have every opportunity of carrying on the cod fishery with impunity, to the injury of this country. My learned friend holds out a plausible protection to the cod fishery, and at the same time cuts it up by the roots.

Mr. Cavendish, after some further debate, divided the committee on the question, that that part of the clause which relates to Newfoundland should stand part of the bill: Ayes, 89; Noes 48.(1)

Thursday, June 7.

The House having resolved itself into a committee of the whole House upon the bill, the following clause was read:

"And whereas, the provisions made by the said proclamation, in respect to the civil government of the said province of Quebec, and the powers and authorities given to the governor and other civil officers of the said province, by the grants and commissions issued in consequence thereof, have been found, upon experience, to be inapplicable to the state and circumstances of the said province, the inhabitants whereof amounted, at the conquest, to above one hundred thousand persons, professing the religion of the church of Rome, and enjoying an established form of constitution, and system of laws, by which their persons and property have been protected, governed, and ordered for a long series of years, from the first establishment of the said province of Canada : be it therefore further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that the said proclamation, so far as the same relates to the said province of Quebec, and the commission under the authority whereof the government of the said province is at present administered, and all and every the ordinance and ordinances made by the governor and council of Quebec for the time being, relating to

(1) "The danger of losing the fisheries, and the feeble manner in which the proviso was supported, induced me to vote against the words being in the bill."-H. C.

the civil government and administration of justice in the said province, and all commissions to judges and other officers thereof, be and the same are hereby revoked, annulled, and made void, from and after the first day of May, 1775."

At the suggestion of Mr. Dempster, instead of the words "amounted, at the conquest, to above one hundred thousand persons," the words "amounted, at the conquest, to above sixty-five thousand persons," were substituted.

Mr. Edmund Burke.-Instead of annulling all the existing ordinances, I think it would be better to leave the local legislature to find local remedies. I am against destroying laws, of the tendency of which I am totally igno

rant.

Governor Johnstone.—I am sorry to differ with my honourable friend, with regard to the propriety of inserting or leaving out this clause. I am clearly of opinion, that these ordinances ought to be repealed. The first business of the legislature is to start from a certain point. I am well convinced, that all these ordinances are illegal: nothing but necessity could have induced men to live under them. At Pensecola I was under the necessity of making some local laws. I constituted an assembly, and found the exceeding good effect of it. They did not alter one of those laws: they are what has governed the colony ever since. The greatest fault of the governor of Quebec was his starting by the King's proclamation, instructions, and commissions, without a parliamentary authority. That is the great source of all the disputes with our colonies. If we had settled them under a parliamentary commission, there would have been no doubt of their depen dence on this country; you would not have had this question started. With respect to the proclamation, I cannot think it was unwise. I consider the steps we are now taking unwise not the proclamation. Whenever the King's subjects emigrate, they carry the law and the constitution along with them. Establish a proper legislative authority. If you do that, what need you be afraid of? The people will compel you to do

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so in due time. Never, since the conquest, was there such confusion in Canada as there is at present; and all arising from the conduct of some of the civil officers sent over from England. I do not wish to look back. I feel grateful to those who sent out the gentlemen who have appeared at the bar. If only such men had been sent, I am persuaded the Canadians would have been reconciled to our laws. The real complaints of Canada were all made before those gentlemen went there.

Mr. Dempster.-By this bill, British subjects are deprived of the trial by jury, and of all the other rights enjoyed under our constitution. An honourable gentleman says, that the limits of the province being altered, the laws now in force are not applicable to its enlarged condition. Now, I should be glad to know, Sir, when the English laws were extended to Wales and to Ireland, whether the parliament began by repealing the old ones? As, between this and May next, a council will be appointed to take into consideration all the ordinances of the province, would it not be better to leave them as they are, and to let those gentlemen, when they arrive there, repeal such as are objectionable, and leave standing such as require no amendment?

Mr. Thomas Townshend, jun.-The best way, at present, is to confirm the old ordinances. By this clause we admit the French law into Canada, and destroy the English law. Is it necessary, because you give them back their old laws relating to their persons and property, that you should take away from them all the laws relating to their civil and religious rights? It is better that the people of Quebec should bear the misery of English law a little while longer, than to have a new code of laws given to them, that may be laid aside at the end of six months.

Lord Beauchamp.(1)—I do not see that the objection to

(1) In 1794, his lordship succeeded his father, as second Marquis of Hertford, and, on his death in 1822, was succeeded by his son, the present marquis.

the clause has any foundation whatever. Besides their own laws and customs, we give to the Canadians the criminal law of this country; and is not that a sufficient body of laws for them to be governed by? The object of the bill is to take the province out of the most cruel situation in which a respectable country ever stood-that of being in a state of uncertainty as to the form of government the people are to live under.

Lord John Cavendish.-When I objected to the second reading of this bill, I was asked, with an air of triumph, whether the government of Canada did not want regulation? My answer was, that it was a reproach to the government there, that they had waited so long without doing anything; but that this bill was framed upon such ruinous principles, that, in every step of its progress, it led to nothing but confusion, and ought to be withdrawn. We should withdraw the bill, and bring in another upon totally different principles. I know that, in 1767, the House of Lords came to a resolution that something ought to be done for the better regulation of the government of Quebec. The board of trade were in such a hurry that something should be done, that General Carleton was sent for over. They could not endure delay in 1767, and now, in 1774, we are leaving every clause of the subject in general words: we are leaving them for future kings to determine what shall be done with them. Whether it is owing to want of abilities, or what, I know not, but after nine years of preparation, we ourselves are doing nothing.

Mr. Cornwall.-It is much, Sir, to the honour of parliament, that every gentleman who has spoken in the course of the debates on this bill, appears to have been struck with the tyranny of an attempt to destroy all the prejudices, with regard to religion and the laws, of the people of a country which has now been in our possession eleven years.

(') Charles Wolfran Cornwall, esq., at this time member for Grampound, and a lord of the treasury. In 1780, he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, and died in 1789.

For my part, I think the progress of your reformation has gone on gloriously in that country. We have had the evidence of the two able lawyers who resided in it for some years, with so much honour to themselves and advantage to the inhabitants; and that evidence has convinced me, that the Canadians were prepared in due time to receive the entire of the criminal law of England; and that the same will be the case with the civil law, no gentleman who knows how closely the principles of the English law twine about each other, can have any doubt. With regard to religion— the same liberality which has been extended to their laws. has been extended to their religion also. But it is supposed, that a decided preference has been given to the Roman Catholic over the Protestant. Now, Sir, with the exception of that ill-used country Ireland, is there an instance in the world of the established religion being forced upon any country, contrary to the sense of its inhabitants? Does history furnish us with an instance of an establishment being forced upon a country; the majority of the people of which country were of a different faith? I fancy not. The existence of two established religions, in one and the same country, is a novelty in the British dominions. How is that novelty to be dealt with? The establishment of a religion in a country is a thing very distinct from its toleration. I have always understood, that, in every country, a certain portion of the public money has been appropriated for the establishment of the popular religion of that country. This bill goes upon that principle. Every professor of the Roman Catholic religion is expected to protect and support that religion ; and if, at a future day, the Protestant should become the popular religion, the professors of it will be expected to do the same. For God's sake, let us consider what is at present the situation of the Protestants!-what they are in point of numbers and in point of establishment! Three hundred and sixty individuals scattered throughout that immense country, and not a single church or chapel for the exercise of this religion! In my opinion, the clause goes

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