fox here whispered, that "there was "no loss of friends."] Mr. Burke said, Yes, there friendship was a loss of friends-he knew the penalty of his with Mr. Fox. conduct he had done his duty, at the price of his friend their friendship was at an end. He then solemnly invoked the two great political leaders, whose rivalship divided the house, to concur in endeavours to save the constitution, and, making a sublime address to the Deity, concluded with moving an amendment on Lord Sheffield's motion. After a pause, occasioned by a convulsive agitation, Mr. Fox. relieved at last by a flood of tears, Mr. Fox said, that, grating as it was to be unkindly treated by those who were under obligations to us, such treatment was still more painful when it proceeded from those to whom we felt the greatest obligations, and who, notwithstanding their harshness and severity, must still be loved and esteemed. He could not forget that, when a boy almost, he had been in the habit of receiving favours from his right honourable friend, that their friendship had grown with their years, and that it had continued for upwards of five and twenty years, for the last twenty of which they had acted together, and lived on terms of the most familiar intimacy. They had dif fered on other subjects, and still remained friends; why might they not still do so? The conduct of his right honourable friend had afforded Mr. Pitt an opportunity of unjustly imputing to him republican principles. It might be proper to declare opinions on the French revolution; but they might have been produced on any other measure with less injury to him than on the Quebec bill. His right honourable friend, he said, had heaped on him ignominious terms; but, when Mr. Burke said he did not remember any, Mr. Fox, instead of justifying his assertion, by adducing instances, answered, that, if so, they were also out of his mind for ever; they were obliterated and forgiven. CHAP. 1791. Mr. Burke. He defended the members near him against the charge of being a phalanx of disciplined troops, declaring, upon his honour, that no one who had called his right honourable friend to order had been desired by him to do so on the contrary, he had earnestly intreated several of them not to interrupt. Mr. Fox then entered into a vindication of the French revolution, as abridging the enormous influence of the crown; and of the constitution, not as perfect, but to be amended by degrees. After expatiating on this and other subjects, he returned to his difference with Mr. Burke, and, while he claimed a right to retain his own opinions, said, he would keep out of his way until time and reflection had fitted his right honourable friend to think differently, and then their friends might contrive to reunite them. On a future day, the subject might again be introduced, and he would discuss it temperately; but, at present, he would make no farther reply. Mr. Burke observed that the tenderness which had been displayed in the beginning and conclusion of Mr. Fox's speech was quite obliterated by what had occurred in the middle. He regretted, in a tone and manner of earnestness and fervency, the proceedings of that evening, which might long be remembered by their enemies to the prejudice of both. Under the mask of kindness, a new and hostile attack was made upon his character and conduct, and his very jests brought up in judgment against him. The event of that night's debate, in which he had been interrupted without being suffered to explain, in which he had been accused without being heard in his defence, made him at a loss to understand what was either party or friendship. Mr. Fox, he said, had termed the new French system a most stupendous and glorious fabric of human integrity. He had really conceived that the right honourable gentleman possessed a much better taste in architecture than to bestow a description so magnificent on a building composed of untempered mortar; the work of Goths and Vandals, where every thing was disjointed and inverted. He observed with great feeling and severity on the supposed religious tolerance of the French, while, in fact, the most cruel tests were imposed on the professors of Christianity-the more cruel as their direct object was to deprive them of their bread. He then feelingly expatiated on the treatment of nuns, who, while engaged only in the most painful office of humanity in visiting and attending the hospitals, had been dragged into the streets, and scourged by the sovereigns of the French nation, merely because the priest, from whom they had received the sacrament, had not submitted to the test; and this proceeding had passed, not only unpunished, but uncensured. The new constitution was not an experiment; it had been tried, and found productive only of evils. They would go on from tyranny to tyranny, from oppression to oppression, until, at last, the whole system would terminate in the destruction of that miserable and deluded people. He sincerely hoped that no member of that House would ever barter the constitution of this country, the eternal jewel of their souls, for a wild and visionary system, which could only lead to confusion and disorder. CHAP. LXX. 