Letters 
 
 OF 
 
 A NOVA-SCOTIAN, 
 
 OF SCHAVOLA 
 
 ON 
 
 
 
 CANADIAN POLITICS. 
 
 QUEBEC : 
 Printep By T. Cary & Co. 
 1828. 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF A 
 
 NOVA-SCOTIAN, 
 
 FIRST PUBLISHED IN 
 
 THE ACADIAN, 
 
 
 
 A 
 | HALIFAX PAPER, 
 
 In 1827. 
 
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 Se 
 
 (FROM THE ACADIAN.) 
 ~“Eese> 
 To L. Je PAPINEAU, Esa. 
 
 Speaker of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Tue conspicuous part which you have so long acted 
 in the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, must have 
 rendered your conduct and your principles interesting 
 subjects for examination tothe inhabitants of that Pro- 
 
 vince. 
 
 But the new character in which you have recently 
 appeared, as the head of a Junto, who, after the pro- 
 rogation of the Assembly, have undertaken to issue a 
 manifesto to the people of Canada, in answer to the 
 official Speech, with which the Governor in Chief closed 
 the Provincial Parliament, places you before the public 
 ina light which interests every inhabitant of British 
 
 America. 
 
 It isa melancholy but momentous truth, that mighty 
 ills may spring from trivial causes. The Conflagration 
 which recently produced such awful desolation in one of 
 our Sister Provinces, may have arisen from a spark dropt 
 from the pipe of an heedless savage, or from the petty 
 bonfire of sume sportive, or perhaps mischievous urchin ; 
 and, as the political world is nearly as combustible as 
 the materials then destroyed, it is very possible that the 
 
 
 

 
 A 
 
 struggles that a faction, of which you appear to be the 
 head, are now making to usurp the whole power of the Go- 
 vernment of Canada, may, if not timely repressed, involve 
 every Colony in North America in confusion. 
 
 It is this consideration which induces me to address 
 you thus publicly. I feel that I have a right to do so, as 
 a Nova-Scotian, because the principles upon which you 
 are contending with the Government of Canada, do not 
 merely affect the local interests of that Province, but 
 are calculated to undermine the Constitutions of every 
 Colony that can boast of a local Legislature, modelled, 
 as far as circumstances will admit, upon the plan of that 
 glorious fabric, the British Constitution. 
 
 It is not my intention to answer the flimsy contents of 
 your Manifesto, or to inquire to what extent the local 
 interests of Lower Canada may have been injured by the 
 recent prorogation of the Provincial Parliament ; that 
 they have been injured by the non-performance of im- 
 portant duties which the whole Legislature owed to the 
 Country, cannot be doubted. That the Act of Proroga- 
 tion was the Act of the Governor in Chief, is equally 
 certain, and it is clearly the interest of the same artful 
 and designing faction, whose machinations rendered that 
 step indispensible, to divert the public mind from the 
 investigation of their own conduct, by turning its atten- 
 tion to the immediate and direct evils and inconveniences 
 which must flow from the Prorogation itself. | 
 
 But, “ magna est veritas et prevalebit,’”’ truth, Sir, 
 will at length prevail, and the day I trust is not far dis- 
 tant when you and your colleagues will appear before 
 the public in the light of men, who are either totally 
 ignorant or totally regardless of their duty ; of men who, 
 under the pretext of vindicating the rights of their con- 
 stituents, are violating the constitution, which secures 
 to them their rights ; of men who are endeavouring to 
 place within the grasp of any faction that may now pos- 
 
 —<~ 
 
 
 
5 
 
 sess, or may hereafter acquire, sufficient influence to 
 rule one branch of the Legislature, that power which 
 the Laws of the land have, for the wisest purposes, divid- 
 ed among the three several branches. 
 
 That power which, in despotic Governments, is lodg- 
 ed in the hands of an individual, which in Aristocracies 
 is vested in a privileged few, and which in pure Demo- 
 cracies belongs to the great body of the people, is by our 
 happy Constitution vested in the King, his Nobles and 
 the Representatives of his people—and it is the privilege 
 ofan Englishman, that no law shall pass which affects 
 either his person or his property without the concurrence 
 of his Sovereign and of both Houses of Parliament. And 
 until it shall be proved that an Absolute Despotism, a 
 proud Aristocracy, or a capricious Democracy, are pre- 
 ferable forms of Government to the Constitution of Great 
 Britain, every inhabitant of the British Isles must feel 
 that he hasa personal interest in supporting the several 
 
 and respective privileges of each distinct branch of the 
 Legislature. 
 
 We have not on this side of the Atlantic the materials 
 wherewith to create a perfect resemblance of this noble 
 Structure ; our humble imitations, are however, formed 
 upon its principles, and we have as yet, Sir, to thank 
 Heaven, that the rights and privileges of His Majesty’s 
 subjects in America, are not placed at the disposal of 
 any one body politic, be it sole or aggregate, We, like 
 our fellow subjects in Great Britain, are yet equally free 
 from the controul of arbitrary power and the caprice of 
 popular frenzy ; and long, long may we remain so. Dis- 
 tant, far distant may the time be, before you or your 
 Colleagues can convince the inhabitants of these happy 
 Colonies, that they will increase the security for their 
 own liberties by an unconstitutional enlargement of the 
 power of the Representative over that of the other 
 Branches of the Colonial Legislatures, 
 
 
 

 
 6 
 
 That the course which you have pursued in the House 
 of Assembly of Lower-Canada has this tendency and is 
 therefore subversive of the rights of your fellow subjects, 
 it shall be my humble endeavour to prove in this public 
 address to you. 
 
 The Body Politic like the natural Body must have its 
 several and respective Members ; under whatever form 
 of Government civil society may be constructed, it can- 
 not subsist without its public functionaries. ‘Those who 
 are appointed to rule must of necessity be invested with 
 sufficient power ; those who are delegated to administer 
 justice must be clothed with sufficient authority, and ren- 
 dered independent of the parties whose cases they are 
 destined to decide. Indeed in all the ramifications into 
 which executive power may divide itself, it is the object 
 of every wise Government, to place their Officers in 
 those situations, in which the public shall have the best 
 security for the due performance of their respective duties. 
 
 Under some Governments it has been deemed wise to 
 keep public Officers in a continual state of dependance, 
 but there it has sometimes been found that men of inde- 
 pendent minds would not enter into the public service, 
 to remedy this evil, other countries have given power 
 to public functionaries, which has entirely placed them 
 above constitutional controul, and left no remedy for 
 misconduct, but a violation of the political frame of the 
 society that had been so imprudent. 
 
 It is not my intention to enter into the wide field which 
 this subject would present. I pretend not to say what 
 is the best plan that could be devised to secure the pub- 
 lic against the degrading effects of severity in the one 
 case, or of arrogance in the other ; but I say that the 
 constitution of Great Britain has vested the right of 
 appointing the several officers, which the public service 
 requires, in the Crown ; and that itis the first duty of the 
 Legislature, to provide the Crown with the means of 
 
 
 
$a 
 
 a * 
 
 7 
 
 supporting them, because without them, the Govern- 
 ment of the country cannot be carried on. 
 
 If the Crown makes an improvident use of the means 
 which have been placed at its disposal, additional sup- 
 plies can be withheld until it becomes more considerate. 
 If useless offices are created, and incumbrances thereby 
 improperly thrown upon the public, the Representatives 
 of the people would fail in their duty, if they did not 
 use the constitutional means which they possess to remedy 
 the evil ; and if the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada 
 conscientiously deemed the whole civil list too expensiye, 
 or any particular office or offices unnecessary, who would 
 dare to blame them for manfully pointing out the general 
 or the particular instances of extravagance, and for with- 
 holding a grant which would enable the government to 
 continue a degree of expense which they conscientiously 
 thought the public service did not require, 
 
 But this is not the matter in dispute, it 1s not to re- 
 lieve their constituents from taxation, but to encrease 
 their own power that they are contending; they are 
 perfectly willing to grant the whole swm required to pay 
 these officers, provided they can make the officers them- 
 selves dependant upon them. Yes Sir, the efforts of 
 yourself and of your colleagues have this tendency, and 
 can have only this tendency, and this I repeat, is an 
 attempt to effect an unconstitutional enlargement of the 
 power of the representative over the other branches of 
 the Legislature. 
 
 It isan attempt to transfer to yourselves that power 
 and that influence which the constitution has vested in 
 the Crown, to make every officer of the Government; 
 even the King’s representative himself, depend upon an 
 annual yote of the Assembly for a precarious support, 
 and to create a virtual democracy in its most unqualified 
 and worst shape ; to give to us the mere form of a mixed 
 Government, in which we would vainly look for that 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 8 
 
 stability and those high sentiments which the monarchi- 
 cal part of our constitution is calculated to infuse, while 
 all the real power of the country would be in the actual 
 possession of a factious Oligarchy. This, Sir, I say, 
 would be democracy in its worst shape, for it would be 
 Democracy in disguise. Where all power is avowedly de- 
 rived from the people, those to whom they delegate it are 
 avowedly and ostensibly responsible for the exercise of it. 
 But if the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada could suc- 
 ceed in making the representative and all the officers of Go- 
 vernment entirely dependant upon their will and pleasure 
 for support, they would reduce them to mere puppets, 
 who would be obliged to do their will, and upon whom 
 they might cast a large portion of the odium of those 
 measures which they could not refuse to adopt; the 
 balance of the constitution would be gone, the checks 
 and counterpoises which have been wisely introduced 
 into it, would be swept away, and instead of that per- 
 manence and consistency which now characterises..our 
 colonial constitutions, we should see one wild or selfish 
 scheme succeed another as rapidly as one set of dema- 
 gogues could supplant their rivals. 
 
 I would ask the good people of Canada if they desire 
 this change ; and I would ask you sir, if you dare to 
 deny that it would take place if your measures should 
 succeed. 
 
 Where would the influence, the power or the Dignity 
 of the Crown of Great Britain be, if the King’ were 
 obliged to apply to his Parliament, every year, not only 
 for the means of supporting his Ambassadors in foreign 
 Courts, his great officers who conduct the affairs of the 
 nation, his judges who administer the criminal and civil 
 Jaw of the country—but if I may use the expression, for 
 his daily bread, for the supply of his table, his food and 
 his cloathing. No, Sir, the English Nation know that 
 this would be as derogatory to their dignity as it would 
 
 | 
 \ 
 
 
 
 be 
 
9 
 
 be to that of their Sovereign, and therefore it is the first 
 act of the Parliament, upon every new accession, to 
 vote a sum commensurate with these various services, in 
 order to render the King independant for life, and there- 
 by to enable him to perform with independence, the im- 
 portant functions which appertain to his high Office in 
 in the State. 
 
 But, you Sir, would deprive his Majesty of all these 
 advantages in Canada, you would reduce his representa- 
 tive there, to depend upon the annual vote of the As- 
 sembly for the supply of his personal wants, and would 
 render all those Officers who should look to him with 
 respect and deference, and who should be responsible to 
 him.as well as to you for the faithful discharge of their 
 respective duties, to a servile dependence upon any set 
 of Demagogues who might become the guiders of the 
 popular feelings of the day. 
 
 Let- it not.be supposed, Sir, that the person who ad- 
 dresses these observations to you, is an advocate for pas- 
 sive obedience or unlimited power. I would wield my 
 nen, and if reduced to the necessity, I trust my sword 
 also in defence of the Constitutional rights of an English 
 subject, whether they were violated by the Despot or 
 the Demagogue ; but in the present case, I feel that the 
 latter is the assailant, and I will, in behalf of myself and 
 of my fellow subjects, resist him with all my might. 
 
