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difdain. You enter our churches, and turn into the basest ridicule, objects moft facred. You have not even the difcretion to keep filence, while we pay our pafling obedience to the thrine of the Omnipotent. God himself is the fport and paftime of your leifure aud laughter. Our citizens, artizans, women, children, as well as the braveft of our foldiers, come, at all convenient hours, to their devotion; and, though they come without any compulfion, you call it hypocrify. We lay before you our curiofities, and you despise them: we take many wrongs patiently we allow largely to the impreffions made by our fingularities, and then you ill treat us beyond bearing. Ah, ungenerous travellers! Is it to laugh at your fellow-creatures, and scoff at your Creator, that you make fuch inroads upon us? Is fuch the motives that urges a young Englishman to migrate? Is fuch the conduct of thofe who ought to be the patterns and examples of a free and noble country? You teach our traders to believe, that you value nothing fo little as money, and yet you pretend to wonder, that they fix a price upon what you hold in the flighteft eftimation. If the favage is taught, by the more mechanical European, that the gun can do more execution than the bow-ftring, and at the fame time, fhews him how to pull the trigger, can you wonder if he directly puts his firft experiment in practice immediately? Fie upon it, gentlemen. It is not doing juftice either to one kingdom or to another. It is not doing as you would be done by. Tell me, I befeech you, seriously tell me-

Here the Francifcan railed his voice, extending his right arm, fixing himself more firmly on his centre.

"At what time did you ever behold one of this country fo behave himfelf in Britain. He comes to your fhore with eyes to fee, and heart to admire. He beholds large tracts of your

land in the higheft ftate of vigorous coltivation, and he thinks well of your peafantry by the fweat of whofe brows, and the diligence of whofe hands it is procured. He paffes through your towns of bufinefs, and is forcibly ftruck with the fpirit of commerce which feems to be the genius of your climate. He infpects the various manufactories extended along the banks of your fruitful rivers, and conceives highly of your English ingenuity. He goes into the capital of the kingdom, and, if he draws at all the line of comparison betwixt the two great cities of London and Paris, he draws it in favour of the former. He readily allows to it all that is due to fuperiority of uniform buildings, admirable accommodation for foot paffengers, and for the convenience of ample streets, in which there is fufficient fcope for trade and fashion, or the car and for the coach

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Coach. Gratified abundantly, he either fixes amongst you, or returns into his native country: if the former, it is not always what, it is faid, you Englishmen imagine it to be, because he cannot live fo well in France, but for more amiable reafons. If he returns, and, where is the man to whom fuch a return is not, fooner or later, defirable? he brings not over with him any bafe ideas, that are unworthy to travel half a league in the heart of any man breathing, but he speaks of your nation as it were to be wifhed you would have the equity to speak of ours. What then, gentlemen, are we to suppose ? Are we to believe that only the flighteft, lightest, and most fuperficial part of you addict yourfelves to travel? I fhould be forry to think that this were the cafe; nay, my own experience tells me that it is not always fo.

Here he took Amelia by the hand, and bowed to me with refpea.

This lady, and that gentleman (to go no farther) have given me no reason to believe they croffed the fea to defpife the Deity, or any of his poorer minifters, because, perhaps, there is fome difference in the exterior ceremonies of a national devotion. Nay, I have feen other exceptions to a deplorable general rule, and thofe exceptions are the only things which fave England from the contempt, into which it would inevitably fall without them. Excufe my wrath, gentlemen. I have spoken as an injured man. I have spoken as a brother of the holy fociety, to whose use this church is allotted. I have spoken as the faithful fervant of a Mafter, whofe facred image you have wantonly offended."

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• With this noble climax, the offended Franciscan finished his exhortation and remonftrance. Never, furely, was there observed ten minutes (for he spoke with deliberation) of profounder filence.'

The 'author's remark on national prejudice, towards the conclufion of those travels, discover a laudable spirit of candour and impartiality.

Thefe volumes contain the effufions of a lively imagination, apparently well acquainted with thofe delicate fenfibilities which mark the human heart in various characters. The author expreffes a defign of profecuting his remarks on the city of Paris, and as he continues to difplay Liberal Opinions, we doubt not of his affording once more entertainment to the publica

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The Canadian Freeholder: In Two Dialogues between an Englishman and a Frenchman, fettled in Canada. Svo. vol. 1. 5. 6d. Jewed. White.

ANY of our readers will be furprifed to find an octavo vo

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lume announced to them of 483 pages, which is but the firft volume of the work, containing only Remarks and Obfervations on the Quebec act, the Bofton Charter act, and a kină of a Plan of Reconciliation between this Country and her Colonies.-Appeals have been made to the fword, fome will exclaim, and the fword alone must decide. They, who thus exclaim, have no occafion to read this book; by them it was not, perhaps, defigned to be read.-There are other men, of enlarged and liberal ways of thinking, who will not find fault, perhaps, with the author of this book, though he may be, now and then, too profufe and verbofe on fuch a worn out fubject. The intention, at leaft, appears to have been good and, to fay the truth, a man does not very often take the trou'ble to write a large book without meaning well.