1791. To terminate the debate, Mr. Pitt reminded the Mr. Pitt. House of the very extraordinary situation in which they were placed. Many hours had been employed on a question of order. One right honourable gentleman had affirmed that it was irregular to treat on the affairs of France, and yet had gone directly into that discussion; and two other speeches had followed, the only subject of which was that revolution. He had all along been of opinion that Mr. Burke had been strictly in order in introducing his opinions, although he could not but think that, for many reasons, it would have been better if all asperity of censure had been avoided. He recommended that the present motion should be withdrawn: the noble mover himself had withdrawn from the House; a proof that he did not expect any great effect from it. He then recapitulated the arguments used by Mr. Fox, on the intended constitution of Canada, in a manner which СНАР. 1791. Motion with drawn. 11th. ceedings on the Bill. Mr. Fox. that gentleman acknowledged to be pretty fair, and successfully defended his own propositions. He considered Mr. Burke intitled to the gratitude of the country for having so ably and eloquently stated his sense of the degree of danger to our constitution, and assured him, that although he was of opinion that it was capable of gradual and temperate melioration in some particulars, yet so perfectly was he persuaded of its being preferable to any other, that he would cordially co-operate with him in taking every possible means to preserve and deliver it down to posterity, as the best security for the prosperity, freedom, and happiness of the British people. Lord Sheffield's motion was withdrawn. When the Committee was again formed, and the bill considered in separate clauses, that which proFurther pro- posed the division of the colony occasioned some discussion, but was at length agreed to, without a division. On that which related to the establishment of a council, Mr. Fox declared his opinions, with an evident reference to former debates, and desire to explain any doubts as to their purport. He laid it down as a principle never to be departed from, that every part of the British dominions ought to possess a government, in the constitution of which, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy were blended; nor could any government be a fit one for British subjects which did not contain its due weight of aristocracy, because that he considered to be the proper poise of the constitution, the balance that equalized and meliorated the powers of the two other extreme branches, and gave stability and firmness to the whole. On hereditary titles, he said, the prejudice in favour of ancient family, and the pride with which it was accompanied, were rightly encouraged; otherwise, one great incentive to virtue would be abolished, and the dignity as well as the domestic interest of the nation diminished. The creation of peers, as a reward for superior talents or eminent services, was the practice among nations, ancient and modern. But no such establishment could be proper in Canada. We might give them lords, but could not create the reverence and respect on which their dignity must depend. Property was, and ever had been, esteemed the true foundation of aristocracy. He did not mean to use the word aristocracy in the odious sense of aristocrat, as it had lately been calledhe meant it in its true sense, as an indispensably necessary part of a mixed government under a free constitution. Instead, therefore, of the King's naming the council at that distance, he suggested that it should be elective: but none should be eligible who did not possess qualifications far higher than those required for members of the House of Assembly; and in like manner their electors must also possess great qualifications. He did not mean to divide the Committee on this point, but he proposed that the council should either be all nominated by the King, or all hereditary. Having pursued his argument at some length, Mr. Fox remarked, that so necessary was aristocracy to all governments, that, in his opinion, the destruction of all that had been destroyed had arisen from the neglect of that true aristocracy, upon which it depended whether a constitution should be great, energetic, and powerful, or the reverse. He was so far a republican, that he approved all governments where the res publica was the universal principle, and the people, as under our constitution, had considerable weight, and declared emphatically that true aristocracy gave a country that energy, spirit, and enterprize, which always made it great and happy. CHAP. LXX. 1791. Mr. Pitt heard with great satisfaction that portion Mr. Pitt. of the right honourable gentleman's speech which conveyed the cordial, and, he doubted not, the sincere testimony of his attachment to the principles of our ancestors. The respect due to nobility did not rest on property alone, but also on its being an hereditary honour, derived immediately from the crown. habits, customs, and manners of the Canadians peculiarly adapted them for the reception of hereditary honours. Some of the seigneurs were of sufficient The |