 Away, Sir, with the pretensions of lovalty which you 
 and your colleagues hold out in your Manifesto. The 
 loyalty of our English subjects consist not in empty de- 
 clarations. We look for deeds, not words. If you 
 really think it would be conducive to the public interest, 
 to deprive the executive of its constitutional authority 
 and influence, and to vest it in the representative Branch ; 
 honestly declare yourself a Democrat, and let your con- 
 stituents decide whether they concur in your political 
 sentiments, but if you pretend, Sir, to bea loyal subject 
 
 B 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 10 
 of the King of England, and to be actuated by the genu- 
 
 ine spirit of patriotism, remember that respect for the 
 power and the legitimate honour of the Sovereign is 
 essential to loyalty. 
 
 All Englishmen can be devoted to their King without 
 servility, and as the religion which I understand you 
 profess, vindicates itself from the charge of idolatry, by 
 asserting that the image before which the Catholic bows, 
 raises his mind more powerfully to the God whom he 
 adores—so a genuine English subject feels that his loy- 
 alty to his King proceeds from no servile motives. In 
 the person of his monarch—he sees his country embodied, 
 and feels conscious that in upholding his dignity and 
 legitimate authority, he essentially contributes to the 
 preservation of his own rights, and to the independence 
 and power of the nation over which his sovereign presides, 
 
 But you, Sir, and your associates, would undermine 
 this power, you would sap the foundations of the mon- 
 archy in Canada, by rendering the King’s Representa- 
 tive and all his Majesty’s servants in that country, im- 
 mediately and continually dependent upon yourselves, 
 and consequently subservient to your views. 
 
 Could the King’s Representative exercise with inde- 
 pendence those important prerogatives with which the 
 constitution has vested him for the benefit of the people, 
 when he was himself entirely dependent for support upon 
 a body whom it might sometimes become his duty to con- 
 troul? Could the administrators of justice decide a 
 cause In which a popular demagogue, or one of his ad- 
 herents, was concerned, with requisite impartiality, when 
 the support of themselves and of their families might 
 _ depend upon the friendship or partiality of the litigious 
 
 party, in the next session of the Assembly? | admit, Sir, 
 that men of stern integrity may be met with, who will 
 rise superior to all feelings of interest, and adhere in- 
 
 
 
I] 
 
 flexibly to the path of duty. Such men, sir, are an hon- 
 our to human nature, but it is a melancholy truth that 
 we cannot expect to meet them at every corner, The 
 codes which regulate civil society are not formed for 
 perfect beings, ‘and that system is most faulty which 
 places our duty in opposition to our interest. 
 
 I close this letter, Sir, with a solemn call upon you 
 to act consistently. If you are a democrat. in principle, 
 and really think that it would be desirable to lodge the 
 whole power of the Government in the elective Body, I 
 repeat it, avow your sentiinents, and we shall respect 
 your honesty if we cannot admire your judgment: but 
 do not treacherously attempt to undermine that Consti- 
 tution which you ostensibly profess to support; do not 
 deceive your constituents with declarations of loyalty to 
 your King, when your every effort is directed to the des- 
 truction of his authority ; for remember, Sir, that 
 
 “The question still at issue, let it be stated in whatever 
 “ form the ingenuity of human mind can devise, is re- 
  ducible to this.’—Shall the Inhabitants of Canada 
 retain a Constitution which the wisest Statesmen and 
 soundest Philosophers haye pronounced to be the best 
 preservative of civil liberty; shall they retain those 
 checks and counterpoises by which the three independent 
 Branches preserve the people from the effects ofarbitrary 
 power, or shall they allow these three Branches virtu- 
 ally to merge in one, and thereby substitute an actual 
 Democracy for the mixed Government under which Bri- 
 tish subjects have hitherto lived in peace and security ? 
 
 A NOVA SCOTIAN. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 12 
 
 To L. J. PAPINEAU, Esa. 
 Speaker of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 In my last letter I told you that I felt authorized to 
 address you as a Nova Scotian, because the rights which 
 you were endeavouring to wrest from the Crown in Ca- 
 nada are vested in His Majesty for the benefit of his 
 subjects, and I dreaded the effects which an evil exam- 
 ple in one Colony might produce in another, 
 
 But I feel more particularly authorized to address you 
 in that character, because the system adopted in Nova- 
 Scotia has been frequently alluded to by your party, and 
 an attempt has been made to convince the Canadians 
 that you are only contending for principles which are 
 carried into practice in a sister Colony. 
 
 I would in the first place, remind you that no offer has 
 been made to His Majesty’s Government, by the Assem- 
 bly here, to take upon themselves the burthen of the 
 Civil List. Had such an offer ever been made, I will 
 venture to predict that the pledge would have been re- 
 deemed with good faith. 
 
 My knowledge of the men whom the people of Nova 
 Scotia. have generally chosen for their Representatives, 
 induces me to think, that if an unconditional offer to 
 relieve the mother country from the burthen of support- 
 ing the Officers necessary for conducting the public busi- 
 ness had been made from this Province, the Assembly, 
 after such offer had been accepted, would not have re- 
 fused to grant the necessary supplies, unless they were 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 a 
 
13 
 
 received upon terms subversive of the Constitution which 
 the king had bestowed upon us. 
 
 Our Governor and many other officers in Nova-Sco- 
 tia, are still paid by the mother country. The salary of 
 the King’s Representative here does not depend upon the 
 fluctuating feelings of those over whom he is sent to 
 preside ; and remember, Sir, that the principal Officers 
 of the Government in Canada, were equally independent of 
 the House of Assembly there, when it made the offer to 
 provide for them. The offer was unsought—was_ altoge- 
 ther voluntary—it was unclogged with any condition, and 
 independent of those honorable feelings which induce 
 highminded men rather to overstep than stop short of the 
 full redemption of their pledge, common honesty—ordi- 
 nary fair dealing, required that it should make no differ- 
 ence to them whether they were to be paid for their services 
 From the British or the Canadian Treasury. 
 
 Should you ask, Sir, why I feel so confident that the 
 House of Assembly of Nova-Scotia would have pursued a 
 more honorable path, under the same circumstances, 
 than that which the Assembly of Lower Canada has fol- 
 lowed, te duce—Il answer, because that, as far as their 
 SITUATION has been similar, their conduct has been different. 
 
 Until your offer to pay your Civil List was accepted, no 
 Colony in North America paid so many of its public Offi- 
 cers as Nova Scotia. With the exception of the Chief 
 Justice, the whole judicial establishment is borne by the 
 Province. At anearly period two Assistant Justices of 
 the Supreme Court were appointed, and salaries voted 
 annually for their support, but the country was soon con- 
 vinced of the impropriety of making them thus dependent, 
 and in the year 1789. when the Treasury of the Province 
 was at its lowest ebb, the House of Assembly, without 
 any application from the Executive Government, passed 
 a Bill, entitled, “An Act for the better r support of the 
 “© Puisne Judges of the Supreme Court,’ by which their 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 salaries were permanently fixed at the sum of £400 per 
 annum. The preamble of that Bill, Sir, is not inapplica- 
 ble to our present subject, it runs thus—“ Whereas the 
 “ independence and uprightness of the Judges are essential 
 *“* to the impartial administration of justice, and has ever 
 “* been considered as one of the best securities of the rights 
 and liberties of the subject; in order, therefore, to make 
 a suitable provision for such appointments, and establish 
 ** the permanency thereof, Be it enacted, &c.’’ 
 
 ce 
 
 ¢e 
 
 If the sentiments of this preamble, Sir, are sound, and 
 where isthe English subject who will say that they are 
 not, can the Canadians deem that their liberties are plac- 
 ed by their representatives upon the same solid basis on 
 which those of the Nova-Scotian rest ; and if they are not, 
 it is to you and to your Colleagues, that their thanks are 
 due, for depriving them “ of one of the best securities of 
 their rights and liberties.”’ 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the House of Assembly who 
 originated this bill, was one of no servile character ; at 
 that very moment they were impeaching the judges for 
 misconduct; but, while they accused the men, they res- 
 pected the office, and therefore, to make it respectable 
 in the eyes of others, they made it independent. 
 
 Twenty years afterwards, in the year 1809, an Act 
 passed to authorise the appointment of another Puisne 
 Judge, and the salaries of the three were then raised 
 permantly to £500 instead of £400 per annum. 
 
 In the year 1816, an Act passed to authorize the ap- 
 pointment of an Associate Circuit Judge, with a perma- 
 nent salary of £400 per annum. 
 
 In the year 1822, the salaries of the Puisne Judges, in 
 consequence of additional Circuits, were again perma- 
 nently increased to £600 per annum. ‘ 
 
 In 1823, provision was made for the appointment of a 
 Chief Justice for the inferior Court of Common Pleas in 
 
 Ps 
 
 
 
15 ; 
 
 Cape Breton, with a permanent salary of £500 per ane 
 num, including £100 allowed for travelling charges. 
 
 In 1824, further provision was made for three Justices 
 of the Inferior Courts of Common Pleas, in the eastern, 
 middle and western divisions of Nova Scotia,with perma- 
 nent salaries of £450 per annum, including travelling 
 charges. 
 
 And in the year 1826 an Act was passed to provide a 
 permanent salary of £600 for a Gentleman, then recent- 
 ly appointed by His Majesty, to be Master of the Rolls 
 
 in Nova Scotia. 
 
 I have gone through this detail to convince you, that 
 it is by no means the practice in Nova Scotia, to provide 
 temporary salaries for permanent Officers. The necessity 
 of creating’ the office is indeed well discussed, and the 
 creation of many of those I have enumerated, was warm- 
 ly opposed in the House of Assembly, but when the ques- 
 tion of the appointment was carried, the opponents never 
 dreamt of rendering the person to be appointed, depen- 
 dent for his support upon an annual vote, from which 
 either branch of the Assembly might withold its assent. 
 
 The emoluments of the Collector of the Provincial 
 Duties are likewise established by a permanent law, and 
 if you will read the report of the Debates which took 
 place in our House of Assembly last session, upon the 
 interesting subject of the salaries of the officers of the 
 Customs, which display a degree of talent, loyalty and 
 independence of mind, highly creditable to the Province, 
 you will perceive that amid the conflicting opinions 
 which prevailed upon the subject, no one desired to ren- 
 der these respectable and responsible servants of the 
 Crown, dependent upon an annual vote of the Assembly. 
 Ona the contrary, those who supported the legality of 
 the order of the Lords of the Treasury, to retain a por- 
 tion of the duties for the payment of the Officers, urged 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 16 
 
 the necessity of fixing permanently the amount which 
 should annually be retained, and those who opposed that 
 order, and contended that the Legislature here, could 
 alone authorize such retention, proposed that a sufficient 
 sum should be permanently appropriated out of those du- 
 ties, to enable His Majesty to defray the annual expense 
 of the establishment. 
 
 The salaries attached to these Offices, you may perhaps 
 say,are far inferior to those which are paid to similar O ffi- 
 cers in Canada; but remember, Sir, that this is not a question 
 of pounds, but of principles ; it is not how much shall be 
 annually paid for the support of the Civil List in Canada, 
 that is in dispute between the Representative Branch 
 and the Executive Government, but whether that sum, 
 whatever its amount may be, shall be voted annually or 
 permanently. The House of Assembly of Nova Scotia 
 have given to these officers, such sums as they thought the 
 country could afford to pay for their services—they could 
 not afford to make them rich, but, sensible that they 
 themselves could not perform the duty which they owed 
 to the public, unless that they were independent, they 
 were desirous that others who had important duties to per- 
 form should be independent also—remember that those 
 “ Who rule o’er freemen should themselves be free.” 
 
 They would not expose men, who were to decide upon 
 the rights and liberties of their fellow subjects, to the 
 temptations which might beset them, if any of those upon 
 whose will the remuneration for their services annually 
 depend, should appear as suitors before them—even those 
 therefore, who were opposed to the creation of the 
 Offices, concurred in rendering the Officers independent. 
 
