In the course of the summer, Lord Dalhousie proceeded on a tour to Upper Canada, returning by the Ottawa, in August.

The legislature of Lower Canada was again opened by the Governor-in-Chief, on the 11th of December. He brought under the consideration of parliament the state of the province, recommending immediate attention to its financial affairs, with the view of making a suitable provision for the support of the civil government. He had adopted a course for the payment of the current expenses of government as consistent as possible with the existing laws. He had been commanded to recommend that a provision for the civil list should be granted permanently, during His Majesty's life. He felt assured that the Council would attend to the recommendation, and he would not advert to topics of far inferior importance, for the present. The Council considered it to be their paramount duty to adopt what had been established in the British parliament, as a constitutional principle, the granting of the civil list during the life of the king. The Assembly were not so submissive. They requested His Excellency, the Governor, to convey to the king that they had received with all due humility the communication of His Majesty's recommendation that such provision, as should appear necessary for the payment of the expenses of the civil list should be granted permanently, during His Majesty's life, as well as the information that such was the practice of the British parliament, and that the recommendation would have due weight with them. The Governor on receiving the address of the Commons, in reply to his speech from the throne, was not particularly well pleased. He assured the Assembly that until the expenses of the government were provided for, in the manner he had indicated, that there would be neither harmony, union, nor cordial co-operation in the three branches of the legislature, and that the real prosperity of the province would be decidedly arrested. The Assembly were quite indifferent as to consequences. They had a duty to perform to their constituents, and meant to perform it. The estimates of the civil list were sent down. The House asked the Governor to lay before it his instructions. The Governor refused. His instructions were confidential and he would not suffer any part of them to become the subject of discussion by the House. A motion to grant a permanent civil list was made and negatived. There were only five ayes to thirty-one nays. The House adhered to the opinion that the supplies ought to be voted and appropriated annually, and not otherwise. The Governor was requested to mention the circumstance to the King, and he promised to do so. The Assembly proceeded to the transaction of other business. The expediency of having an agent to represent the interests of the people, not the Executive of Canada only, in England, was next considered. It occurred to the House that some member of the imperial parliament might be induced to accept the agency, and it was resolved that Joseph Marryatt, Esquire, M.P., should be requested to act as such agent. The resolution of the Assembly was transmitted to Mr. Marryatt, who was also put in possession of the civil list difficulty, with instructions relative to the course of action which it was expected he would adopt. The Council felt annoyed. They looked upon the appointment of Mr. Marryatt as a dangerous assumption of legislative power by the Assembly alone. They considered it a breach of the constitution, a breach of the king's prerogative, a breach of the privileges of the Legislative Council, and as a something which tended to subvert the constitution of the province. This protest had the effect desired by the Council. Mr. Marryatt would not act. Unless the Council concurred in his appointment he could have no weight with the government in England, nor would he be even acknowledged. There was nothing now to be done but to starve the government into submission. The government was not to be conquered by assault. The Assembly determined upon cutting off the supplies entirely. The revenue Acts were, one after the other, suffered to expire. No appropriation was made even for the current expenses of the year. A revenue of thirty thousand pounds a year, or more, part of which belonged to Upper Canada, was sacrificed. The Governor might make advances to the officers of the government, on his own responsibility, or not, as he pleased. But the House would hold the Receiver General personally responsible for all monies levied on His Majesty's subjects, paid over by him on any authority whatever, unless such payments should be authorised by an express provision of law. If anything could arrest the real prosperity of the province, it was now arrested. Some members of the Legislative Council took alarm. Afraid that their resolutions of the previous session interfered with the privileges of the Assembly, they wished to rescind them. The Assembly, in the opinion of a section even of the Council, ought not to be dictated to. The Commons had exclusively the right of dictating their own terms and conditions, with regard to all aids to the Crown. And the object, for which such aids were sought, was of no consequence, as far as their right was concerned. The majority of the Council took quite another view of the matter. One member was particularly severe on the Assembly. The Honorable John Richardson, considered the course pursued by the Assembly, as unconstitutional and overbearing. He characterised their pretensions as subversive of the prerogatives of the Crown, and indicative of a desire to have the