under the bill, during the adminiftration which proposed and paffed it, and during fucceeding administrations, had been fuch as did them fome honour. It was not his intention totally to relax and change the fort of government at present eftablished at Quebec. He was well aware that it was gene-. rally confidered as a matter of found policy that the reins of government of a diftant province ought to be drawn fome what more tight than the reins of Government at home. That maxim was in fome degree true; and all he wished to do, was to give the inhabitants of the province of Quebec that degree of perfonal and political liberty which might be communicated without the fmalleft rifque of danger to the state. At prefent, and from the year 1774, the province had been governed by a Council, which acted, on all occafions, as a legiflative council. He meant to infert in his bill a claufe, enacting that the members of this legislative Council fhould not be difaniffed but by an order from Government at home, and not at the will and by the immediate direction of the Governor on the fpot; for, in his opinion, a council depending on the breath of the Governor was an abfurd farce; and it would be better that there fhould be no council. at all, than a council the creature of the Governor. Rather let the Governor enjoy abfolute power vefted folely in him-. felf, and let him be refponfible for his actions. Another re-. gulation would be to render the Judges fo far independent as to make their places quamdiù fe bene gefferint. At prefent, if a Judge who was a member of the legislative council gave a vote in council adverfe. to the wifh of the Governor, he was liable to lofe his place as a Judge, and the fact had happened. Mr. Powys appealed to the Houfe whether they conceived that this ought to be? Another regulation would be to give the British fubjects in the province of Quebec an optional right to trial by Jury. Trial by Jury (that House well knew) was the birth-right of every fubject born in England, and furely every member of that House must with to extend the privileges of Englishmen to their fellow fubjects in the remaining British colonies in America. Another. regulation would be to enact, that it should not be in the power of the Governor of the province of Quebec to imprifon an inhabitant unless he had previoufly undergone a legal trial, and in that cafe but for a limited time. At prefent there was no limitation, and it depended entirely on the breath of the Governor. It was his intention alfo to put feveral other regulations in his bill, the great object of which was to give the inhabitants of the province of Quebec a fyftem of government in the particulars he had mentioned, founded on known and definitive law. At prefent the government of that province rested altogether on unfixed laws,

and

and was a state of defpotism and flavery. He was aware that Sir Guy Carleton was going out Governor General to Quebec, and that poffibly it might be expected that the House was to wait for his opinion, and be guided by the opinion of Sir Guy Carleton folely. He believed, as an officer, no man ftood higher in the general opinion than Sir Guy Carleton; in every capacity and fituation in which Sir Guy Carleton had acted, no man had conducted himself more to the advantage of his country and to his own honour and credit than Sir Guy Carleton; in refpect to the army extraordinaries he had done himself the higheft credit; but might he be permitted to say, that as a legiflator he did not confider Sir Guy Carleton as the best and most able adviser of that Houfe. That Houfe was of itfelf fufficiently competent to legislate for all His Majefty's dominions. It was their duty thus to legiflate; and fufficient information was within their reach to enable them to discharge their duty wifely, and in a manner most likely to conduce to the advantage, the eafe, and the happiness of the fubjects for whom they legislated, wherever refident, and for the general welfare and profperity of the empire. But as Sir Guy Carleton was going out, he thought the opportunity fhould be feized, and the period fixed on, as the era of happiness and liberty to the province of Quebec, of the glad tidings of which Sir Guy Carleton ought to be made the meffenger. He then reminded the Houfe, that the Parliament had, by a folemn act, renounced all claim to farther taxation in Canada in 1778; that the civil government of the province coft much more than the produce of all the taxes impofed previous to that year, and that the furplus muft neceffarily be defrayed by this country a matter well worth the investigation of that House. In conclufion, Mr. Powys moved for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend the act of 1774, commonly called the Quebec bill.

Mr. Dempfter feconded the motion.

The question having been read from the chair,

Mr. Chancellor Pitt flattered himself that without enter- Mr. Chaning at large into the nature of the queftion, he could fhew sellor Pat the Houfe the propriety of governing the vote, which he fhould give by a confideration that had been fuggefted by the honourable gentleman who opened the business, though with a view widely different. With refpect to the principles on which the honourable gentleman had argued, they were in themselves certainly as perfectly true and well founded as his motives were upright: but though abftractedly confidered they were fo, yet he thought it by no means certain that they were applicable to the particular object which the honourable gentleman had in view. He admitted that,

generally

generally fpeaking, the privileges of the British Conftitution ought to be diffused as widely through the dominions of the empire as it was practicable to be done, but certainly not without the wishes of those to whom they were to be imparted. Although as the petition, on which the honourable gentleman had grounded his motion, clearly proved it was the wifh of many perfons in the province of Quebec to be admitted to the full enjoyment of the feveral conftitutional advantages by which the inhabitants of this country were diftinguished from almoft all the reft of the world, yet still there were many others who defired to be fuffered to remain in their prefent fituation; and furely even the bleffings of liberty ought not to be forced upon people contrary to their own inclination. For his part, he was extremely defirous to fee the freedom of Great Britain extended to every appendage of the empire; yet it was a certain fact that the principal part of the inhabitants of Canada were averfe to the adoption of the fyftem prayed for in the petition on the table. He had in his hand feveral petitions from that province, and among them there were, befides, fome of a nature fimilar to that which the honourable gentleman proceeded upon; many counter petitions, entirely different and contradictory, that prayed ftrongly that no fuch innovations as those required by the other petition fhould take place. As Sir Guy Carleton, however, was going out to Canada as Governor General, it was the intention of His Majefty's Minifters to wait until they fhould have had an account from him; not, as the honourable gentleman had feemed to imagine, of what he thought the most proper method to adopt for the permanent fettling of the conftitution of that country, but of what was the general difpofition and inclination of the people on the fubject; and furely, as the period was not now far diftant when his report might be expected, it was much better to defer for fome little time longer even im provements that were in themselves unobjectionable and defirable, as were most of those fuggefted by the honourable gentleman, than to go through the bufinefs by piecemeal, and in fuch a manner perhaps as might hereafter be found to obftruct and impede any future general fyftem which it might be thought proper to adopt. Upon the whole, he defired it to be understood, that it was not his intention to declare against the introduction of a new conftitution into Quebec; but there being great differences of opinion among the very mixed defcriptions of people by which that country was inhabited, and an opportunity being now near at hand of investigating and afcertaining more particularly the real difpofition of the country, he could not avoid regarding it as needlefs, if not improper, to adopt any half-concerted and