 The subordinate question which has sprung out of your 
 original refusal to provide permanently for the ordinary 
 expenses of the Country, viz. whether the House of As- 
 sembly have not a right annually to appropriate, in items, 
 
 
 
17 
 
 the sums which have already been personally appropriat- 
 ed in gross, for the payment of the expences of the adminis- 
 tration of Justice and of the support of the civil Government 
 in Canada, by the Act of Parliament, 14 Geo. IIL. cap, 
 88—and the Act of the Legislature of Lower-Canada, 
 35 Geo. III. cap. 9—has been so satisfactorily answered 
 ina pamphlet, published in Quebec in the early part of 
 this year, that [ deem it unnecessary to make any further 
 comments upon it, than merely to observe, that had the 
 Assembly fulfilled the promise which they voluntarily 
 made, in the spirit in which it must have been understood 
 by his Majesty’s Government, when their offer was ac- 
 cepted, this question could never have arisen. 
 
 If the Assembly will now redeem their pledge, and per- 
 manently provide for the whole of the Civil List, there can 
 be no doubt that the proceeds of the duties imposed by these 
 Acts FOR THE SAME PURPOSE, will go in aid of the general 
 Sunds cf the Province, in the accomplishment of this object. 
 
 But if the House persists in the unconstitutional course, 
 into which you and your Colleagues have led them, no- 
 thing remains for the Gov ernment, but to avail itself of 
 the resatd funds, which these Acts ‘hive fortunately plac- 
 ed at its disposal, and thereby avert the calamity of ren- 
 dering the monarchical part of the Constitution entirely 
 dependent upon the Democratical. 
 
 But beware, Sir, how you persist in this course, popu- 
 lar favor is a precarious possession. The Government has 
 taken its ground and it cannot recede without basely com- 
 mitting suicide. It is not the measure of this or that 
 Governor which you are engaged in opposing. His 
 Majesty cannot authorize any Governor to accede to a sys- 
 tem which will not only destroy all his authority in this 
 country, but is subversive of every principal of every Go- 
 vernment; for, as the author of the Pamphlet, which I 
 have before alluded to, pointedly asks—* Is there an in- 
 ‘‘ stance on record, in the history of any nation, in 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 18 
 
 « which all the expences of its annual Government is left 
 « to the risk of an annual vote? there is none, even a- 
 mong the most republican. It is a power of self des- 
 truction, which no people, Legislature or Govern- 
 ment, evér did or can trust itself, or any of its compo- 
 nent institutions, annually with, for it would be an- 
 nually to endanger its own existence. Do not the 
 United-States furnish an example of the kind? The 
 expenditure of their civil Government, essentially re- 
 publican asit is, ison a footing which none of the con- 
 stituent branches of its constitution can shake, with- 
 out the concurrence of the others. Whatever other 
 ‘ points may agitate the Body Politic occasionally, all 
 conceive, that the ordinary operations of Government, 
 must go on independently of them, and that these 
 shall not be left to the chance of being suspended by 
 annual misunderstandings, with any branch of the 
 Legislature, on any contingency, however important.” 
 
 n 
 
 €¢ 
 «é 
 ee 
 
 €¢ 
 
 A time will come, Sir, though misrepresentations may 
 too long delay it, when these sound and forcible observa- 
 tions will present themselves as self evident truths to 
 the minds of the Canadian people ; and when that time 
 does arrive, what Sir, will they think of you and your 
 Colleagues? when they look round and see that all public 
 business has been suspended, that all public improvement 
 has been impeded, that discontent and discord have been 
 introduced among a peaceful and a happy people, WHAT 
 WILL THEY SAY TO THE AUTHORS OF ALL THIS MISCHIEF ° 
 
 It is true, Sir, that you and your Colleagues may craf- 
 tily evade the arm of justice, and avail yourselves ‘of 
 professional skill to keep within the utmost limits of the 
 law.- Your persons then will be safe, but your political 
 characters will be blasted, you will be driven from public 
 life, and although you may find shelter in obscurity from 
 the execrations of those whose peace you have so long 
 disturbed, whose prosperity you have so long obstructed, 
 
 
 
19 
 
 you will not carry into retirement those reflections 
 which alone can support us in solitude, that conscious 
 rectitude which can defy the frowns of the world. But 
 the Governor in Chief, whose duty it has become to oppose 
 your measures, cannot shrink into obscurity—placed by 
 Providence in a conspicuous station, he must perform the 
 important duties of his High Office. He cannot allow the 
 constitution to be destroyed by the machinations of a fac- 
 tion. He must therefore manfully remain at his Post, 
 endure the temporary obliquy which misrepresentation may 
 east upon him; and supported by the consciousness that he 
 is engaged in the faithful discharge of his duty, may quict- 
 ly await the time when truth shall have found its way into 
 the breasts of those whom faction has misled, and he will 
 then receive the thanks of a grateful people, for the firm- 
 ness with which he has defended that constitution which 
 bestows upon them such invaluable privileges, for his care 
 of them, and for his fidelity to his King and Country. 
 
 When that time does arrive, Sir, and the people of 
 Canada calmly review the conduct and character of the 
 Nobleman who now holds the reins of Government among 
 them, and who so resolutely resists all attempts to sub- 
 stitute a virtual Democracy for the Constitution which 
 the Parliament of Great Britain has bestowed upon them, 
 they will then learn to appreciate his worth, and should 
 they then recollect that he presided for several years over 
 the Government of this Colony, they will not wonder at 
 the earnestness with which he is defended by 
 
 A NOVA SCOTIAN. 
 
 
 

 
 20 
 
 No. III. 
 
 —— — — 
 
 To L. J. PAPINEAU, Esa. 
 Speaker of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada. , 
 
 - =e - 
 
 Sir—It was not my intention to have addressed a third 
 letter to you ; the object of my first was to convince my 
 fellow subjects on this side of the water, that the claims 
 of yourself and of your party were inconsistent with the 
 general principles of the Constitution, and could not be 
 acceded to without endangering the whole fabrick—and 
 in my second I endeavoured to shew that the practice of 
 Noya-Scotia afforded no precedent to support the uncon- 
 stitutional principles, which you had induced the House 
 of Assembly of Lower-Canada to adopt. 
 
 
 
 I stated in the outset that I had no wish to interfere 
 with the internal concerns of Canada, but was desirous 
 of warning the public against the mischievous effects of 
 your political doctrines. I expressed my apprehension, 
 that if your efforts to subvert the constitution of your 
 own Province were not timely repressed, that the evil 
 might extend to other Colonies; and I felt it to be the 
 duty of every good subject, who foresaw the possibility 
 of such a calamity, to give the alarm to those who might 
 be injured by it; as muchas it would be the duty of a 
 good neighbour to awaken his fellow townsmen, when he 
 saw a fire approaching their dwellings. 
 
 But although I strongly suspected that there was ade- 
 sign lurking in the breasts of those who had involved 
 Canada in such trouble, to extend the evil farther ; 
 although I did think that it was mere folly or misappre- 
 hension of their rights, that urged the leaders of the 
 Faction into such disastrous measures, I must own that I 
 
 
 
21 
 
 did not suppose that they would so soon lift the veil, and 
 boldly acknowledge their mischievous designs. 
 
 The language, however, of the Canadian Spectator of 
 the 3lst of March last, is too decisive to leave us any lon- 
 ger in doubt upon the subject. This official Journal of your 
 party, openly calls upon the inhabitants of Canada to 
 take the usual preliminary steps to a revolution; to re- 
 main no longer satisfied with secking redress for their 
 supposed grievances, from the rerular constituted autho- 
 ties of the country, but to organize a new power, to estab- 
 lish Committees in every Parish and County, to establish a 
 central (and of course superior) Committee also, and not 
 satisfied with thus laying the foundation of a revolution 
 in Canada, fo send Commissioners to the several Houses of 
 Assembly in the Sister Provinces. 
 
 You must excuse me, Sir, for identifying you with the 
 Conductor or Conductors of this Paper ; it speaks the 
 language of your party, and as it vindicates the insidious 
 and more concealed attempts by which you have endea- 
 voured to destroy the Constitution in your Legislative 
 capacity, it would be too great a demand upon our cre- 
 dulity, to ask us to acquit you and your Colleagues of 
 participating in the sentiments which it endeavours to 
 to diffuse, and the violent practices which it recommends 
 to the adoption of the Canadians. 
 
 And why, sir, are the bonds of civil society thus at- 
 tempted to be broken? why are all the miseries attendant 
 upon the subversion of a regular Government, to be in- 
 flicted upon a people who have so long confided to you 
 the care and protection of their persons and their peace- 
 ful homes? Because, forsooth, the Government now in ex- 
 istence, will not surrender to you and to your faction its le- 
 gitimate rights ; because the head of that Government 
 will not consent to divest himself of the independence with 
 which he is invested, to enable him to perform. his distinct 
 and important part in the Legislature; because the King’s 
 
 
 

 
 22 
 
 Representative will not allow himself and all the. other 
 Members of the Government, Executive, Ministerial and 
 Judicial, to be completely under the controul and influence of 
 a single branch of the Legislature ; because, to repeat what 
 I have before observed, he manfully resists your attempts to 
 convert that mixed Goverment which English suljects have 
 ever deemed their best security against arbitrary power inta 
 a mere democracy. 
 
 For shame, for shame, rash man; blinded as you may 
 be by party zeal, intent as we must suppose you upon 
 personal aggrandizement, you cannot have been so com- 
 pletely engrossed by your mischievous pursuits, as to have 
 passed entirely unnoticed the calamitous events of your 
 own times; you must have known (and what human be- 
 ing who has known can ever forget them) the horrors of 
 the French revolution ; and if you have a moment’s lei- 
 sure to spare from the performance of the part which you 
 are acting in the political Drama in Canada, look If be- 
 seech you, to the scenes of misery which are now passing 
 in South America, andask yourself if you are willing to 
 take the awful responsibility of risking the introduction 
 of such horrors into your native land. 
 
 The dissolution of a regular Government, even where 
 its vices and oppression render such a measure necessary, 
 is ever attended with misery; but as the human frame 
 must sometimes submit to the most painful and dange- 
 rous operations, in order to rid itself of that which would 
 prove its destruction if retained, so the political frame 
 must sometimes undergo the miseries of a revolution for 
 the same salutary purpose. 
 
 When it pleases an inscrutable Providence to impose 
 such afflictions on individuals, or upon nations, it be- 
 comes the sufferers to endure them with fortitude, and to 
 endeavour to extract from them that good which fre- 
 quently flows from what we deem evil. But should we 
 not look with horror upon the wretch, who for the mere 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
23 
 
 purpose of an anatomical experiment, would inflict such 
 torture upon a fellow creature where no disease existed ? 
 and if so, what must we think of those who would expose 
 a Whole community to the miseries attendant upon a revo- 
 lution to gratify personal ambition or political animosity? 
 
 I repeat it, Sir, 1am no advocate for blind submission 
 —If our rights and liberties are invaded, either by foreign 
 or domestic enemies, I admit to the fullest extent, when 
 all other remedies fail, the awful right of appealing to 
 the God of battles. Let them, however, who make this 
 dread appeal beware that they have justice on their side, 
 for whatever may be the result of it here, its consequen- 
 ces will fall upon the guilty heads hereafter. 
 