absolute control of the government. Their proceedings were revolutionary. From day to day secret committees were in session. Grievances were mischievously hunted up. Their measures were precisely similar to those which preceded the fall of Charles the First, and the French revolution. And, at that very moment, there was a committee of the Assembly sitting, the members of which were in consultation, about replacing the distinguished personage who resided at the Castle of St. Lewis. Mr. Richardson was being quietly listened to by several members of the Assembly. They resolved to move in the matter. The sayings and doings of Mr. Richardson were accordingly brought under the notice of the Assembly. Mr. Quirouet informed the Lower House that he had heard the Honorable John Richardson, one of the members of the Legislative Council say, in reply to the Honorable Mr. Debartzch, who had moved for the rescission of the rules relating to the civil list, that there was a secret committee sitting in the House of Assembly, deliberating on the appointment of a governor of their choice, and on the removal of the person now in the castle; and that the committee, which was, perhaps, one of public safety, sat without the knowledge of several members of the House, a thing without example in England, except in the time of Charles the First. A committee of five members was appointed to obtain further information. The committee ascertained that everything reported by Mr. Quirouet was true. A spirited debate ensued. The conduct of Mr. Richardson was looked upon as atrocious. Mr. Richardson too was the senior member of the Executive Council, and on him the government of the province might devolve. He was entirely unworthy of confidence. He was the enemy of his country. It was resolved that his language was false, scandalous, and malicious; that he had been guilty of a high contempt of the Assembly; that he had made an odious attempt to destroy His Majesty's confidence in the fidelity and loyalty of the Assembly, and of the people of the province, and that he had been guilty of a breach of the rights and privileges of one branch of the legislature. It was further resolved to inform the Legislative Council of the Assembly's opinion of the discourse of the Honorable John Richardson, with the request that the Council would inquire into the charge which they preferred against him and were prepared to substantiate, so that the Honorable John Richardson might be adequately punished. And it was still further resolved that the Governor General should be informed of the libelous language of the Honorable John Richardson, and of the desire of the Assembly that he should be removed and dismissed from every place of honor, trust, or profit, which he might hold under the Crown. These resolutions of the Assembly, respecting the conduct of the Honorable John Richardson were taken by special messengers to the Governor and to the Legislative Council. The Governor considered the resolutions undignified. They were as much a breach of the privileges of the Council as the remarks of Mr. Richardson would have been a breach of the privileges of the Assembly if uttered anywhere else than in the Council. Mr. Richardson had a perfect right to express himself freely in parliament. Freedom of debate was as necessary to the Upper as it was to the Lower House. He distinctly refused to dismiss Mr. Richardson from any office of honor, trust, or profit, which he might hold. The Council, so far from proceeding to punish Mr. Richardson for his outspokenness, looked upon the resolutions of the Assembly as a flagrant breach of its privileges, and would take no measures with regard to the language made use of towards the Assembly, by Mr. Richardson, until the Assembly apologised to the Council for its interference with the rights of the Legislative Council. Mr. Richardson even repeated the substance of his observations in the debate which had given offence, in still stronger language. He had little to fear, and he knew that the Assembly had taken a position which they could not sustain. He held no office under the Crown. He was a legislator and Executive Councillor, but not a placeman. Indeed the Assembly were becoming ashamed of themselves. Instead of attacking the Council in return for the attack made upon them, they had taken it for granted that their proceedings were not liable to be commented upon at all. They pretended to represent public opinion and yet would not tolerate the expression of any opinion adverse to themselves. But public opinion prevailed. They were compelled to edge out of their difficulty by representing in a resolution that it was the incontestable right of the Assembly to prevent any breach of their privileges, by every constitutional means in their power. So the matter rested.

A message came to the Assembly from the Governor. It had reference to certain grievances submitted by the Assembly to the King. The Governor had been commanded to inform the Assembly that the Lieutenant-Governor had been ordered to repair to Quebec, and to reside in the province during his tenure of office; that a Lieutenant-Governor for Gaspé was necessary and should be provided for; that the successor to the Provincial Secretary should be a resident officer, but that the present absent incumbent was not to be dispossessed without adequate compensation; and that the present agent of the province, in the colonial office, had not been guilty of misconduct, and the office of agent which he held was not to be abolished. The message was anything but satisfactory, and the Assembly grumbled audibly.

