DEBATE ON THE QUEBEC ACT.

The text of the evidence given before the committee of the house of commons not being accessible to the majority of readers, I append a synopsis of the debate which took place during the passage of the bill, with a brief account of the evidence given. Likewise the text of the petition of the corporation of the city of London in opposition to it.

House of commons, 26th May, 1774 second reading from lords.

MR. T. TOWNSEND desired a government for Canada, not a despotism. The bill was replete with mischief; the governor could appoint, suspend and turn out the members of the council at pleasure, and no quorum was named. Townsend objected to the extension of Canada beyond its ancient limits to Hudson's Bay, the Ohio and Mississippi. No provision had been made for the use of the act of Habeas Corpus.

The

LORD NORTH pointed out that the legislative assembly was not granted, owing to the small number of people from whom it would be chosen. country, included in the operation of the bill, was simply that occupied by military posts.

MR. DUNNING would as soon see the province restored to France as to remain British. In the last French war, the country north of the Ohio was claimed to be part of Pennsylvania and Virginia. If Canada should ever be re-transferred to France, the cession of the country would be demanded as established by a British act of parliament. The act was an establishment of arbitrary power, to be founded at the back of the old colonies. Those settling there would pass from the free government of the old provinces, to be deprived of the rights of British subjects.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL THURLOW considered the last argument of no It would be a tyranny to subject the French Canadians to the English laws of property.

account.

COLONEL BARRÉ. It was preposterous to suppose that the Canadians would fail to recognize the superiority of good and just laws. The act established the Roman law, where it was previously unknown, on the Ohio and the Illinois.

SERGEANT GLYNN stated that the conquest had conferred vested rights over the territory obtained in the name of king, lords and commons. Until the two latter interfered, the king's proclamation was valid, and he considered the nation bound to fulfil the promises made in the royal proclamation.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL WEDDERBURN pointed out that the Romans and English had alone forced their laws upon the conquered. It was a barbarous policy. To force English law upon the Canadians would prove a curse.

MR. Fox objected to the bill as contrary to the usage of parliament. It secured tythes to the Romish clergy: this was raising money. That the bill should have originated in the other house was repugnant to the constitutional law of parlia

ment.

MR. DEMPSTER considered that the bill should have arisen in the commons, and appealed to the speaker on the subject.

MR. SAWLRIDGE asked the Speaker as a part of his duty to give his opinion on that point.

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227

such

THE SPEAKER angrily answered that it was not his business to make any reply. After a long debate the house divided on the second reading. Ayes 105, Noes 29.

On the subject again being considered

MR. BAKER delivered a petition, from the Penns, proprietors of Pennsylvania, to the effect that part of that province was situated to the north-west of Ohio. LORD NORTH said he should not oppose the petition, as the bill was not designed to affect any past rights.

MR. MACKWORTH presented a petition of the merchants in London trading to Quebec, opposing the legislation as injuring their business. He asked that the reports made by the law officers of the crown should be laid before parliament.

MR. T. TOWNSEND complained of the bill being produced so late in the session. In the name of common sense, he wanted to see the complaints of the Canadians against the government, and the opinions of the law officers of the crown given on this point.

LORD NORTH opposed the call for papers. It would take some time to prepare and produce them. He proposed witnesses should be heard.

COLONEL BARRÉ. The papers called for would alone give the information, for after much attention to the subject they had been carefully drawn up. The questions to witnesses would be desultory and unconnected. It would be satisfactory, if the law officers of the crown would rise in their places, and recite their opinions without entering into the debate and endeavouring to warp the judgment of members. The non-production of such papers was proceeding in the dark. Intelligence was kept back because it would not bear the light.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that as the opinions of the law officers of the crown had been delivered in writing, they could not be expressed without consent. MR. BURKE complained of the want of information, adding that no mischief would result from postponing the bill for a year.

MR. MANSFIELD, counsel for the merchants of London, addressed the house. His speech is not given in the parliamentary history. He called Edward Watts and Samuel Morin; the former had been nine, the latter eleven years in Canada; Both advocated the introduction of English law and trial by jury, as approved by French Canadian and British authorities.

Motions for the reports of general Carleton, the advocate, attorney, and solicitor general were met by the negative. Carleton, Masères, Chief Justice Hey, de Lotbinière, Dr. Marryott, advocate-general, were examined. light was thrown upon the debate by their evidence.

Little

CARLETON stated that English criminal law was acceptable, but there were numerous objections to English civil law. The Canadians did not know what it was, and they expressed dislike to being governed by a law of which they were ignorant, written in a language they did not understand. They were willing enough to praise the provisions of English law, when it favoured their own cause. The French Canadians had no desire for an assembly. There were 360 protes. tants in Canada and about 150,000 catholics. * The majority of the protestants

Carleton's estimate of the population was entirely wrong. The amount is generally estimated at between 80,000 and 90,000. No doubt Carleton repeated the opinion entertained at that time.

were men of small subsistence by no means proper and eligible for an assembly to be chosen from them. The cultivation of land and the development of trade had increased since the conquest. The province had passed from the state of war to that of peace, population had become much greater, and the operations of agricul ture much extended.

An incident occurred in Carleton's examination. Lord North asked the question: "Does the general know anything of a Mons. Le Brun?" Carleton's answer was characteristic: "I know him very well. He was a blackguard at Paris and sent as a lawyer to Canada. There he gained an extreme bad character in many respects. He was taken up and imprisoned for an assault on a young girl eight or nine years old; for this he was fined £20, but being unable to pay

it

MR. TOWNSEND here rose, and protested they were criminating a man unheard. Carleton was requested to withdraw, when LORD NORTH explained that Le Brun had come over to make representations that the Canadians desired an assembly, and it was necessary to know what sort of a man he was.