 Taddress you, Sir, thus seriously, because I would 
 wish you to recollect, that when you and your confede- 
 rates have once embarked in the first revolutionary step 
 of assembling Parochial, County, and Central Committees, 
 it will no longer depend upon you to decide to what 
 lengths they shall go. When public bodies, who have 
 no constituted authority, are once convened and become 
 as they usually do, infatuated with their own assumed 
 power and importance, they soon refuse to submit to the 
 coutroul of those who brought them into existence, and 
 
 not wnfrequently return that favour by terminating the 
 existence of their Creators, 
 
 But should no such tragical event befal you, should 
 the tide of your popularity not ebb, until you had been 
 borne by it to the very pinnacle of Democratic ambition, 
 should the torrent of a successful revolution place you at 
 the head of a new Republic, I will venture to predict that 
 the first application of President Papineau to the Cana- 
 dian Convention would be, to provide.the means of sup- 
 porting the new government which they had created ; 
 and ‘he would then feel the necessity of rendering such 
 public functionaries as the new system required, indepen- 
 dent of popular caprice ; he would point out to them the 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 DA 
 
 example of their republican neighbours in the United- 
 States, and remind them that the existence of the Nation 
 Canadienne must not be annually endangered. It cannot 
 be doubted, Sir, that should sucha lamentable measure 
 as the severance of Canada from Great-Britain take place 
 under your auspices, that you would then become the ad- 
 vocate of the very measures which yau are now opposing 
 with so much vehemence. 
 
 I do not, however, anticipate such an event, [have too 
 ood an opinion of the loyalty and good sense of my Ca- 
 nadian fellow subjects to suppose that they will allow 
 themselves to be so far borne away by misrepresentation ; 
 and I feel confident that when they are once awakened to 
 a sense of their situation, to which you and your Col- 
 leagues have reduced them, and see the real merits of the 
 case, that they will no longer repose confidence in men 
 who have betrayed the country into such evils. 
 
 In respect to the second proposal, of sending Commis- 
 sioners 10 the Houses of Assembly in the sister Colonies, 
 the fury of party spirit has hurried you on with too much 
 impetuosity to make the measure dangerous ; you have 
 incautiously opened the eyes of those you wish to delude, 
 and you may rest assured, that the good people of Nova- 
 Scotia will feel no inclination to follow the dangerous and 
 unprofitable path in which you would lead them. I think if 
 your Commissioner were to present himself at the bar of 
 our House of Assembly, he would be thus addressed :— 
 
 «* Return, friend, to those who have delegated you to 
 address us, and tell them that we do not think they have 
 managed their own affairs so successfully as to induce us 
 to seek their advice in the management of ours. ‘This 
 peaceful and prosperous Province was long under the 
 Government of the very person of whose measures you 
 now complain; we always found him the guardian, rather 
 than the violator of our rights ; we respected the legiti- 
 mate powers with which the constitution invested him, 
 
 
 
OF 
 a 
 
 and we never perceived the slightest wish on his part to 
 invade the privileges which that constitution bestows 
 upon us. We believe that if you would be equally cau- 
 tious to abstain from aggression, that you would now en- 
 joy the same peace and happiness under his government in 
 Canada, that we did during the period he presided over 
 us in Nova-Scotia. But we have no desire to interfere 
 with your internal concerns, and we request that there 
 may be no interference on your part with ours ; we sin- 
 cerely regret the unhappy consequences of your differen- 
 ces, but we cannot heal, and do not wish to participate 
 inthem. We will, however, give you this friendly ad- 
 vice, adhere to truth in your statements, those who first 
 recommended your appointment as a Commissioner to 
 address this assembly, assert that the government in Ca- 
 nada claims ‘* the uncontrolled dominion over the taxes,’’* 
 this we know to be false ; and a good cause needs not 
 the aid of falsehood. ‘The government merely requires 
 that all three Branches of the Legislature, should concur 
 in providing permanently for the ordinary expenses of the 
 government, and as we never heard or read of a govern- 
 ment in which that was not done, we cannot think the 
 demand so unreasonable, as to justify the clamour which 
 has been raised against it in your Province.” 
 
 If after this admonition, Monsieur, the Commissioner, 
 did not retire and cease from further attempts to inter- 
 fere with the proceedings of the Assembly, I suspect 
 there would be no necessity for the Executive Govern- 
 ment to interpose its authority. The House would pro- 
 bably direct the Speaker to authorize the Serjeant at 
 Arms to provide the gentleman with lodgings in the 
 County Gaol, for the remainder of the Sessions. 
 
 That such would be the course pursued in Nova-Sco- 
 
 tia, is the sincere opinion of A NOVA-SCOTIAN, 
 
 *® See the Canadian Spectator of March 31st, 1827, 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 No. IV. 
 To the Editors of the Acadian. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 lathe Letters which I have addressed to Mr, Papineau, 
 through the medium of your paper, I did not deem it 
 necessary to enter into a detail of facts, with which that 
 gentleman is well acquainted, but applied my observa- 
 tions to the general state of Canadian Politics—But as 
 the affairs of that country are becoming every day more 
 interesting to the Inhabitants of this, it may not be an 
 useless occupation of your columns, to insert in them a 
 more minute account of the proceedings in Canada, than 
 has hitherto been published in Nova-Scotia. 
 
 The Province of Quebec, as your readers well know, 
 was originally acquired by conquest—but when the City 
 surrendered by capitulation, the terms of it secured 
 to the Inhabitants their religion and their laws. His 
 Britannic Majesty succeeded to the rights and the power 
 which the King of France had previously possessed, and 
 became entitled to certain Duties and other Royal Reven- 
 ues, which then existed in the country—the proceeds of 
 these dutics and revenues were applied to defraying the 
 expences incurred for the support of the Provincial Go- 
 vernment, the Administration of Justice, &c. but as they 
 were inadequate to that expence, the deficiency was 
 made up by sums drawn from the British Treasury. In 
 the year 1774, an Act of Parliament was passed by which 
 the duties imposed by the Ordinance of the French King 
 were repealed, and other duties upon the import of Rum, 
 Brandy, Molasses, &c. were imposed and granted to the 
 King in place of the former duties to defray the expences 
 of administering justice, and for the support of the Civil . 
 Government in Canada. ‘These duties, though deemed 
 more convenient than those for which they were substi- 
 tuted, were still, like them, inadequate to the payment 
 of the whole expence of the Provincial Government, and 
 the balance as before, was paid by Great Britain. 
 
 
 
27 
 
 In the year 1791, in consequence of the urgent applica- 
 tion of the English Inhabitants of Canada, an Act passed 
 the British Parliament, conferring upon the Canadians a 
 local Legislature framed upon English principles—con- 
 sisting of a Governor a Legislative Council, appointed 
 hy the King for life, and 2 House of Assembly to be elec- 
 ed by the people. 
 
 This last Act, however, not only did repeal the 14th 
 Geo. III. before-mentioned to have passed in 1774, but 
 expressly provided that all Laws, Statutes and Ordinances, 
 then in force in the Province, (excepting those repealed 
 by the Act, among which the 14th of Geo. III. was not 
 included) should continue in force until lawfully repeal- 
 ed. The 14th Geo. III. has never been repealed, and 
 the duties payable under it have been collected from the 
 year 1774 up to the present day, and applied under the 
 King’s authority, to the payment of the salaries which 
 His Majesty deemed it proper to allow, to the respective 
 Officers of the Civil Government in Canada. After the 
 new Constitution was thus conferred upon the Canadians 
 1791, the expences of the Civil Government, and of the 
 administration of Justice, were borne as before—the 
 Duties collected under the 14th Geo. IL]. and the other 
 Royal Revenues, were paid into the King’s Chest, for the 
 purposes of the Act, and still proving inadequate to their 
 object, the deficiency was paid as usual, by Great Britain. 
 
 In this state things remained, until the year 1810, when 
 the House of Assembly (for what reasons they know best) 
 addressed Sir James Craig, the then Governor in Chief, 
 and informed him that they lamented having been so long 
 a burthen upon the generosity of the Mother Country, but 
 that they were now able and willing to relieve her, by pay- 
 ing the whole Civil expences of the Province. 
 
 Sir James Craig, in reply, stated that he considered 
 their offer as a sure pledge of their future good disposi- 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 28 
 
 tion, whenever His Majesty should see fit to call upon 
 them for the payment of such expences. é 
 
 The offer was of course communicated to His Majesty’s 
 Government at home, but as the momentous struggle in 
 which the country was then engaged, engrossed the at- 
 tention of the Ministry, no notice was taken of it, until 
 Peace was established in Europe, and retrenchment be- 
 came the order ofthe day. This offer then was no longer 
 overlooked, and Sir John Sherbrooke, who was then 
 the Governor General, was directed to apply to the As- 
 sembly in Canada to redeem their pledge, and provide 
 for expences of the Civil Government of the Province. 
 
 Let us here pause and consider the actual state of things 
 at that time. 
 
 The Legislative power in Canada was then vested ina 
 Governor, a Council, and a House of Assembly. The 
 Governor enjoyed a fixed salary, over which neither of 
 the other Branches of the Legislature could exercise any 
 controul, and he could therefore perform the duties of 
 his office with independence, and without the fear of suf- 
 fering in his pecuniary affairs,if he should consctentiously 
 differ in opinion, either from the Council or the House 
 of Assembly. 
 
 The Chief Justice, who in that Province, as im this, 
 is ex-officio President of the Council, also enjoyed a 
 fixed salary, and was equally independent in the perform- 
 ance of his Legislative, and Judicial duties, and as it has 
 always happened, and will probably ever happen in those 
 Colonies, that other officers of Government should have 
 seats at the Council Board, those Members could also 
 negfaran their Legislative duties without fear of pecuniary 
 
 Oss. 
 
 The whole of the Judges had also established salaries, 
 and had mo reason to fear the frowns of an influential 
 
 
 
29 
 
 Member of the Council, or of a popular leader of the 
 House of Assembly, they could therefore distribute jus- 
 tice impartially, even when such characters appeared 
 before them. 
 
 Now I would ask was it desirable that this state of 
 things should be changed ? I address not the question to 
 those, if any such there be among us, who prefer a posi- 
 tive Democracy to our mixed Government—but to those 
 reflecting advocates for rational liberty, who, while they 
 deem a branch composed of the representatives of the 
 people, indispensible to the preservation of our rights— 
 who, while, they contend that no law shall be enacted 
 without the consent of those whom the people have se- 
 lected for their guardians, still remember that the page 
 of history affords convincing proof, that the preservation 
 of civil liberty cannot with safety be solely committed to 
 the fluctuating will of a popular Assembly—to the violence 
 of well meaning, but of heated minds ; to the vibrating 
 councils of those, who depend for their political exis- 
 tence upon the caprice, the prejudice or the partiality, 
 of a thoughtless multitude, who are sometimes offended 
 with the very measures which are most conducive to their 
 interests, and which have been adopted from the purest 
 motives. Such men are satisfied that while the rights 
 inherent in the popular branch, secure them against the 
 enactments of arbitrary and oppressive Laws, the power 
 constitutionally vested in those who possess more perma- 
 nent seats in the Legislature, equally secures them against 
 the effects of incessant change ; and that the authority 
 vested in the King’s Representative, gives stability, con- 
 sistency and energy, to the whole operations of the 
 Government, 
 
 These are the views which English subjects take of 
 their happy condition ; their love of liberty is earnest 
 but rational, It is not a mere hurling of caps in the air, 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 30 
 
 with a viva! viva for the Demigod or the Demagogue of 
 the day, that indicates the genuine spirit of freedom. 
 It is that fixed and sober determination to preserve In- 
 stitutions which have stood the test of experience, which 
 have long been consecrated at the shrine of liberty, 
 which unnerve the arm of power, when stretched forth 
 to oppress the innocent, but invigorate it when it 1s rais- 
 ed to controul the lawless or to punish the guilty. 
 
 Such Institutions are ours, and the advantages we pos- 
 sess, flow from our having three independent branches in 
 our Legislature, all of whom must concur before any 
 Law can be enacted to affect us, and each of whom have, 
 of course, a right to consider before they concur—a right 
 did I say, aduty, asolemn duty, for the performance of 
 which they are responsible to their God, their country 
 and their Consciences, 
 
 Now can thisright be exercised, can this duty be per- 
 formed, if two of these branches are reduced to a state of 
 dependence upon the third? and if the House of Assmbly 
 can annually vote or withold, as they shall see fit, the 
 Salaries of the Governor, of the President of the Coun- 
 cil, and of the other officers of the Government, who 
 have seats at that board, would not these two branches 
 become thus dependent ? The question admits -but of 
 one answer,—they woulda most undoubtedly. 
 