Another message was sent to the Assembly informing the House that the Governor intended to apply the territorial and casual revenues, fines, rents, and profits, which were reserved to the French King, at the conquest, and belonged to the King of Great Britain on the surrender of the country, the monies raised by statutes of the imperial parliament, and the sum of £5,000 sterling raised by the provincial statute 35th George the Third, chapter 9, towards the support of the civil government and the administration of justice. And he called upon the Assembly, as they had refused the civil list, to defray the cost of certain local establishments, the expenses of the legislature and the necessary expense of collecting the revenue. The Assembly assured the Governor of their great satisfaction that he had not questioned the constitutional doctrine which they had enunciated, that the public money should only be applied conformably to law. They were indeed sorry that the standing rules of the Council prevented their House from entertaining even the hope that its invariable disposition to provide for the necessary expenses of the civil government could have its proper and legal effect. But they would grant no supplies whatever. This manœuvre might have been most successfully practised upon the government of Lower Canada, if it had not also affected Upper Canada. The supplies of Upper, as well as of Lower Canada, were cut off. Quebec was the only seaport the two provinces had. It was in Lower Canada that the duties on imports were levied. Of these import duties Upper Canada was now entitled to a fifth, instead of an eighth, as at first agreed upon. And if the whole was sacrificed, the value of a fifth of the whole would not amount to much. The government, and, indeed, the whole people of Upper Canada were annoyed at the loss of revenue inflicted upon the country, for the sake merely of principle. But that was not all. Upper Canada was already so rapidly increasing in population that a fifth of the whole duties collected was not looked upon as her fair share of receipts. Her commissioners desired a larger share of the incomings. Lower Canada would not grant the increase and there was another difficulty between the provinces. The subject was brought under the consideration of the imperial parliament, by Upper Canada, through the instrumentality of an agent, in London, appointed to communicate with the government at home. The parliament of Lower Canada was prorogued on the 18th of February. Lord Dalhousie was satisfied that no benefit to the public could be expected from a continuance of the session, and had come to prorogue the parliament. He regretted that the supplies had been withheld, but neither the civil government, nor the officers of justice, nor any of the officers of the government or of the courts would be at all affected. The mischievous effects of their proceeding would fall upon trade and of course be highly injurious to His Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, who should know how to bring about a remedy. He was much pleased with the conduct of the Council. The Governor General had received an idea from Mr. Ryland, with which he was quite delighted. It now seemed to His Excellency that he would soon bring the Commons of Canada to their senses. Had Mr. Ryland been called upon to point out a remedy for the existing difficulties in the government, he would have said to lord Dalhousie:—either unite the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada, or, by giving a fair representation to the townships, secure an English influence in the House of Assembly. Perfect the constitution by creating an hereditary aristocracy, for which the Crown Reserves were originally set apart, and make the Legislative Council so respectable as to render a seat therein an object of ambition to every man of character and talent. Exercise decidedly the patronage of the Romish Church, and give the Romish Bishop clearly to understand that the slightest opposition on his part to this regulation would put an end to his allowance of £1,500 sterling per annum. Admit no more coadjutors, secure a permanent revenue, adequate or nearly adequate to the expenses of the civil government. Ascertain to a farthing the monies that actually are or ought to be in the Receiver General's chest. Give to that officer an adequate salary, and take effectual means to prevent one shilling of the public monies from being employed by him in future in commercial speculations. Accomplish these objects, as you easily may, and be assured that good sense and upright intentions, on the part of His Majesty's representative, will thereafter be fully adequate to get the better of every difficulty that has hitherto attended the provincial government. This scheme of a remedy for existing difficulties was submitted by the Earl of Dalhousie to the government of England. A bill was indeed introduced into the imperial parliament, for a legislative union of the two provinces, and for the regulation of trade in Canada. A majority of the Commons of England would not, however, listen to the proposal for a legislative union of the provinces, for which no desire had been expressed by either Upper or Lower Canada. The sense of the inhabitants of the Canadas should first have been obtained. To this opposition the imperial ministry were compelled to yield, and therefore that part of the bill which related to the union was relinquished. The other part of the bill, afterwards known as "The Canada Trade Act," became law. By it the claims of Upper Canada were recognised, and to guard that province against the caprice of the lower province, all the duties payable under Acts of the legislature of Lower Canada, on imports, were to be permanently continued, according to the latest agreement, in July, 1819. The two temporary provincial Acts, 53 and 55, George III, chapter 2, and 85, George III, chapter 3, including that which had been suffered to expire were revived, and became permanent Acts, only liable to repeal or alteration, by Lower Canada, with the concurrence of Upper Canada. New duties on imports by sea could not be imposed by Lower Canada without the consent of Upper Canada, without the special interference of the imperial parliament. It was no wonder that Lord Dalhousie spoke ironically of the effect to be produced by the stoppage of the supplies. The measure was not, however, judicious. It was in the highest degree irritating to Lower Canada. It was a positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or feudal tenure into free and common soccage was given to the censitaire in transactions with the crown.