As to the mode of conveying his fentiments which this author has chofen, in the way of dialogue, we can only fay that, for our parts, we do not approve of it. If a man has fettled his opinion upon a fubject, why not tell us openly and plainly what it is? To make an Englishman and Frenchman hold a dialogue upon the queftion, may be a wife ftep for a politician, who means, perhaps, afterwards to change his opinion, but is not the mode of writing which a blunt, downright, patriot fhould adopt. After reading fuch a dialogue a man very of'ten understands little more than he collects from listening to a converfation in real life. For the most part, the whole he can conclude is, that much may be faid on both fides. The author, when he is afterwards accused of having maintained fuch particular doctrines, or advanced fuch particular arguments, very gravely tells you that he only put them into the mouth of his fpeaker for the fake of his dialogue.-All these objedions againft this mode of writing are not immediately pointed at our prefent author, becaufe they are not immediately applicable to his work; but, in our opinion, the dialogue ftyle always difpleafes; in politics is, not only dif agreeable, but frequently difhoneft.

One other obfervation we fhall make on this performance, before we enter upon its fubject and its merit. The references to other writers, and there have been many on the fame queftions, are too rare. Too rare, did we fay? We can hardly VOL. XLIV. Nov. 1777.

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find one. Is it anfwered that references would render the improbability of a dialogue for fo many hours ftill more glaring we can only reply, that we would have fubmitted to any improbability, rather than have ufed the arguments of others without acknowledging them-which, if this author has not done, he has, beyond contradiction, a happy facility of arguing exactly like other writers. As to the improbability, nobody can believe that any two individuals would talk fo long on fuch fubjects, unless mankind are fonder of talking in Canada than in any other part of the world. We cannot by any means repeat the politeness of the Frenchman at the end of the dialogue, notwithstanding the information which the dialogue certainly contains, that we are forry we are obliged to part; though we must needs confefs with him, that it is. high time to do fo, as the day is so far spent.'

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The reader muft carry this remark along with him, that the dialogue is fuppofed to have paffed as long ago as in July 1775; fo that, if it give us a clear idea of the fentiments of the French, or Canadian, inhabitants of the province of Quebec concerning the Quebec act, in July 1775, we are not to expect to find in it any account of what their sentiments are now, in the month of November 1777 ;- -a further reason why this publication might perhaps have been fpared without any injury to the caufe of patriotifm.

The three firft fpeeches of the Englishman, with the Frenchman's anfwers to them, we learn from the preface are the fame in fubftance with what did really pafs in a conversation of this kind. The fecond fpeech, and the answer to it, we shall tranfcribe-they contain the fum of what the author feems to think about the Quebeck a&; and will give our readers an idea of the ftyle of the work, which is not inelegant, nor unadapted to dialogue.

Eng. Well, I cannot blame your reafoning: it is indeed but too well founded, But what say you to the clause which confirms your religion? Surely that muft pleafe you.

• French. We have no more reafon to be pleafed with that claufe than the other. It is true, indeed that we are zealously attached to our religion, and fhould have been very unhappy if we had not been tolerated in the free exercise of it. But we were fo tolerated to the utmoft extent of our wishes before the late act of parliament. It was ftipulated in the capitulation in September 1760, that the free exercise of our religion fhould fubfift intire, fo that all ranks and conditions of men, both in the towns and countries, might continue to affemble in the churches, and to frequent the facraments as heretofore, without being molested in any manner, directly or indirectly. And this was readily granted to us by our humane conqueror, general

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Amherst. But when the marquis de Vaudreuil, our general, demanded further, that we should be obliged, by the English government, to pay to our priests the tythes, and all the taxes which we were used to pay under the government of our for mer fovereign, general Amherst (who did not think it neceffary to perpetuate our religion by a compulfive provifion for the priests who teach it,) very wifely refufed to grant this fecond request, and made anfwer, that the obligation of paying the tithes to the priests would depend on the king's pleasure. In confequence of this anfwer, we have understood that we were not to be obliged by the English government to pay the priests their tythes, until the king fhould declare it to be his pleasure that we should pay them; or, in other words, we thought that the legal right of our priests to demand them, and fue for them in a court of juftice, was fufpended till his majefty's pleasure should be declared for revival of it; and no fuch declaration had been made before the late act of parliament. Thefe points of the capitulation have been ftrictly obferved on all hands, ever fince they were settled till the prefent time, that is, for a space of fifteen. years. We have enjoyed the free exercife of our religion in the highest degree poffible. We have had our priests to officiate to us both publickly and privately, in the fame open and unre, ftrained manner as under the French government and we have affembled in our churches and frequented the facraments in the fame manner as heretofore, as the article of the capitulation abovementioned demanded for us the liberty of doing and not one of our churches in the whole province has been taken from us for the use of the proteftants. This degree of justice and honour in the English government, with refpect to the obfervation of this important article of the capitulation, has at once. aftonished and delighted us.- And the other point, concerning the tythes, has been likewife conftantly obferved; infomuch that our priests have not prefumed to fue for their tythes in any of the courts of juftice in the province ever fince the establishment of the civil government, being confcious that they could not maintain a legal right to them on account of the faid anfwer of general Amherst to the fecond request abovementioned. Yet, as we are fincere and zealous in the belief of our religion, we have ufually paid them to the priests that did the duty of our parishes, though we knew we could not be compelled to it: and few complaints have been made againft us for our neglect of them in this particular; efpecially where we have been fatisfied with their conduct, both with refpect to the decency and regularity of their lives, and to the diligent difcharge of the duties of the paftoral office. In thefe cafes we have always throughout the province made a liberal provifion for the priests who adminiftred to us the offices of our religion and we have found that the liberty we have had of paying them the tythes, or letting it alone, as we thought fit, has contributed very much to make them behave in fuch a manner as to deferve them. This

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