 What then I would further ask, was the duty of the House 
 of Assembly, when this application was made to them °? If 
 the pecuniary circumstances of the country had changed 
 since the offer, and they considered themselves unable 
 to fulfil their promise, they should have candidly stated 
 the disability which their altered situation had occasion- 
 ed—but if they did feel themselves equal to the redemp- 
 tion of their pledge, and they have never insinuated that 
 they were not, they should at once have placed those 
 high official characters, in the same situation of inde- 
 
 
 
3I 
 
 pendence on the House of Assembly, in which they stood 
 when that House made the offer to pay their Salaries. 
 The country would then have remained in the same situ- 
 ation in which it had heretofore been, The Governor 
 and Council would have continued independent of the 
 House of Assembly. The House would have continued 
 its legitimate controul over all the extraordinary expen- 
 ces of the country. No new tax could have been imposed 
 which did not originate with them, nor could the pro- 
 ceeds of such tax, or any other unappropriated monies 
 in the Treasury, be expended without their sanction. 
 Canada in fact, would have retained its Constitution in 
 full vigour. 
 
 Sir John Sherbrooke called upon the House of Assem- 
 bly ‘to provide the sums necessary for the ordinary an- 
 “ nual expenditure of the Province in a constitutional 
 “manner.” 
 
 I would here remind my fellow subjects of the practice, 
 which now prevails under the British Constitution in the 
 Mother Country. Our Monarchs formerly had large 
 personal possessions and revenues, which enabled them 
 to support their dignity, and pay the ordinary officers of 
 State, and of the Household, independently of those sub- 
 sidies which were granted to them by their subjects to 
 enable them to defend the Realm against invasion,to car- 
 ry on foreign Wars, or upon other extraordinary occa- 
 sions ; but this private or personal wealth, if 1 may so 
 term it, is no longer possessed by the Crown ; improyi- 
 dent grants had from time to time diminished it. But 
 had the whole of it been carefully retained, the altered 
 state of society would have rendered it inadequate. The 
 King, therefore, now derives not only the means of 
 defraying the extraordinary expences of the country, but 
 those of supporting its ordinary expences also from the 
 Parliament... His former private sources of wealth are 
 surrendered to the public, and in lieu of them his people, 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 Sw 
 
 upon every new accession, always make a grant to the 
 King for his life, of an annual sum to defray the ordi- 
 nary expences of his Government and of his household— 
 leaving it to him to apportion that sum as he shall see fit 
 to the respective Officers of Government. ‘The salaries 
 of his Ministers, of his Ambassadors, of his Judges and 
 other Officers, are, therefore regulated by him and not 
 by the Legislature. Parliament limit the amount of the 
 whole sum. The King expends it as he deems proper, 
 and this is the constitutional manner of supporting the 
 Government in England, and by this means the officers 
 of the Crown do not depend upon an annual vote for their 
 support. 
 
 The House of Assembly knew, or ought to have known 
 this, when they made their offer to pay ‘’ the whole civl 
 expences of the Province” and they also knew or ought 
 to have known, the amount of the expence which this 
 offer, if accepted, would entail upon them. The King 
 had long regulated the Salaries which were paid to the 
 Governor and other Officers of the Government, partly 
 out of the sums raised in the Province, under the 14th 
 of Geo. III. and granted to him for that purpose, in lieu 
 of the duties to which he was formerly entitled, and 
 partly out of sums placed at his disposal in the British 
 Treasury. When the Governor, therefore, called upon 
 the House to grant the sum required for the support of 
 the Civil Government in a constitutional manner, he evi- 
 dently called upon them to make a grant which would 
 render the Officers of the Civil Government independant 
 wpon an annual vote: and I ask every fair man if they had 
 not pledged themselves to do so, by their voluntary and 
 unqualified offer to pay “the whole civil expences of the 
 Province.” 
 
 The course pursued by the House was rather extraordi- 
 nary, after expending ample time in debate, to have 
 enabled them to have matured a permanent system, they 
 
 
 
53 
 
 presented an address to Sir JohinSherbrooke, “ represent- 
 “ing to His Excellency that the House having taken 
 « into consideration His Excellency’s recommendation 
 on the subject of the Civil Government of the Pro- 
 vince for the year 1818, have voted a sum not exceed- 
 ing £40,263 8 9, currency, towards defraying the 
 expences of the Civil Government of this Province for 
 the year 1818, exclusive of the sums already appropriat- 
 ed by Law, but that the peculiar circumstances which 
 have prevented the House from receiving at an earlier 
 moment the Estimate of the Civil List, Revenue and 
 Public ‘Accounts, and the advanced state of the Ses- 
 sion, not admitting the passing of a Bill of appropria- 
 tion for the purpose, they pray His Excellency will 
 be pleased to order that the said sum, not exceeding 
 £40,263 8 9, currency, be taken out of the wnappro- 
 *¢ priated monies which now are, or hereafter may be, in 
 *¢ the hands of the Receiver General of this Province, for 
 « the purpose aforesaid, and assuring His Excellency that 
 « this House will make good the same at the next Ses- 
 sion of the Provincial Parliament.” 
 
 "“ 
 
 na 
 
 € 
 
 € 
 
 n~ 
 
 € 
 
 " 
 
 ¢ 
 
 n 
 
 € 
 
 n 
 
 € 
 
 ~*~ 
 
 s 
 
 nn 
 
 € 
 
 n 
 
 £ 
 
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 “n 
 
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 - 
 
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 a“ 
 
 The peculiar circumstances of the Session, were here 
 assigned as the reason for not passing a Bill, (whether 
 permanent or temporary however is not mentioned) in 
 pursuance of His Excellency’s Message, but a sum is 
 placed at the disposal of the Crown, in addition to the 
 sums already appropriated by Law, which must have 
 meant the proceeds of the duties imposed by the 14th 
 Geo. If. and of a permanent Provincial Act, passed for 
 the same purpose, 1795. No attempt was made to ap- 
 portion either the appropriated duties or the sum of 
 £40,263 8 9, among the different Officers of Govern- 
 ment, it was voted in gross, to the Crown, and left for 
 the King to dispose of as he had heretofore done. . And 
 it is still more important to observe that no complaint is 
 made of the amount of the Estimate or of any of the Sa- 
 laries it contained. 
 
 . 
 k 
 v 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 34 
 
 Under these circumstances the Civil Government was 
 supported for 1818, and the public officers were paid the 
 salaries which the King had originally assigned to them. 
 
 But in 1819, the House of Assembly passed an annual 
 Bill, specifying every item or salary attached to each 
 office for the year, omitting some of the less important 
 offices, in order to shew their power of omitting others 
 of more importance, when they should see fit—but not 
 altering the salaries heretofore paid to the Governor, and 
 others who were included in the Bill. 
 
 This Bill was rejected by the Council, who at once 
 foresaw the state of dependence upon the House of As- 
 sembly, to which such asystem would reduce the King’s 
 Representative and the whole Government. 
 
 From that period to the present, the House have per- 
 sisted in their attempt to reduce the whole Government 
 to this state of annual dependence upon them—and now, 
 not only refuse to grant the necessary supplies,unless their 
 right to determine the amount of each separate salary, 
 every year, isadmitted; but they contend that the King 
 cannot apply the monies granted to him by the 14th Geo. 
 Ill. and by the Provincial Act of 1795, to the purposes 
 for which they are appropriated by those Acts, without 
 the specific vote of the Assembly. 
 
 The proceeds of the duties imposed by these Acts, do 
 not by any means amount to a sufficient sum to defray the 
 annual expences of the Government, but as far as they 
 will go, they are applied, by order of His Majesty, to 
 whom they were granted, to the payment of the salaries 
 of the Governor, and the other more essential and higher 
 officers of the Government, who are thus rescued from 
 that state of dependence to which the House of Assembly 
 wished to reduce them. I believe I may assert that no 
 Jarger salaries are paid out of them than these officers 
 enjoyed, before the dispute commenced—an account 
 both of the proceeds of the duties, and the specific sums 
 
 EY) 
 
paid to each officer isannually transmitted to the House, 
 with a request from the Crown, to defray the other un- 
 avoidable expences which the Government is obliged to 
 incur for the public good. This grant is not only with- 
 held, and public servants and public institutions, which 
 are admitted to be necessary, deprived of the remunera- 
 tion and support to which they are entitled—but the 
 application of the before mentioned duties, to the pur- 
 poses to which they are by law appropriated, is declared 
 to be a breach of the privileges of the House of Assembly. 
 
 The Government are perfectly willing to surrender the 
 Revenue which the Crown still possesses in Canada, to 
 the disposal of the Assembly, as the King has surrendered 
 the Revenues which he formerly possessed in Great Bri- 
 tain, provided the Assembly will do as the Parliament 
 has done, substitute some other means of supporting the 
 Government of the Country, in a constitutional manner ; 
 but it is not willing to surrender all the authority of the 
 Country, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, into the 
 hands of the House of Assembly. 
 
 The public cannot be too often reminded, that the 
 House of Assembly did not originally complain of the 
 amount of the Civil List ; they did not say to Sir John 
 Sherbrooke, the estimate which you have submitted to 
 us is beyond our means, or the salary of yourself, or of 
 this or of that officer of the Government, is greater than 
 his situation requires, or his services deserve. In the 
 first session they voted, I believe, a sufficient sum to cover 
 all the expences, and in the second they merely omitted 
 some few items in the estimate. It is not therefore, I 
 repeat it to diminish the public expences, but.to increase 
 their own power that they are contending. It is true 
 that they have recently talked of cutting down the salary 
 of the Governor in Chief, of the Chief Justice, and of 
 others: who have opposed their plans, and it is because 
 this little permanent revenue thwarts their schemes, and, 
 as yet, preserves the independence of the King’s Repre- 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 36 
 
 sentative, and the President of the Council, that they 
 are so anxious to obtain the controu! of it, and so. out- 
 rageous because that controul ts withheld from them, 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to lay before my fellow sub- 
 jects in Noya-Scotia, a plain, and I trust a fair state- 
 ment of the differences which exist between the Govern- 
 ment, and the House of Assembly in Canada; and I think 
 it must be evident to every unprejudiced mind, that the 
 claims of the House, if granted, would be destructive of 
 our mixed Constitution, and render the first and second 
 branches of the Legislature, subservient to the views of 
 
 the third. 
 
 In these days, influence and power are almost synony- — 
 mous terms; let it not therefore be supposed that the evils 
 which it is apprehended would flow from such an order 
 of things are visionary, and would never produce any ill 
 effects in reality—to suppose this is to admit, that the 
 powers which we have hitherto preserved in our Consti- 
 tution are unnecessary, and that all authority may as 
 well be vested in one branch of the Legislature, as divid- 
 ed among the three ; a principle, which, even our re- 
 publican neighbours do not admit—for when they had 
 severed themselves from the parent state,and had no long- 
 ger an hereditary Monarch and Legislative Council, who 
 derived their authority from the King, to balance the 
 democratic power of the country ; they still endeavour- 
 ed to assimilate their form of Government, as nearly 
 as their new situation would admit of, to their former 
 institutions._—Both in the general and state Governments, 
 they divided the legislative power among three distinct 
 bodies politic, and although the political sentiments of 
 the people would not allow them to infuse into their con- 
 stitution, the essence of ours, they preserved its form, 
 and as far as was practicable, its spirit also. 
 