This rude assault upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an unfortunate period. Both provinces were suffering. Agriculture and commerce were in distress. Agricultural and commercial distress had also afflicted the mother country. People were unwillingly idle, and consequently, discontented. The regulations then existing in Great Britain, with respect to the importation of grain and flour from the Canadas were alleged to amount almost to a prohibition. To the operation of these regulations Canadian distress was attributed. Unless relief were speedily obtained, the certain ruin of the entire farming and commercial interests was expected to ensue. The difficulties occasioned by the obstruction to Canadian navigation, in winter, rendered it impossible for the Canadian farmer to compete fairly or with a reasonable chance of success, in the English markets, with the United States. American produce was admitted into Lower Canada, for consumption, free of duty, to the prejudice of Upper Canada, and was a direct violation of the reciprocity which ought to exist between the two provinces, as it depressed the price of Upper Canada produce, and rendered nugatory the laws existing for its protection. And unless the flour of Upper Canada should be admitted into the English market on terms of greater favor, the imports from Great Britain would entirely cease. The Upper Canadians wished the repeal of the corn bill. They wanted the monopoly of the supply of the West Indies. They desired a corn bill for themselves. And they did not know precisely what they desired for the riddance of their distress. It was at this season that the "Canada Trade Act" came into force, and that the propriety of uniting the two provinces was to be considered by the people. In Lower Canada the contemplated re-union of the provinces was not relished. Upper Canada was indifferent and perhaps rather in favor than opposed to the scheme. To Lower Canada it forboded the loss of caste, usages, and religion, while to Upper Canada it indicated only a more extended sphere of legislative action, and the direct control of the general revenue for improvements. The Union Bill was well conceived. The Governor was to have erected the townships, previously unrepresented, into counties, of six townships each, with a member for every county. The qualification for a seat in the Assembly was to be the unincumbered possession of landed property to the value of £500 sterling. The House was to consist of not more than one hundred and twenty members, and of not more than sixty members for either province. Four ministers were to have seats in the House and to have the liberty of speech without the right of votes, in the shape of two members from each of the Executive Councils of Upper Canada and of Lower Canada. The duration of the parliament was to be five years. There was to be no power of imprisonment for alleged contempts given to either House. The proceedings of both Houses were to be recorded in the English language, and in fifteen years afterwards, the English language only was to be made use of in debate. The free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was to be respected, subject to the king's supremacy, and to the collation or induction into cures—a privilege until then enjoyed by the Bishop superintending the Romish Church in Canada. Here was Mr. Ryland's scheme to the letter. It gave evidence of some ability. It was the scheme of a lifetime, of one zealous in the cause of the Church of England. How the Lower Canadians were to have been induced to consent, is not easily guessed at. It is true Mr. Ryland intimates that the Bishop's salary could be withdrawn, and that no more coadjutors should be allowed. But the Bishop was not the only clergyman of the Church of Rome in the province, and the See of Rome has its instruments in every ecclesiastical grade. The priests, as a body were very much annoyed at the Union Bill. They did not fail to declaim against it. Nor were they to be blamed. The French Canadians were indeed, to a man, opposed to the union. The English population were, of course, in favor of the scheme. Horrified at popery, an Englishman honestly believed that popery had no rights in a country possessed by a protestant king. It could be tolerated but not legally maintained. Of course when the King became Bishop of the Church in Canada, the Pope was virtually deposed, and the deposition of the Pope in England is indeed the most essential difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The people of Montreal were most actively in favor of Mr. Ryland's admirable scheme of religious conversion. Of 80,000 people who had come into the province since the American war scarcely a twentieth part had remained within the limits of the province, the rest having been induced by the foreign character of the country in which they had sought an asylum, and the discouragements they experienced, to try their fortune in the United States. The division of the Province of Quebec, into Upper and Lower Canada, had been impolitic. Had a fit plan of representation been adopted the British population would have now exceeded the French, and the imports and exports of the country have been greatly beyond their present amount.