tember, after which the generality of the people will be able to live without his bounty." In May, 1786, he opened an academy. In 1788, he went round his parish, which was two hundred miles long. With six Indians, commanded by Captain Brant, he coasted along the north shore of Lake Ontario; went twenty-five miles by land to New Oswego, a Mohawk village just established on the Grand River, and beautifully situated. It contained seven hundred souls. In the midst of a number of fine houses stood a handsome church, with a bell swinging in its steeple, the first bell which made the air vibrate in Upper Canada. Brant had collected money when in England, and had expended it to advantage. Stuart returned by Niagara, and visited that settlement. Here he found no clergyman. The population had greatly increased, and he was so pleased with the people and country, that he was tempted to remove his family thither. You may imagine," he writes, "it cost me a struggle to refuse the unanimous and pressing invitation of a large settlement, with the additional argument of a subscription, and other emoluments, amounting to nearly £300 York currency per annum more than I have here. But, on mature reflection, I have determined to remain here." He explains to his correspondent that he is not rich, as he might be inferred to be, when he refuses such an offer. He adds: "I do not intend to die rich. I had a commission sent me as first judge of the Court of Common Pleas. But for reasons which will readily occur to you, I returned it to Lord Dorchester, who left this place a few days ago."

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In 1789 he was appointed Bishop's Commissioner for the settlements from Point au Baudette to the western limits of the Province. In 1792 he became chaplain to the Upper House of Assembly. In 1799, his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, conferred on him the degree of D.D. At the same time he became chaplain to the Kingston garrison. He was in the seventy-first year of his age, when called away. He was six feet four inches high, and was hence humorously known as "the little gentleman." His sermons were vigorous and persuasive. He seems to have been a handsome man. His character was a lofty one. We need not be surprised, therefore, when we are assured that he was held in the highest esteem by his fellow-citi

zens.

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CALIFORNIA

IRISH SETTLEMENT IN NEWFOUNDLAND.

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An agreeable clergyman has seldom to complain of neglect. Mr. Stuart was a good deal more than a merely agreeable clergyman. He had five sons and three daughters borne to him by Jane O'Kiell. His sons all occupied prominent positions.

It is, as the reader has seen, hard for me to treat Newfoundland as not within the scope of this book. In 1784, the Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, a native of Tipperary, availing himself of the toleration of the Roman Catholic Religion, as set forth in the Royal Proclamation relating to Newfoundland, led an Irish settlement thither. In 1796 he was appointed bishop of the island, and he received for some years, until his death, an annuity of £50 for his services in suppressing a mutiny among the troops. From Dr. O'Donnell's time, the Catholic bishops have played an important part in the island, not only as prelates-as witness the careers of Bishops Lambert, Scallan, Fleming, and Mullock-but as elements of government and material progress.

The Irish priest followed his people wherever they went, and had, sometimes, preceded them into the wilderness as missionaries to the Indians, as was the case with the Rev. Edmund Burke, the Bishop of Halifax. ·

At Quebec, in 1804, the English Cathedral was built by Mr. Cannon, an Irish Catholic. Prior to this, a mass was said specially for the Irish Catholics; and at Montreal the Bonsecours and the Recollet Church were placed at their disposal.

Haldimand was recalled, and Henry Hamilton sent out as governor in his stead. Hamilton called the Legislative Council together, and having got them to introduce Habeas Corpus into the statute law of the Province, was succeeded by Colonel Hope, who, after a few months, made room for General Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, who, in addition to the governor-generalship of Canada, was nominated commander-in-chief of all His Majesty's forces in the colony, For some years loud complaints of misgovernment had been sent across the Atlantic, and in 1787 Lord' Dorchester instituted an inquiry which brought to light a state of things worse than any one had imagined. The administration of justice was tainted; Judges refused to hear evidence. Letters from persons interested in suits were allowed the weight of testimony, without being sifted by cross-examination. It was shown that Governor

Haldimand had made the judges instruments of political oppression. Not only so. The English judges looked to English precedents; the French judges administered civil law; and the judges who knew as little of English common law as of the French civil law, did what was right in their own eyes. Education was in a deplorable state. The English-speaking inhabitants had increased, and were increasing. This deepened the note and increased the volume of the demand for a Legislative Assembly.