immature

immature measures for a general reformation, inftead of waiting for the fortunate, and, doubtlefs, nearly-approaching period of fixing an establishment upon a folid, advantageous, and permanent bafis.

Sir Grey Cooper remarked, that the honourable gentleman Sir Grey who made the motion had given the Quebec bill a hard Cooper. name: he had called it "a complete fyftem of defpotifm." He remembered the paffing of that bill perfectly well, and knew it deferved not fo fevere a defcription. The noble, Lord who was the propofer of the bill was a fincere friend of liberty, as warm an admirer and as zealous an advocate for the free fpirit of the British Conftitution, and (where it could be done with fafety to the ftate) as defirous of communicating British laws, and extending their operation throughout all the Britifh dominions, as any man whatever. Sir Grey repeated his words, and faid, notwithstanding the fneer from the other fide of the Houfe, he would maintain his argument against the adverfe opinion of any man, or any fet of men whatever. The Quebec bill had been drawn by two of the greateft lawyers in the country, one of them at this time held the Great Seal. At the period of propofing it, it had been thought a neceffary measure, but it was then talked of merely as a bill of experiment. As fuch it was brought into that House, and the Houfe of Commons of that day thought it a measure of found policy: they accepted it; the two other branches of the Legislature approved it, and it paffed into a law. He thought it neceffary to fay thus much in defence of the bill, upon the practice refulting from which it had been the intention of the Adminiftration, at the head of which the noble Lord in the blue ribband was placed, to form a permanent fyftem of government for Quebec. The inftructions fent out with the bill in 1774 were meant to mitigate the rigour and foften the severity of the act.

Mr. Fox remarked, that he felt the most invincible reasons Mr. Fox, to fear that it was not in the power of the honourable Baronet who fpoke laft to fcatter, with ftrict juftice, over the learned Peer who now held the feals, half as many encomiums as he had bestowed upon the noble Lord in the blue ribband for his enthufiaftic love of liberty. The moft predominant principle of that noble Lord's political life had not certainly been too violent an attachment to the cause of freedom, nor too eager a zeal to communicate its bleffings to the British colonies. With regard to the Quebec bill, Mr. Fox faid, he had been one of its moft ftrenuous oppofers when it was firft under agitation in Parliament: he had always confidered it as a bad bill, as a bill founded upon a fyftem of defpotifm, and as fuch a bill, as it ill became the Parliament of a free country, on any pretence whatever, to pafs into a law. If VOL. XX.

T

the

the bill had been approved of by the inhabitants of the province of Quebec, and if those whom he faw oppofite to him (who were, fome of them at leaft, among the foremost to oppofe the bill originally) would not now confent to repeal the bill, as far as related to the points ftated by his honourable friend, who moved for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend the act of 1774, an excellent argument would be furnished for thofe who were advocates for the Quebec bill; that he, who followed an oppofition in that and the other Houfe of Parliament, compofed of fome of the first and moit refpectable characters in the country, has been completely in the wrong, and that the noble Lords who thought the bill deferved a full and fair oppofition, as a bill of a most unconftitutional tendency, had also been completely in the wrong; that they knew nothing of the fort of government fit for British fubjects; and that an arbitrary government was the only government under which a diftant colony could be retained with fecurity. To that extent he believed no man would venture in argument, and yet fo far they muft go, if the motion of his honourable friend was rejected. Mr. Fox declared that he was willing and ready to carry the alteration and amendment of the act of 1774 much farther than his honourable friend had propofed; that he would confent to give the people of Canada an house of affembly, and if we had twenty colonies, he would give every one of them an houfe of affembly, being extremely defirous of having every government under the fanction and authority of the British dominion, founded on a principle of liberty, and willing to give the fubjects of every British governinent a fhare in their own legislation. If an house of affembly were granted to the province of Quebec, he should be for making it confift of men chofen by the people without reftriction as to who were of either the Roman-Catholic religion or the Proteftant, or indeed of any religion whatfoever; because if diftinctions of that kind were to be taken, it would not be a free house of affembly, the true reprefentatives of the people, but one of the vileft oligarchies that ever had existence. Mr. Fox faid that the House might eafily recollect what had been the conduct and language of a noble Lord (Sydney) and himself in that House, when Sir Guy Carleton had been examined as a witnefs at the bar, on paffing the Quebec act in 1774. He referred alfo to the evidence of Mr. Hay, a gentleman at that time recently arrived from Quebec, and perfectly familiar with the opinion of the people of that province. Mr. Hay had declared, that above three fourths of the refidents in the province would think themselves happy could they attain the bleffing of be-' ing governed by British laws. The province of Canada had

been