[34] It is not a little extraordinary to find that the English speaking inhabitants of the province complained of the unreasonable extent of political rights which had been conceded to Lower Canada. Mr. Neilson was not of these complainants. Mr. James Stuart was. The Canadians had deserted Mr. Stuart and he now deserted them. Mr. Neilson had not been yet deserted by those whom he had served, and he had not therefore cause for desertion. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau went home in charge of petitions against the contemplated union of the provinces, while Mr. Stuart went to London with the petition of the unionists in his pocket. The mob was merely prejudiced. There was no politics in the heads of the ordinary people, whether of French or English extraction. But the English hated the French, and the French disliked the English, because neither understood the other. It was enough for the English speaking population that the government was English, to secure their sympathies to the government, and it was enough for the French speaking part of the population to know that the Assembly was chiefly Franco-Canadian to secure their sympathies to the Assembly. Lord Dalhousie and the red-tape-nobility looked upon both only as canaille. His lordship was the emperor; the judges, the bishops, and the secretaries, were the marshals and princes of an empire of serfs—of crown serfs and of serfs of the soil. But, however that may have been, two events of some importance had occurred. The Lieutenant-Governor of the province, Sir Francis Burton, had arrived at the scene of his labors, and Sir John Caldwell, the Receiver General, had become insolvent towards the province, in the sum of £100,000. The difficulties of Lord Dalhousie's reign were on the increase. The union and intended extinction of Lower Canadian nationality was not a matter to be so easily effected as at first anticipated. His lordship again assembled parliament on the 10th of January, 1823. The Clerk of the Assembly informed the noble Earl, at the head of the government, that the Speaker, Mr. Papineau, had gone to England. The Governor ordered the Assembly to elect another Speaker in his stead. They did so, and their choice fell upon Mr. Vallières de St. Réal. The choice was approved of. Lord Dalhousie thereupon opened the session. He told the Houses that an Act had been passed regulating the trade of Lower Canada with the United States of America, and the intercourse between Upper and Lower Canada, an adjustment of the differences subsisting between the two provinces being provided for. He further intimated that the imperial government contemplated the union of the two provinces, but had withdrawn the measure until the next session of the imperial legislature, with the view of ascertaining the sentiments of the Canadian people on the matter. He hoped that the subject would receive attention, and the deliberations of the parliament be distinguished for moderation. He had been somewhat embarrassed by the stoppage of the supplies, but had done as much as he could to avert inconvenience, by paying up the usual expenses for the half year then current, though he had not felt himself justified in doing so beyond that period, and there consequently remained a very considerable arrear due to the public servants. A full statement of the receipts and expenditures for the year would be laid before the Assembly, together with an estimate of the probable expense in the present year of those local establishments for which the Assembly were bound in duty to provide. He trusted that the whole financial accounts would be brought to a clear and final arrangement. He was convinced that the Assembly regretted that the progress of the public interests had been interrupted. And without dwelling upon the past, he would earnestly recommend them to consider the incalculable injuries which had been accumulated on the province, while the executive branch of the constitution remained disabled from exercising its just and legitimate and most useful powers. The Assembly were pleased to learn that the imperial parliament had suffered the measure for the union of the two provinces to lie over until the opinion of the Canadian people had been ascertained, and indeed they fairly echoed in their reply the speech from the throne. A call of the Assembly was ordered for the 21st of January, to consider the union question. The Upper House, with the exception of the Honorables John Richardson, Herman W. Ryland, Charles W. Grant, James Irvine, Roderick McKenzie, and Wm. B. Felton, were decidedly opposed to the contemplated union. The Assembly believed that the union of two provinces, having laws, civil and religious institutions, and usages essentially different, would endanger the laws and institutions of either province; and that there would thence result well-founded apprehensions respecting the stability of those laws and institutions, fatal doubts of the future lot of these colonies, and a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people, and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the mother country. The resolutions of both Houses were embodied in addresses to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. Those to the King the Governor was requested to transmit, and those to the two Imperial Houses of legislation were forwarded to the delegates of the anti-unionists, Messrs. Neilson and Papineau.