 Let not then the House of Assembly of Canada be sup- 
 ported by public opinion, in their attempt to engross the 
 whole of that power to themselves, in which the Con- 
 
 r—~ 
 \ 
 
 
 
37 
 
 stitution has ordained, that others should participate. 
 { would be no advocate for infringing their privileges, 
 without the enjoyment of which the liberty of the subject 
 could not besecure,and notwithstanding their offer to pay 
 their Civil List, must have been understood as an offer to 
 pay it, as it then existed, if it is found to be outrageously 
 extravagant, let them point out the extravagance to the 
 Government, and insist upon its correction. A fair and 
 manly communication with the Executive would soon 
 correct the evil, if any exist, let them say, ** lay before 
 us a reasonable estimate for the public expenses, such as 
 the country requires and the people can pay, and surren- 
 der to us the Revenue which the King possesses in the 
 Country, and we willthenmakea permanent provision for 
 those expenses. We do not wish to keep the whole Go- 
 vernment in a state of constant dependence upon us. We 
 are aware that the Labourer, whether he labours for the 
 public or for private individuals, is worthy of his hire. 
 We will concur with the other branches of the Legisla- 
 ture in fixing by a permanent Law what that reward shall 
 be, and not leave those who have important public duties 
 to discharge, to depend upon popular caprice for their 
 support.”” Let them say this, and if the Government do 
 not accept their offer, and surrender this revenue to them 
 upon such terms, it will no longer find an advocate in 
 
 A NOVA-SCOTIAN. 
 
 P.S. I would mention to those who think the point 
 not worth disputing about, the two following circum- 
 stances : 
 
 Sir George Prevost’s conduct as Governor-General was 
 disapproved of by the Council, and warmly applauded by 
 the House of Assembly. ‘The latter voted him £2000 to 
 purchase plate, the former rejected the vote ; had his sa- 
 lary been subject to an annual vote it would probably 
 have shared the same fate—should that be the case ? 
 
 
 

 
 38 
 
 In Nova-Scotia, when part of the salary of the Judge 
 (£100) depended upon an annnal vote, a Member of the 
 House of Assembly, whose name appeared very frequently 
 upon the Docket, reminded one of the Judges, with whose 
 public conduct he was displeased, that the annual vote had 
 not yet passed; the observation was received with indig- 
 nation and treated with contempt—but should such offi- 
 ces be subject to such insults? 
 
 The preambule of one of our old Statutes observes, 
 « that it conduceth much to the due administration of 
 Justice, that those who exercise places of trust “ should 
 have competent and certain reward’”’—has this position of 
 our ancestors been confirmed or disapproved by the ex- 
 perience of their posterity? 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 SC A.VOLA, 
 
 #IRST PUBLISHED AT HALIFAX 
 
 ; 
 
 IN 
 
 THE NOVA-SCOTIAN ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COLONIAL HERALD 
 
 3 
 
 in the year 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE Letters of SCASVOLA, on THE PRESENT STATE OF 
 THE Brrrisn Coxoniss, originally appeared, in 1827, in 
 Tue Nova-Scortan, or Cotonrat Herarp, an ably con- 
 ducted paper, published in Halifax. They present the 
 clear andimpartial view, taken by a disinterested Looker- 
 on of the rise and progress of, what are usually termed, 
 the financial difficulties of Lower-Canada, and are now 
 printed in the form of a pamphlet, for the information of 
 those who may take an interest in the concerns of this 
 valuable Colony. The first letter of the series is omitted 
 as not bearing particularly on Canadian affairs, and being 
 therefore unnecessary to the right understanding of the 
 subject. 
 
 Quebec, May, 1828. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 AZ 
 [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 ewe 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 On the present state of the British Colones. 
 —fe> 
 Sir,—Though the design I proposed to myself in ad- 
 
 dressing a series of Letters for publication in your paper 
 was of a general nature, being professedly to set forth in 
 some partial details the eminent advantage derived by 
 these Colonies from their connection with Great-Britain ; 
 yet it will not, I trust,be thought a wide departure from 
 that plan, previously to direct the attention of your rea- 
 ders to a subject, much more narrow and limited in its 
 range, but having a close affinity to the main question ; 
 —I allude to the unfortunate contests which have lately 
 disturbed the Government of Lower-Canada. It is essen- 
 tially necessary that the grounds of these be well under- 
 stood in this Province, for they involve principles that 
 militate against constitutional liberty, and may be, unless 
 timely checked, the fruitful sources of prodigious and 
 permanent mischief. It is high time for the friends of or- 
 der to be alarmed, when the Speaker of the Lower House 
 of Assembly considers himself justified to put forward a 
 Manifesto in the face of the world, flinging back the 
 charges preferred against him and his party by the King’s 
 Representative, and appealing to his constituents against 
 the conduct of the administration. Neither has it any 
 tendency to quiet these fears, when we observe, that cer- 
 tain members, whose names were not annexed to the Ma- 
 nifesto on its first appearance, have since added their sig- 
 natures, and publicly declared their adherence to its lan- 
 guage and pretensions. These are infalible symptoms that 
 if the spirit of disaffection has not spread among the peo- 
 ple, it has taken dangerous root among those to whom 
 they have confided their affairs, The Canadians, on all 
 hands, are represented as a peaceable, loyal and unoffend- 
 
 f— 
 \ 
 
 
 
4S 
 
 ing race, little subject to political animosity and not 
 prone to change ; and it would be a matter deeply to be 
 deplored, if those people, so simple in their manners, so 
 attached to the soil which has given them birth, should 
 be seduced by the intrigues and ambition of a few popu- 
 lar leaders, to swerve from their allegiance or to light 
 the flames of civil discord. Such an evil, it is to be 
 hoped, is still far distant, but it ought to be recollected 
 that intestine broils propagate by their own violence and 
 gather strength as they proceed. Like the dark cloud 
 discovered by the prophet’s eye as rising from the sea, 
 small and no bigger than a man’s hand, but soon aug- 
 menting in size and blackening the whole heavens, they 
 increase in magnitude and dreadful interest, till they ex- 
 asperate every passion, and bring about consequences 
 which could not possibly have been foreseen. The French 
 in Canada may read to themselves an instructive lesson 
 from the chapter of political incidents in Europe.—Let 
 them look upon the scenes which have been passing in 
 the land of their forefathers, and let them ponder on 
 their import and bearing. I can have little expectation, 
 Sir, of securing a favourable audience to any admoni- 
 tions [ may give in an anonymous character,and from this 
 little inconsiderable Province, apart from the theatre of 
 strife, and not fully conversant with all these springs that 
 are at work ; yet this very distance precludes me from 
 being hurried along by intemperate impetuosity, and 
 puts it in my power to form a more deliberate judgment 
 on the subject-matter of the dispute, and on the actions 
 of the parties, than can be passed by those who are stand- 
 ing on the brink of that furious whirlpool which is boil- 
 ing and foaming at their feet with the elements of popu- 
 lar contention. Men engaged in a fray and transported 
 with the heat of opposition, are little capable of decid- 
 ing on the merits of the quarrel, or on the character of 
 their adversaries. ‘The angry feelings are all in arms, and 
 distract the councils of their calmer reason. The by- 
 stander, who has marked the commencement and witness- 
 
 ed the progress, is best qualified to judge of the probable 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 +4 
 
 issue of the rencounter. Such is the vantage ground E 
 occupy on this side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Should 
 I be betrayed, from want of access to the best sources of 
 information, into any errors in point of fact, Ishall at 
 least steer clear of all those which are engendered in the 
 hot-bed of faction. My canvas cannot be overlaid with 
 the colours of party. spirit, and the figures, introduced 
 and sketched from the life will thus have a better chance 
 of coming near to a faithful resemblance, 
 
 I am fully sensible that the partizans of Mr. Papineau, 
 and the newspapers in his interest, disclaim any designs 
 against the Government, and both ridicule and set at 
 nought all apprehensions entertained of any actual dis- 
 turbance or civil commotion. They affect to be merely 
 
 urging their claims in a constitutional manner ; and to. 
 
 be asking that redress from the King which is refused 
 them by his Representative. Perfectly willing they pre- 
 tend to be, in as far as a just regard to the rights of their 
 constituents will allow, to make ample provision for the 
 exigences of the civil administration of the Government ; 
 only that provision must be annual, liable to perpetual 
 
 discussion in the Lower-House, and to be encreased, dimi-. 
 
 nished or discontinued, according to the ebbing and 
 flowing of popular feeling at the moment—His Majesty, 
 the recognised head of the Government,. is not to have a 
 single shilling at his own disposal ; he may send out a 
 Commander-in-Chief ; he may appoint Judges, an Attor- 
 ney and Solicitor-General, but he must have no power to 
 bestow on them a suitable establishment, Their salaries 
 are not to come from the Royal purse, nor be thought to 
 proceed from the munificence of the Sovereign, but to be 
 doled out of the hard earnings of the people, and obtain- 
 ed by the ascendancy and eloquence of a few legal ora- 
 tors. Such are the assumptions of this band of Patriots, 
 
 who are leagued in Canada to defend the legitimate rights. 
 
 and. privileges of the people, and who have fronted and 
 
 bearded the existing Administration as the champions of 
 
 Colonial liberty. They are desirous of no political 
 
 ee 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 4D 
 
 change, approach the throne in the language of respect- 
 ful submission, and talk of loyalty and attachment, while 
 they meditate a deep plot of stripping his Majesty of all 
 substantial power. While such pretensions are advanced 
 so utterly at variance with the practical effect of British 
 Freedom, and so obviously calculated to sap the founda- 
 tion and tarnish the splendour of the throne, away with 
 all the cant and hypocrisy of homage. I look to acts not 
 to words—to the tendency of measures and not to the 
 motives from which their authors would wish me to be- 
 lieve they proceed. The men who can advocate these 
 opinions, so fraught with revolution, are guiding the 
 vessel of the State among shoals and quick-sands, and will 
 never attain the honours of skilful pilotage. Say what 
 they please, the passengers are in danger, and shipwreck 
 is inevitable. The course they are steering is so full of 
 peril, that I cannot conceive by what process of reasoning” 
 they have deceived themselves into a belief of security, 
 although I can readily comprehend the advantage it may 
 give them in the progress of the contest to lull the suspi- 
 cion of Government, Let them beware of the fatal effects. 
 which may ensue from a continuance in this blind and 
 headlong obstinacy. The men who revolutionized] France, 
 became the victims of that vulgar and unmanageable 
 fury which they first let loose. The throne which they. 
 overturned and deluged with the blood of their Sovereign 
 fell on their own head and crushed them to pieces. The 
 liberty which they pretended to be in quest of eluded 
 their research, and in its place they alighted on a military 
 despotism which long scourged their country and Eu- 
 rope by the most frightful inflictions, and terminated hap— 
 pily for mankind, in the re-establishment of that more 
 peaceful order of things which had been destroyed. AI? 
 interference with constituted authority is a hazardous 
 game, which can only be justified on the plea of the most 
 imperious necessity. Partial evils must be borne, not vi- 
 olently resisted. The physical force of the people is the 
 last resort ; to which the politician should never apply 
 
 
 
% 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 on behalf of the trappings and appendages of liberty, 
 when her real essence and being are not endangered. 
 
 But the Canadian patriots will tell me that all this is 
 idle declamation, and that a constitutional inquiry has 
 not been yet carried into the grounds of their complaints 
 —that they are only contending for the just rights of the 
 people, who, either by themselves or their representa- 
 tives, have solely the power of granting and appropriat- 
 ing all taxes and imposts—that the English people exer- 
 cise this uncontrolled power over the Revenue, and that 
 the Colonists, being co-heirs of the same constitution, 
 may legitimately claim a like privilege and authority. 
 By this standard, they say, the question ought to be tri- 
 ed; and they are ready to abide by the decision. Be it so; 
 I accept the terms, and shall at once proceed to investi- 
 gate the matter in debate by the maxims and practice of 
 the British Constitution. 
 