In 1787 the Legislative Council amended and made perpetual the militia ordinance of ten years before. A French historian, Bibaud, says the only way to account for this conduct is by supposing that Lord Dorchester and a majority of his Council were persuaded that a rigorous military despotism was the form of government which best suited Canada. The measure, from whose provisions were exempted councillors, judges, public officers, seigneurs, clergy, nobles, professional men, and all specially excluded by order of the commander-in-chief, and which ordained that captains and other officers of militia, in the country districts, should be justices of the peace, was a despotic one, and not defensible on the ground of the dangers to which the country was exposed. Yet, owing to Lord Dorchester's capacity, and charm of manner, discontent diminished, and, if we judge by the eulogies on the Governor in the addresses presented to Prince William Henry, we shall conclude that everything was held to be satisfactory. In 1788, the Council turned its artillery against unlicensed practitioners of medicine. In 1789, provision was made for the more effectual administration of justice. A committee of the executive council appointed to inquire into the best means of advancing elementary and the higher education, communicated with the Bishop of Quebec, M. Jean François Hubert, and his coadjutor, M. François Bailly. The responses of the two bishops were in singular discord. M. Hubert thought the country too little advanced, too thinly populated, and too poor, for the foundation of a university in Quebec, while M. Bailly said it was high time a university was established in Canada. Neither prelate pointed out a solution of the difficulty. The letter of the Bishop of Quebec is valuable, however, as showing the condition of education. Excepting the Quebec seminary, there was not a school

STATE OF EDUCATION.

CONSTITUTIONAL ACT.

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in the province where more was done than teach reading, and writing, and arithmetic. The committee reported in favour of establishing free schools throughout the province, a free school for higher branches in the principal town of each district, and a university. The scheme, which was a secular one, was regarded with hostility by the clergy, and it was found impossible to put it into execution.

The governor also nominated a committee to report on the advantages and disadvantages of the feudal tenure, and of free and common socage. The committee reported against the feudal system, and the report was followed by the draft of a bill or ordinance which greatly alarmed the seigneurs and those having like interests. One seigneur, however, Charles de Lanaudière, had already, in 1788, addressed the governor, and shown that it was the interest of the seigneurs that a change of tenure should take place, for without emigrants their lands were valueless, and it was folly to expect emigrants to settle under a system of laws they abhorred. The census showed the population of the province at this time to have been 150,000, and M. de Lanaudière's land could accommodate them all.

Difficulties now began to arise out of the differences in tradition and character between the old and the new settlers; and the Home Government prepared a bill which was sent out to Lord Dorchester, to specify any changes his more intimate knowledge of the country and the people might suggest. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into two provinces, to be known as Upper Canada and Lower Canada, each of which should have an elective legislative assembly and a legislative council, and governor appointed by the Crown; the seignorial tenure and French law, in civil cases, to be retained in Lower Canada; British law, civil as well as criminal, to be established in Upper Canada. Provision was made for the maintenance of the Protestant clergy, one-seventh of the land being reserved for this purpose, and one-seventh for the crown. Those members of the legislative council who should have titles were to have an hereditary right to sit in the upper chamber. The Act was thought by some too aristocratic, by others the reverse. Its popular elements were to prove delusive, and the provisions for the clergy

were destined to retard the progress of the country, and to give rise to much trouble. Lord Dorchester, with the instincts of a statesman, recommended that the reserves of the crown and of the clergy should be in separate jurisdictions. But the ministers, knowing that the lands mixed up with those of private individuals, would be more valuable, rejected his advice, and thus, as Smith says, struck a blow at the progress of the population, and the prosperity of the province.

While this measure was passing through parliament, it was warmly debated by the House of Commons. Charles James Fox, more than any statesman of the time, saw the bill in its true character. It appeared to be founded on generous principles, which vanished the moment it was examined in detail. The people of Canada would infallibly make dangerous comparisons between the limited and aristocratic system about to be established, and the popular constitution of the United States. They should give to the Canadians a popular assembly, not in appearance, but in reality.

On one point raised in the debate, there would probably be a difference of opinion now—namely, the division of the province. Many would think to-day that the object should have been to bring the peoples more together; that it was a mistake, to permit two systems of laws, and that, if measures had been devised by which the English and French-speaking portions of the population should have been mixed, and the foundation laid for a homogeneous nation, there would have been more than was shown of that rare statemanship which goes to make a country. Fox, with that wisdom and foresight which never deserted him, pointed out the true course to take, and Lord Dorchester was even more opposed to the division of the province. Pitt was no less convinced of its expediency. He foresaw the state of things which led Mr. Brown and Sir John A. Macdonald patriotically to sink their differences to bring about confederation.

Lord Dorchester, having obtained leave of absence, left for England in the autumn. General Alured Clarke, on the 17th December, opened the first parliament of Lower Canada; while on the 17th December, 1792, Lieutenant-Governor J. G. Simcoe, opened the first Upper Canada Parliament at Newark (Niagara).