quences of it, they feared that it would be attended with great injury, particularly to their trade and commerce.

The petition was ordered to lie on the table. The Speaker then put the question, "That this report be now taken into further consideration."

Mr. Hussey moved, "That the bill be recommitted."

Mr. Fox remarked, that the bill contained a variety of clauses of the utmost importance, not only with respect to the country to which they immediately related, but to Great Britain. Many of these clauses appeared to be very exceptionable, and such as he could by no means subscribe to. The bill proposed to give two Assemblies to the two provinces, and thus far it met with his approbation; but the number of persons to whom these Assemblies were to consist deserved particular attention. Although it might be perfectly true that a country three or four times as large as Great Britain ought to have representatives three or four times as numerous, yet it was not fit to say that a small country should have an assembly proportionally small.The great object in the institution of all popular assemblies was that the people should be fully and freely represented; and that the representative body should have all the virtues and the vices incident to such assemblies. But when they made an Assembly to consist of 16 or 30 persons, they seemed to him to give a free constitution in appearance, when, in fact, they withheld it. In Great Britain we had a septennial bill; but the goodness of it had been considered doubtful, at least, even by many of those who took a lead in the present bill. The right honourable gentleman (Mr. Pitt) had himself supported a vote for the repeal of that act. He did not now mean to discuss its merits; but a main ground on which it had been thought defensible was, that a general election in this country was attended with a variety of inconveniences. That general elections in Great Britain were attended with several inconveniences could not be doubted; but when they came to a country

so different in circumstances as Canada, and where elections, for many years at least, were not likely to be attended with the consequences which they dreaded, why they should make such assemblies, not annual or triennial, but septennial, was beyond his comprehension. A septennial bill did not apply to many of the most respectable persons in that country: they might be persons engaged in trade, and if chosen representatives for seven years, they might not be in a situation to attend during all that period: their affairs might call them to England, or many other circumstances might arise, effectually to prevent them from attending the service of their country. But although it might be inconvenient for such persons to attend such assembly for the term of seven years, they might be able to give their attendance for one, or even for three years, without any danger or inconvenience to their commercial concerns. By a septennial bill the country of Canada might be deprived of many of the few representatives that were allowed by the bill. If it should be said that this objection applied to Great Britain, he completely denied it; because, although there were persons engaged in trade in the British House of Commons, and many of them very worthy members, yet they were comparatively few, and therefore he should think that, from the situation of Canada, annual and triennial parliaments would be much preferable to septennial. Of the qualification of electors he felt it impossible to approve. In England a freehold of forty shillings was sufficient; five pounds were necessary in Canada. Perhaps it might be said, that when this was fairly considered, it would make no material difference, and this he suspected to be the case; but granting that it did not, when we were giving to the world by this bill our notions of the principles of election, we should not hold out that the qualifications in Great Britain were lower than they ought to be. The qualifications on a house were still higher, he believed ten pounds. He thought that the whole

of this constitution was an attempt to undermine and contradict the professed purport of the bill,-the introduction of a popular government into Canada. But although this was the case with respect to the two Assemblies, although they were to consist of so inconsiderable a number of members, the Legislative Councils in both provinces were unlimited as to numbers. They might consist of any number whatever, at the will of the governor. Instead of being hereditary councils, or councils chosen by electors, as was the case in some of the colonies in the West Indies, or chosen by the king, they were compounded of the other two. As to the points of hereditary powers and hereditary honours, to say that they were good, or that they were not good, as a general proposition, was not easily maintained; but he saw nothing so good in hereditary powers and honours as to incline us to introduce them into a country where they were unknown, and by such means distinguish Canada from all the colonies in the West Indies. In countries where they made a part of the constitution, he did not think it wise to destroy them; but to give birth and life to such principles in countries where they did not exist appeared to him to be exceedingly unwise. He could not account for it, unless it was that Canada, having been formerly a French colony, there might be an opportunity of reviving those titles of honour, the extinction of which some gentlemen so much deplored, and to revive in the west that spirit of chivalry which had fallen into disgrace in a neighbouring country, He thought these powers and honours wholly unnecessary, and tending rather to make a new constitution worse than better. If the Council were wholly hereditary, he should equally object to it; it would only add to the power of the king and the governor; for a council so constituted would only be the tool of governor, as the governor himself would only be the tool and engine of the king. He did not clearly comprehend the provision which the bill made for the Protestant

the

clergy. By the Protestant clergy he supposed to be understood not only the clergy of the Church of England, but all descriptions of Protestants. He totally disapproved of the clause which enacts, "That whenever the king shall make grants of lands, one-seventh part of those lands shall be appropriated to the Protestant clergy." He had two objections to these regulations, both of them in his opinion of great weight. In all grants of land made in that country to Catholics, and a majority of the inhabitants were of that persuasion, one-seventh part of those grants was to be appropriated to the Protestant clergy, although they might not have any cure of souls, or any congregations to instruct. One-tenth part of the produce of this country was assigned, and this, perhaps, was more than one-seventh of the land. He wished to deprive no clergyman of his just rights; but in settling a new constitution, and laying down new principles, to enact that the clergy should have oneseventh of all grants, he must confess appeared to him an absurd doctrine. If they were all of the Church of England, this would not reconcile him to the measure. It might be asked, why should they not have as much as the Church of England? In this country we had that which some condemned, and others praised: we had a kind of shew, but still a proportion must be observed. The greatest part of these Protestant clergy were not of the Church of England; they were chiefly what are called Protestant dissenters in this country. They were, therefore, going to give to dissenters oneseventh part of all the lands in the province. Was this the proportion, either in Scotland or in any other country where those religious principles were professed? It was not the proportion either in Scotland, or in any other ecclesiastical country in Europe. We were therefore, by this bill, making a sort of provision for the Protestant clergy of Canada, which was unknown to them in every part of Europe; a provision, in his apprehension, which would rather tend to corrupt than to benefit them. The

regulations were likewise in part obscure; because, after it had stated that one-seventh of the land should always be set aside for the Protestant clergy, it did not state how it should be applied. The bill was likewise exceptionable, as far as it related to the regulation of appeals. Suitors were, in the first instance, to carry their complaints before the courts of common law in Canada: if dissatisfied with the decisions of those courts, they might appeal to the governor and council: if dissatisfied with their judgment, they might then appeal to the king in council; and next, to the House of Lords. Now, if the House of Lords was a better court, which he believed it to be, than the king in council, why compel them to appeal to the king in council before they could come to the House of Lords? Why not apply to the House of Lords at once? This could answer no possible purpose, but to render lawsuits exceedingly expensive, and exceedingly vexatious. Those were the principal objections he had to this bill. There had not yet been a word said in explanation of it, with all its variety of clauses and regulations. It went through the House silently, without one observation; it also went through the Committee only in form, but not in substance. Of all the points of the bill, that which struck him the most forcibly was, the division of the province of Canada. It had been urged, that by such means we could separate the English and French inhabitants of the province; that we could distinguish who were originally French, from those of English origin. But was this to be desired? Was it not rather to be avoided? Was it agreeable to general political expediency? The most desirable circumstance was, that the French and English inhabitants of Canada should unite and coalesce, as it were, into one body; and that the different distinctions of the people might be extinguished for ever. If this had been the object in view, the English laws might soon have prevailed universally throughout Canada; not from force, but from choice, and conviction