 Every Lawyer knows that the mixed form of Govern- 
 ment, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons, originat- 
 ed in what is denominated the Feudal System. This lat- 
 ter was introduced into Europe by those rude and north- 
 ern invaders, who, in the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 poured in immense masses into the finer Provinces of the 
 Roman Empire, and laid the foundation of those King- 
 doms, which have since been established there. ‘They left 
 their own habitations and inhospitable climes in the form 
 of an army, bent on conquest, and more or less organiz- 
 ed under military leaders. ‘The Chief Commander, on tak- 
 ing possession of a country, assumed the reins of Govern- 
 ment in virtue of his superior rank, and he divided and 
 dealt out his authority, as well as the lands that he 
 conquered, among the officers, that had followed his for- 
 tunes. The share belonging to each was proportioned to 
 his influence and authority ; and the various titles and 
 orders of nobility had their rise in the degrees of military 
 command originally possessed by their warlike owners. 
 The system, which grew out of this extraordinary state 
 
 
 

 
 47 
 
 of things, invested the Commander in Chief with all the 
 attributes of Supreme power, so that he was at once the 
 fountain of honor, and the greatest proprietor in the 
 kingdom. Among his officers, he distributed counties, 
 districts, baronies, and manors ; and vested them with the 
 corresponding titles of Dukes, Thanes, Earls,and Barons. 
 Upon the soldiers who filled up the ranks he conferred, 
 less or more minute parcels of land, and bound them un- 
 der strict military tenures. The whole distribution of 
 property in the European Kingdoms may be traced back 
 to the arrangements made under this singular and extra- 
 ordinary state of Society, and without studying the his- 
 tory of that period it is still impossible to comprehend 
 thoroughly the spirit and forms of the British Govern- 
 ment. Accordingly when we look for the first elements 
 of that Constitution under which we live, we find it scat- 
 tered and dispersed amid the chaos of feudal ideas. The 
 King strikes our eye as the principal figure, standing at 
 the head of the Nobility, and possessing an ample heredi- 
 tary revenue, not dependent on the grants of the other 
 two orders in the State, but vested in his own person and 
 descending to his heir with the Crown. This revenue was 
 calledthe ordinary and hereditary patrimony of the Sove- 
 reign, disposable at his will, and constituting the fund 
 essential for the maintenance of his state and dignity. It 
 was the original share of the spoils set apart for him, in 
 virtue of his superior authority ; and he held it by the 
 same right on which the Nobles claimed their estates, and 
 the freemen their allotments of land. The sources of this 
 ordinary revenue, it would be tedious to enumerate ; and 
 I'shall only mention, that the Royal demesnes and fo- 
 rests, quit-rents, the Customs, escheats, wardships, the 
 rights of purveyance and preemption, fines and forfei- 
 tures, marriages—were all among the number. By the 
 possession of these and several others, the King was ena- 
 bled to defray the charges of his ordinary civil establish- 
 ment, and to pay the salaries of the officers of his house- 
 hold, and of his Courts of Justice. The Lords and Com- 
 mons assembled in Parliament during the first ages of 
 
 
 

 
 48 
 
 English history, no more dreamt of interfering with the 
 hereditary revenue of the Crown, than with the private 
 expenditure of any individual, noble or plebeian in the 
 nation. 
 
 But beside this ordinary, there was what has been call- 
 ed the extraordinary revenue of the Sovereign, and which 
 was granted inform of aids, subsidies and fifteenths. 
 These were taxesimposed to meet great emergencies, such 
 as the waging of war, or repelling invasion, and were 
 granted for special purposes, and under express limita- 
 tions. They were the gift of the Nobles and Commons, 
 out of their private property, and therefore they claimed 
 the right of fixing their amount and of appropriating 
 them to their ends. These aids could not be obtained 
 without calling together the three Estates, and hence the 
 reason that our ancient kings were compelled, often a- 
 gainst their will, to have recourse to their Parliament for 
 supplies, on any uncommon juncture of affairs. In ordi- 
 nary times, and under ordinary circumstances, the Go- 
 vernment could be conducted out of the hereditary reve- 
 nue of the Crown, and these troublesome Assemblies be 
 dispensed with by the reigning Prince, frequently for a 
 series of years. 
 
 This distinction which we have endeavoured to estab- 
 lish betwixt the ordinary and extraordinary revenue is of 
 vast importance towards the right understanding of the 
 British Constitution, and will unravel many intricacies 
 that occur in the reign of the Plantagenets and Tudors. 
 Neither will it be without its use when applied to the 
 existing differences betwixt the Lower House and the 
 Executive in Canada. 
 
 I have further to state that this ordinary revenue of the 
 Crown,derivable chiefly from the usages of the Feudal Sys- 
 tem, was experienced to press with peculiar severity, in 
 many instances, on the subject, and after more liberal 
 notions of civil freedom obtained, successive attempts 
 were made to substitute a definitive sum for these preca- 
 
 o™ 
 } 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 49 
 
 rious exactions. In this way the ancient patrimony of 
 our Kings came to be commuted for specific sums of mo- 
 ney taken out of the general taxes; and the Civil List oc- 
 cupied the place of the ordinary Revenue. In confirma- 
 tion of this, I need only refer to the abolition of purvey- 
 ance at the Restoration, when Charles IT. consented to 
 resign entirely that branch of his Revenue, and to ac- 
 cept, in recompense, the hereditary excise 15d. per bar- 
 rel on all beer and ale sold in the kingdom, and that 
 this excise was at a later period, 30th Geo. Il, cap. 19, 
 made up to the Crown by an annyal sum of upwards of 
 £7000 exigible from duties imposed on Wine licences. 
 ft would be a loss of time to pursue this matter farther, 
 and it is sufficient to state that the invariable practice 
 has been of late to place at the disposal of his Majesty, at 
 the commencement of his reign, and during the term of 
 his natural life, a sum adequate to meet the expences of 
 his household, to pay the Salaries of his official servants, 
 to uphold his rank and establishment in a style of magni- 
 ficence that might cope with that of the proudest and 
 richest Nobles of the land. True ; this sum now is the 
 Grant of Parliament, but it is the liquidation of a debt 
 due to the Crown for the remuneration of that ample 
 Revenue, that flowed from sources reaching’ back to 
 feudal times, and then held by an independent and inhe- 
 rent right. Hence, the reason that the Civil List. at pre- 
 sent in Britain upwards of a Million Sterling, is not vot- 
 ed annually ; hence, the reason that its expenditure is not 
 scrutinized and examined and sifted with the same prying 
 spirit of economy ; and hence, too, the cause that out of 
 this fund placed at the command of His Majesty are still 
 payable, the Salaries of public officers that of old depend- 
 ed on the ordinary Revenue of the Crown. There is no 
 clearer doctrine known to the Constitution, than that the 
 Monarch be regarded not only as the first Magistrate, 
 but as the First Genrieman in the Kingdom ; and that 
 his rank and dignity be maintained with appropriate lus- 
 tre and grandeur. Strip him a means essential to his 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 50 
 
 lofty station, or make those means dependent on the ca- 
 price of annual votes, and you virtually dissolve the Go- 
 vernment. It would be no longer the frame work, vene- 
 rable by its antiquity and endeared to Englishmen, whe- 
 ther at home or abroad, as the best practical system of 
 civil and political liberty ever yet devised by the wisdom 
 of men, but a new structure of modern art, and bearing 
 a close resemblance to republicanism or democracy. 
 
 SCAVOLA. 
 
 Ne A PR At 
 ee a ee 
 
 [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 eee 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 On the present state of the British Colomes. 
 La 
 Sir, 
 
 In my last I entered on the merits of the controversy 
 now agitated betwixt the Executive Government in 
 Lower-Canada, and the House of Assembly: and I re- 
 sorted for my arguments to the Feudal System, which in 
 its legitimate operation and natural tendencies, consider- 
 ed distinct from all prospective wisdom in our forefathers, 
 suggested the image of the British Constitution ; and 
 cast the first mould of that singular and admirable ba- 
 lance of civil liberty, which has since worked so truly, 
 and dealt out so largea share of happiness to the nation. 
 I showed, that in this system the King had assigned him 
 a station and pre-eminence above the Aristocracy ; and 
 enjoyed in his own right a territorial and hereditary Re- 
 venue, out of which he defrayed the charges of his house- 
 hold and of his Courts of Justice, and which never was, 
 nor could, according to feudal ideas, be limited, con- 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 
 

 
 5] 
 
 trolled, or appropriated by the other two branches, 
 This revenue was just as much the property of the Crown, 
 and placed as entirely at its disposal, without check or 
 restriction, as were the lands of the Nobles or of the 
 lesser allodial proprietors. And this independent distri- 
 bution of the fruits of their victory, among those who 
 had won it by their swords, was in perfect accordance 
 with the notions of Justice, in that age, and might, 
 without reference to history, be taken for granted as the 
 necessary and inevitable result. The newcountry, which 
 the military adventurers had overun with their arms, 
 was seized by violence, and partitioned among them as 
 freemen, all vested with personal and unalienable rights, 
 yet each having his own peculiar share of power, influ- 
 ence and authority. In this division of a conquered ter. 
 ritory, is it to be supposed for a moment, that the Com- 
 mander of the hostile band would be the only individual, 
 who was to forgo his own claims, and trust for the main- 
 ance of his rank and station to the free and voluntary 
 contributions of his officers and men. Was he to have 
 no funds, but what were derived from their benevolence ? 
 Were they to grasp at all, and then return him out of 
 their mere good will and pleasure, the meeted pittance or 
 liberal supply, as selfishness or generosity chanced to 
 predominate ? The whole strain of European history, 
 falsifies these suppositions, for no sooner is the pall lifted 
 in the dark ages from the last remains of the Roman 
 Power; than we discover the Crown both in France, 
 Spain and England, in possession of an income, fit for 
 the ordinary ends of Government, and which was not 
 derivable from nor dependent on the grants of the Tiers 
 Etats, the Cortes, or the Parliament. ‘That such was 
 the state of the fact in the last country is confirmed by all 
 our historial monuments, and by what may be accounted 
 of no less incontrovertable authority, the structure of 
 common law. It was from this independent revenue, 
 that the Monarch was enabled to meet his ordinary dis- 
 bursements, and to pay the Salaries of the Treasurer, the 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 keeper of the Privy Seal, the Judges of both Benches, 
 the Barons of the Exchequer, and before the establish- 
 ment of fees, of the Collectors and Comptrollers of his 
 Customs. It is curious, too, to observe, and not foreign 
 from our purpose, that the first struggles for liberty were 
 not occasioned by any differences betwixt the King and 
 the people, about the ancient and undoubted dues of the 
 Crown, but about arbitrary attempts to stretch the pre- 
 rogative in the levying of aids and subsidies, without 
 the consent of Parliament. It was the imposition of ship- 
 money, that called forth the heroic resistance of Hampden, 
 and has handed him down to us with all the honors of a 
 patriot. 
 
 I have been the more anxious to place this great doc- 
 trine of the British Constitution in a variety of lights ; 
 because a very common error has prevailed, that the 
 Civil List, which has come in lieu of the hereditary pa- 
 trimony of the Crown, 1s the free gift of the Commons, 
 and may be directed and appropriated like other grants. 
 On this question, it ought not to be forgotten, that the 
 different branches of the Royal hereditary revenue have 
 either been abolished sometimes by direct and sometimes 
 by implied compact, or merged into the public funds of 
 the country, and that therefore an equitable claim lies 
 with the Executive fora full equivalent, at least to the 
 extent of what has been lost or resigned. I say nothing 
 at present of the expediency of upholding the dignity of 
 the throne, I am confining my observation to the justice 
 of it. 
 
 I shall now advert to another principle of the Con- 
 stitution, which requires to be cleared up, and accurate- 
 ly comprehended, for the solving of those political 
 differences of which we are now treating ; and that is 
 the powers of the three constituent Branches in the ris- 
 ing, granting and appropriation of Supplies. 
 