A message was sent to the Assembly, officially informing the House of the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Burton. The message contained another bit of information to the effect that it was necessary that a residence should be provided for His Excellency. It stated still further that a furnished House had been taken for His Excellency, at a yearly rent of £500, for which it was desirable that the Assembly should provide. And the message concluded by recommending the addition of £1,000 a year to the salary of His Excellency, which was then only £1,500, so that with £2,500 a year, and house rent free, he might live in becoming style. The Assembly cheerfully voted these extra allowances to the Lieutenant-Governor. A bill was this session passed, erecting, for judicial purposes, the Eastern Townships into the Inferior District of St. Francis. There was to be a provincial court in the district, and a resident judge, who was to have jurisdiction in personal actions of £20 sterling. A Court of Quarter Sessions in the district was also established. The bill was introduced into the Assembly, and passed, to increase the representation, by giving the Eastern Townships a representation precisely as recommended in the contemplated Act of Union; but the Assembly, to counterbalance the effect which might result from the introduction of six new members into the Assembly, also created an overbalancing number of new French constituencies. The Council consequently rejected the representation bill. Then the estimates of supply were submitted by message. They had been classed into two schedules. One comprehending the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, certain officers attached to the Governor-in-Chief, including the provincial agent in London, the Surveyor General and contingencies of his department; the judges and officers of the Courts; the Executive Councillors (£100 a year each); the Clerk of the Council, and the contingencies of his office and of the committee of audit; the Inspector General of Accounts; the Receiver General's department; and the Clerk of the Terrars, the whole sum to be supplied being £32,083 11s. 3d. sterling. The second schedule included the local establishments—the legislature and its officers; the cost of printing the laws; the salaries to public schoolmasters; the pension list; rents and repairs of public buildings, and the salaries and disbursements in connection with such buildings; the expense of collecting the revenues: the expenses of the Trinity House; the militia staff and contingencies; the expenses for criminals and houses of correction; and miscellaneous expenses, such as the salaries of the Grand Voyer and others, the grants to residents on Anticosti, for the assistance of shipwrecked seamen; and the assessments on public buildings, in all amounting to £30,225 sterling. The Assembly voted the local schedule but not the other. Indeed they protested against being required to do so in the particular manner required. The Assembly next passed bills to reimburse and indemnify His Majesty for monies expended without the sanction of the legislature. The Council did not think it decorous to speak of "indemnifying" the King and rejected the bills. There was yet another money bill to pass the Council. A bill to defray the expenses of the local establishments, in which the different items of expenditure were specified, was sent up for concurrence and was only not rejected on account of the distress to individuals which its rejection would have caused. The Assembly had appropriated monies for the payment of the local establishments, which was to be taken from the general funds of the province. The Council passed the bill under protest because by the term "general," appropriated as well as unappropriated monies might be indicated as under the control of the Assembly. An attempt was made to induce the Council to agree to the nomination of Mr. Marryatt as agent for the province, but the Council refused, and the Assembly allowed the matter to drop. To render the proceedings of the Assembly still more attractive, a breach of privilege case occurred again this session. The Montreal Times, a stiffishly unionist paper, had dealt harshly both with the Assembly and Council, in speaking of these two august bodies, as anti-British. The Council was quite indifferent to the imputation, but the Assembly pronounced the assertion of the Times to be a false and scandalous libel upon the House, and a breach of its privileges. In accordance with this judgment, Mr. Speaker was instructed to issue warrants for the arrests of the editor and publishers of the Times. One offender, Mr. Ariel Bowman, was taken into custody, but Mr. Edward Sparhawk, the other offender, could not be found. Mr. Bowman was not long a prisoner. He escaped from custody soon after being taken, and neither of the offenders were subsequently caught during the session, so that both eluded the punishment due to an offence which was very heinous only in the sight of the Assembly. After this important matter was disposed of, the Governor General intimated that he had advanced £30,000 to the Receiver General, out of the military chest, to enable him to pay the expenses of the civil government, for the half year ending in May, 1822. He called upon the House for re-payment. The reply was pertinent. The House would at once have authorised the Receiver General to return the money out of the sum of £100,000, the balance of the public money which should have been in his hands, if it could have been done, but a balance being due to the province, the Assembly could only look upon the accommodation afforded to the Receiver General as a personal favor to that officer. Indeed the Assembly voted all the sums required for other public purposes, without taking into any account whatever the emptiness of the public chest. The financial affairs of the province were in a curious condition. "My earnest entreaties," says Lord Dalhousie to Mr. Vallières de St. Réal, "to ascertain the state of our finances, have been unavailing. Whilst the legislature has been contending about forms, the substance of the treasury has been used, and the province now stands without any funds which can be called its own, or, worse than that, it has incurred a debt to the military chest of £30,000, advanced in 1822, and £30,000 more advanced this summer of 1823, to which must be added the amount of all unpaid appropriations in last session, a sum not less than £240,000, exclusive of the grant of the Chambly Canal:

Our debt contracted is£ 60,000
Appropriations of 1823 unpaid24,000
Our necessary expenses for 182470,000
Our probable appropriation, including the award to Upper Canada 25,000
£179,000
And our revenue to meet this90,000

The recent declaration and exposure of the Receiver General undoubtedly did shew the evils arising from not annually settling the public accounts. The Receiver General had not, however, positively wasted the public revenue. Largely engaged in business he had built sawmills, dammed rivers, and constructed viaducts. He was an enterprising man of business, and doubtless his enterprise had indirectly enriched the province, although as far as the immediate recovery of the money was concerned, for the payment of the civil expenses of the government, the investments had been somewhat selfish and rather injudicious. The Receiver Generalship should not have been in the hands of a person engaged in trade. That was the mistake, and it was one, which the Assembly even had endeavored to remedy when perhaps it was too late.

There were still some other matters of finance meriting legislative attention. The "Canada Trade Act" of the imperial parliament had wonderfully deranged the siege operations of the House. The Assembly was now on the defensive, the governor of the province having been very considerably re-inforced by the energetic measures of the imperial authorities. It was not even considered prudent to make further zigzag approaches. The Assembly resolved upon keeping within their own lines and to defend themselves as well as they could from the vigorous sorties of the enemy, led on by Mr. Ryland. They requested that copies of any addresses to His Majesty by the Legislative Council of Lower Canada or by the Parliament of Upper Canada to the King, or his representative in Lower Canada, might be laid before them. The Governor sent to them an able report of a joint committee of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, alluding to the fruitless negotiations, which had been carried on between the duties' commissioners of the two provinces, a document which had had such weight with the imperial parliament as to have led to the passage of the Canada Trade Act. The Assembly scanned the paper carefully but did nothing. They only said that the Act would receive their most serious attention in the next session of the parliament. They were rather inclined to do business on a more liberal scale than they had manifested at the previous session. An Act was passed to enable the province to commence the construction of a canal between the town of St. Johns, in Canada East, and the village of Chambly, which the company, incorporated in 1818, had been unable, for want of funds to commence. Fifty thousand pounds were appropriated for this purpose. They voted also twelve thousands pounds as an additional appropriation towards the construction of the Lachine Canal; two thousand one hundred pounds for the encouragement of agriculture; eight hundred and fifty pounds were granted to the Montreal General Hospital Society; two hundred pounds were awarded to the Education Society of Quebec; Chief Justice Monk was pensioned in the sum of five hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year; and Mr. Justice Ogden was voted a retiring annual pension of four hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The House then applied to the Governor for a copy of his instructions relative to the application of the Jesuits' Estates Revenues for educational purposes; but the Governor refused to comply with the Assembly's request, because he had not been specially permitted to lay his instructions before the Assembly. The business of the session was concluded, and Lord Dalhousie went down in State to the Legislative Council Chamber, to prorogue the parliament. In his closing speech he expressed the satisfaction with which he had witnessed so much diligence and attention to the business of the country. He was exceedingly well pleased to have had to give the royal assent to the Acts passed to facilitate the administration of justice, to encourage agriculture, to construct canals, to assist trade, and to aid charitable and educational institutions. He thanked the Assembly for the supplies. He regretted that offices for the enregistration of property had not been established. He had transmitted the addresses of both Houses on the subject of the union of the provinces to the king. And he assured the Houses that he esteemed the result of the session at once honorable to parliament and useful to the country.

There was still much anxiety in the country about the contemplated union. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had not, however, been idle in London. They had strongly pointed out to the imperial government the probability of a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people of Lower Canada and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the mother country, if the union was consummated, and their representations weighed with the government, for not long after the prorogation of the Lower Canada parliament it was officially announced by Lord Dalhousie that His Majesty's government had, for the present, determined to relinquish the proposed measure for the legislative union of the provinces.