MASÈRES mildly expressed the opinions which can be read in his works pub. lished about this date. The Canadians had no clear notion of government, they indulged in no speculations, and would be content with any form given them, provided it was well administered. They objected to jury trials in civil cases from the expense they entailed; but a small allowance would satisfy them and reconcile them to the system. An abolition of their law as to descent, dower, and transfer of land would be offensive to them. They could not object to the Habeas Corpus, it was impossible for any people to do so. They had only a confused idea of what an assembly was. He was of opinion that there might be a judicious mixture of law as he had written. Masères, on being asked by Dunning, in the event of French law being extended to Canada, if the governor could issue lettres de cachet for the imprisonment of parties, replied that the governor had no authority to issue such letters; but if blank forms, signed by the king, were sent out, he could act upon them. A legal petit combat on this point followed between Masères and the solicitor-general (Wedderburn). Masères recommended a clause introducing the habeas corpus. The examination was brought to a close by Lord North asking if it was probable that lettres de cachet would be used, and Masères replied he thought not.

CHIEF JUSTICE HEY, of Canada, in his examination said, that he differed with Carleton on the subject of the code. He had thought that the laws of Canada might be blended with those of England, to form a system adapted to the wants of the Canadians, and at the same time accord with the policy of Great Britain. When the question was asked whether arbitrary government was possible under French law, Hey replied, that as chief justice, if he knew of a man's imprisonment without cause, and he found no law for the purpose of having the prisoner brought before him, he would be induced to make one for the occasion.

DE LOTBINIÈRE's evidence was to the effect, that if the question of land was kept to Canadian law, the Canadians liked the English judicature very well. He had never heard the question of the legislative council much discussed; the Canadians might be satisfied if the Canadian noblesse was admitted.

DR. MARRYOTT, the advocate general, answered the questions put to him by

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229 an elaborate avoidance of saying anything. His replies read strangely to-day, and they led to much altercation, owing to the unwillingness to produce the reports of the law officers. He was asked to state the substance of his own report. The annals of the house present no greater eccentricities than his remarks, many of which were personal to the members who took part in the debate; they are without any bearing upon history. Colonel Barré may be quoted as saying, "There is no hitting the gentleman!"

The debate was continued on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th of June, nothing was further advanced in favour or against the bill, and it was carried in committee by 83 to 40. On the third reading, Fox objected to its being a money bill which had originated in the house of lords, adducing a precedent of 1677, when a bill from the house of lords had been rejected. It was answered that it was no precedent. The bill was carried in a thin house, 56 to 20.

When the bill came up in the lords on the 17th, for the consideration of the amendments made in the commons, it was opposed by lord Chatham.

LORD LYTTLETON replied, his closing words may be quoted as typical of the feeling entertained by a large majority in England at that date. “If British America was determined to resist the lawful power and pre-eminence of Great Britain, he saw no reason why the loyal inhabitants of Canada should not cooperate with the rest of the empire in subduing them and bringing them to a right sense of their duty, and he thought it happy that from their local situation there might be some check to those fierce fanatic spirits, that were inflamed with the same zeal, which animated the Roundheads in England, who directed that zeal to the same purposes, to the demolition of royal authority, and to the subversion of all power which they did not themselves possess, that they were composed of the same leaven, and whilst they pretended to be contending for liberty, they were setting up an absolute independent republic, and that the struggle was not for freedom, but power, which was proved from the whole tenor of their conduct." The division was 20 for the bill and 7 against.

Parliamentary History, XVII., 1357-1406.

ADDRESS AND PETITION PRESENTED TO THE KING BY THE CORPORATION OF LONDON, PREVIOUS TO HIS MAJESTY SIGNING THE BILL FOR THE BETTER GOVERNMENT OF QUEBEC :

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

"MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN.

"We your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council of the city of London, in common council assembled, are exceedingly alarmed that a bill has passed your two houses of Parliament, entitled ' An Act for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec, in North America,' which we apprehend to be entirely subversive of the great fundamental principles of the constitution of the British monarchy, as well as of the authority of various solemn acts of the legis lature.

"We beg leave to observe, that the English law, and that wonderful effort of human wisdom, the trial by jury, are not admitted by this bill in any civil cases, and the French law of Canada is imposed on all the inhabitants of that extensive province, by which both the persons and properties of very many of your Majesty's subjects are rendered insecure and precarious.

"We humbly conceive, that this bill, if passed into a law, will be contrary not only with the compact entered into with the various settlers, of the reformed religion, who were invited into the said province under the sacred promise of enjoying the benefit of the laws of your realm of England, but likewise repugnant to your royal proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763, for the speedy settlement of the said new government.

"That, consistent with the public faith pledged by the said proclamation, your Majesty cannot erect and constitute courts of judicature and public justice for the hearing and determining all cases, as well civil as criminal, within the said province, but as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England; nor can any laws, statutes, or ordinances, for the public peace, welfare, and good government, of the said province, be made, constituted or ordained, but according to the laws of this realm.

"That the Roman Catholic religion, which is known to be idolatrous and bloody, is established by this bill, and no legal provision is made for the free exercise of our reformed faith, nor the security of our protestant fellow-subjects of the church of England, in the true worship of Almighty God, according to their consciences.

"That your Majesty's illustrious family was called to the throne of these kingdoms in consequence of the exclusion of the Roman-catholic ancient branch of the Stuart line, under the express stipulation that they should profess the protestant religion, and according to the oath established by the sanction of parliament in the first year of the reign of our great deliverer King William the Third, your Majesty at your coronation has solemnly sworn that you would, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the protestant reformed religion established by law.