Number 9 of the rules for conducting the business of the assembly ran:
“No motion shall be debated or put unless the same be in writing and seconded. When a motion is seconded it shall be read in English and French by the speaker if he is master of both languages. If not, the speaker shall read in either of the two languages most familiar to him and the reading in the other language shall be at the table by the clerk or his deputy before the debate.”
On the method of keeping the journals:
“Resolved, that this house shall keep its journal in two registers, in one of which the proceedings of the house and the motion shall be wrote in the French language, with a translation of the motions originally made in the English language; and in the other shall be entered the proceedings of the house and the motions in the English language with a translation of the motions originally made in the French language.”
Finally it was resolved that the rules for introduction of bills should be as follows:
“The bills relative to the criminal laws of England enforced in this province and to the rights of the Protestant clergy as specified in the act of the thirty-first year of His Majesty, Chapter 31, shall be introduced in the English language; and the bills relative to the laws, customs, usages and civil rights of this province shall be introduced in the French language in order to preserve the unity of the texts.”
On the 9th of May, 1793, Sir Alured Clarke in his speech from the throne was forced to make allusions to the first French revolution, which had been already four years in progress before the opening of the assembly of Lower Canada in December, 1792. The Bastille had fallen on June 17, 1789. “At the first meeting of the legislature I congratulated you,” he said, “upon the flattering prospects which opened to your view and upon the flourishing and tranquil state of the British empire, then at peace with all the world; since that period, I am sorry to find, its tranquility has been disturbed by the unjustifiable and unprecedented conduct of the persons exercising the supreme power in France, who, after deluging their own country with the blood of their own fellow citizens and embruing their hands in that of their sovereign, have forced His Majesty and the surrounding nations of Europe in a contest which involves the first interests of society.”
The king of France had been executed on January 21st and war with Great Britain had been declared on February 1st, although Great Britain had made every effort to avoid hostility. Washington had issued the proclamation of neutrality on April 22d, warning Americans of the penalties incurred by its infraction. The revolted provinces had first shown great sympathy with the French revolutionists. On the news of the evacuation of the allied forces which began on September 20, 1793, all New England seems to have lost its head: McMaster in his “History of the People of the United States” (Vol. II, page 13-14) says: “Both men and women seemed for a time to have put away their wits and gone mad with republicanism. Their dress, their speech, their daily conduct were all regulated on strict republican principles. There must be a flaming liberty cap in every house. There must be a cockade in every hat, there must be no more use of the old titles, Sir and Mr. and Dr. and Rev., etc.”
But later when the excesses of the Revolution began to be known excitement somewhat cooled. It was no pleasure, consequently, to Washington to hear on the day of the proclamation of neutrality that Genet, sent as minister by the French republic, had arrived at Charleston. Genet was well received on his way to Philadelphia, but was chilled by the reception given by Washington and left in a rage. (Archives Report, 1891, Douglas Brymner.)
Lower Canada was not uninfluenced by all this. Genet’s agents, or those of his successor, Fauchet, for Genet was superseded in February, 1794, had succeeded in creating a disaffected spirit among people. At Quebec there was an open manifestation of sedition on the parade. Kingsford tells how Prince Edward (Duke of Kent)[2] was in command of the Seventh Fusileers at Quebec when a threatened mutiny was suppressed. Several were charged on a plot to seize the Prince, the general and the officers. One man was sentenced to be shot, but at the Prince’s interception was spared. Three men were severally sentenced to 500, 700 and 400 lashes, one being a sergeant. The details cannot be traced. (Kingsford, Vol. VII, page 383.)