 
 

 
 53 
 
 The raising of Supplies can be effected obviously by 
 no other means than the imposition of taxes, the amount 
 and collection of which are specified and defined in what 
 are called Bills of Revenue. These taxes, the most of 
 them, are of general pressure, and fall, indiscriminately, 
 upon all orders; and of course from time immemorial, 
 the consent of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, and of 
 the Commons in their respective houses, has been regard- 
 ed as indispensable to their imposition. And itis but 
 fair and reasonable that it should be so. The Aristo- 
 cracy, from the very Jarge share of property in their hands 
 and the consequent extent of their consumption of all 
 dutible articles, must contribute no inconsiderable quota 
 of the aggregate amount ; and before the accumulation 
 and wide diffusion of commercial and manufacturing 
 capital among the middle classes, that quota must have 
 been the larger porportion of the whole. During the 
 reigns of the three Edwards, and before our Constitu- 
 tion had become consolidated into a perfect system, and 
 the bounds of the two Houses had been settled and accu- 
 rately defined ; it is on record, that the grants of the 
 tenths or fifteenths were made by distinct acts of the 
 Clergy for themselves, of the Temporal Lords for their 
 order, and of the citizens and burgesses, for their con- 
 stituents. At this period the will of each was separately 
 expressed—a decisive proof, that taxes which affected 
 property universally, could only be levied by common 
 consent. ‘T’his then is the cause why the House of Com- 
 mons, though the representatives of the people, are not 
 permitted by the usages of the Constitution, to lay an 
 burden whatever, by their sole authority. A Money Bill, 
 although it must originate with them, in consistency 
 with parliamentary forms, and for which there are man 
 considerations of expediency, may be rejected by the 
 Lords ; and may also, should any of its provisions touch 
 the Prerogative or seem to press unequally on his people, 
 
 be disallowed by His Majesty. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 7 — lll” med aie ~T 
 ' 
 w 1! 
 
 54 
 
 Qnd. Asupply may be granted for one or any number 
 of years, or in perpetuity, for a special or for a general 
 purpose ; and in every diversity of its application, whe~ 
 ther as-to time or object, the concurrence of the three 
 Branches is essential. Should the Grant, by the clauses 
 of the Bill, be placed at the disposal of Commissioners, 
 or vested in trustees or be left to the management of any 
 recognized Board of the Government, as that of the 
 Lords of the Treasury, or of the Admiralty, it is abun- 
 dantly manifest that it could not be resumed by the Com- 
 
 mons, and appropriated to any other object by the ex-. 
 
 ercise of their own authority. Neither have they the 
 power of controlling the items of its expenditure, or 
 imposing on them any new limitations. All they could 
 do in case of mismanagement, would be to prefer their 
 complaint, and introduce a new Bill with the view of 
 wresting the money out of the unskilful or iniquitous 
 hands that held it ; but that new Bill must run its cus- 
 tomary course, be passed by the Lords, and assented to 
 by the King. Should it be stopped in any of these sta- 
 ges of its progress, the House of Commons could obtain 
 no relief, and must resignedly submit to the evil, which 
 they had tried in vain to remedy. 
 
 3nd. It is the undoubted privilege of the Commons, 
 in voting any supplies whatever, to be as minute and spe- 
 cific in their appropriation, as may be consistent with 
 their own dignity, and the wants of the public service, 
 may subdivide any sum into parts, and direct the manner 
 in which these parts are to be applied. And indeed as 
 the right of organization is lodged with them, accord- 
 ing to the admitted forms of the constitution, this power 
 of special approbation gives them an infinite controul 
 ever all branches of the publicexpenditure. This power 
 however, important as it is in its consequences must be 
 put forth in the first instance ; for if the Bill which has 
 granted the sums, be once passed, and has received the 
 royal assent, the Commons cannot of their own authority, 
 
 ~~ 
 j 
 
 <<  , 
 
 
 

 
 55 
 
 correct any mistakes which they may have committed, or 
 what is less, supply any obvious omissions. Their first 
 bill which has gone into effect, must continue operative, 
 tillit is amended or repealed by the same treble assent 
 that gave it a legal existence. 
 
 All these remarks which I have been called upon to 
 make in the course of my inquiry, are little more than 
 political truisms, so simple, so easy, that they carry 
 along with them their own evidence. Admit once, that 
 a Law is established by the united voice of the three 
 Branches of the Legislature, and it follows asa necessary 
 corollary, that none of them, individually, can amend 
 or abrogate it. A perpetual or temporary approprias 
 tion out of the general revenue for a particular purpose, 
 settled by a public act, must remain as the law of the 
 land, unaltered and unalterable, till the three Branches 
 concur inits repeal, or until it expire of itself. No in- 
 consistency or levity of purpose in the popular Assembly 
 can defeat its provisions ; neither can the vast and seem= 
 ingly unbounded influence of the Crown, nor the formi- 
 dable weight of the aristocracy effect a like object. These 
 different powers are admirably balanced by our consti- 
 tion, and form correctives and checks to the tendencies 
 ofeach. The establishment of these poises and counter- 
 poises, is at once the chief ornament, and the best se- 
 curity of our political freedom ; and will always be 
 religiously and inviolably preserved by those Statesmen, 
 who have studied the Science of government, and come 
 to the conclusion, that the noblest fabric of national 
 glory, that the world has hitherto witnessed, rests on 
 this foundation. 
 
 I have one other copic to discuss and explain a little 
 before I proceed to apply these positions to the disputes 
 in Canada ; and this last may be summarily expressed in 
 these words, “ that the frame work of the British Con- 
 stitution, modified by a requisite, nay, a necessary policy, 
 
 
 

 
 56 
 
 
 
 is transplanted into the North American Province,’ ’— 
 with the exception of Newfoundland, which has not yet 
 received any local General Assembly. The form of all 
 those is nearly the same. ‘The freeholders of whatever 
 denomination of religion, enjoy the elective franchise, 
 and send their representatives to impose taxes and manage 
 their public concerns. A Legislative Council is consti- 
 tuted with the powers and after the model of the House 
 of Lords, and is drawn chiefly from the higher officers of 
 the Crown.—His Majesty is at the head of the Colonial 
 Government, and exercises his regal negative on all the 
 Bills and Acts of the General Assemblies, as he does on 
 those of the Imperial Parliament ; although on account 
 of the distance, he, by a commission, appoints a Govern- 
 or who acts under special instructions and whose assent 
 to a bill gives it merely a temporary effect, as it is not 
 final till the Royal will is expressed and signified. The 
 Governments of all these Colonies are strictly British, 
 and cannot be said to be copies and imitations of the 
 great original so much as scions proceeding from the 
 same stem. The Monarchical power claims and exer- 
 cises the like prerogatives in these American Possessions, 
 as in the Parent state; it presides over their forms of 
 Justice. and receives all their supplies, to be afterwards 
 distributed, by its own recognized executive authority, 
 according to the exigencies of the Public Service. The 
 King is the sole supreme head throughout the whole km- 
 pire ; but acts in England through the Lords and Com- 
 mons, and in his foreign dependencies by their own legis- 
 lative Councils and Assemblies. 
 
 Betwixt the Colonial and Maternal Legislatures, how- 
 ever, certain distinctions subsist, that must not be over- 
 looked in forming our estimate of the rights and privileges 
 belonging to each; and without marking these, we 
 cannot entertain very correct opinions, nor be in a condi- 
 tion to decide, on constitutional grounds, any contro- 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 57 
 
 versy; that may arise from conflicting claims and interests. 
 On these distinctions, I must beg leave to speak a word or 
 two by way of explanation. 
 
 1. The Colonial Legislatures have practically and in 
 fact a merely local jurisdiction. They have the right to 
 levy taxes and appropriate them towards their internal 
 improvement. ‘They can enact laws for the regulation 
 of their own private affairs, and for calling into action 
 the capabilities and resources which may be at their com- 
 mand; but they cannot interfere with their neighbours, 
 nor by any of those ingenious contrivances of Legisla- 
 tion to which independent States have recourse, can they 
 put down a rival, seize a commercial advantage, or alter 
 inany shape their foreign relations. A Provincial Act 
 of Canada has no forcein New Brunswick: neither could 
 it shut out nor admit to entry the goods, wares and mer- 
 chandize of any foreign nation, to which his Majesty 
 had granted, or from which he had withheld the liberty 
 of trading with his Colonies. 
 
 2. The Imperial Parliament hasan authority co-exten- 
 sive with the Empire, and is essentially paramount and 
 supreme, in order the more effectually to discharge its 
 high functions, and to bind the different parts into a 
 close political union. ‘This jurisdiction, mighty and vast 
 as itis, ought not to be contemplated with jealousy, be- 
 ing indispensible to the preservation and safety of the 
 whole. It may at times restrain, limit and controul, so 
 as to occasion a partial evil; but like the universal law 
 of gravity in the Solar System, it keeps the subordinate 
 bodies in their proper spheres, regulates their motions, 
 and prevents them from diverging beyond the grateful 
 and fructifying influences of livht and heat. Without 
 this connecting and presiding dominion in the imperial 
 Government, no unity of plan, no tendency to a com- 
 mon interest could possibly be perceived or felt in her 
 widely separated and scattered —- lying more or 
 
 
 

 
 a 
 m » ae os 
 
 58 
 
 less in every quarter of the Globe and in every Ocean by 
 which the terrestial surface is chequered. This para- 
 mount authority is such, that all laws issuing from it, 
 are of universal operation, and of their own right annul 
 and sweep away every colonial regulation or usage, that 
 is in opposition to them, and that crosses, contradicts, 
 or traverses their provisions. This assumption of unli- 
 mited legislative control might be regarded as frightful 
 and dangerous, had it not imposed fetters on itself to 
 quiet the fears and apprehensions entertained ofits abuse. 
 Guarding as Britain does every section of a vast Empire 
 by expensive Military and Naval Establishments, she 
 claimed the right, about the middle of the last century, of 
 raising and levying taxes on her foreign possessions, 
 which were to flow into the Imperial. Treasury and be 
 available to the purposes of the General Government ; 
 but as this exercise of legislative power might have been 
 carried to an unwarrantable length, and have drained the 
 Colonies of the little wealth derivable from their own 
 
 ‘industry and which would be much more beneficially ap- 
 
 plied to the development of their native resources ; it 
 awoke a spirit of resistance, and created the troubles of 
 the American Revolution. All this is matter of history 
 on which I shall not dwell, but shall content myself by 
 simply pointing out the decided improvement in the 
 colonial policy that grew out of this opposition. The 
 Mother Country, at an early stage of the American 
 disturbances and when she was in the full view of quell- 
 ing them successfully, at any rate long before the issue 
 of the struggles could be foreseen by her, made a gene- 
 rous and volountary surrender of two distinct rights, 
 which she had previously maintained, and on which she 
 had up to this period invariably insisted. The less im- 
 portant of these was, a renunciation of all future inter- 
 ference with the internal taxation of her Colonies, thus 
 leaving them at liberty to manage and adjust their affairs 
 by their own Assemblies: and the other, but infinitely 
 superior inits character and consequences was a declara- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
59 
 
 tory disavowal by Parliament, of applying any taxes, 
 imposed by its authority for the further regulation of 
 Foreign Commerce, to aid the public funds of the Mother 
 Country ; and also a distinct pledge that the net produce 
 of such taxes levied in the North American Possessions 
 should be paid into the hands of the respective Receivers 
 General or Treasurers, and placed at the disposal of the 
 Local Legislatures. By this famous Act i8th Geo. IIT. 
 cap. 12, and which has been justly and triumphantly 
 styled the Charter of our Colonial Liberty, the causes of 
 any suspicion or dread of Imperial authority were happily 
 removed, and a basis laid for strengthening the relations 
 of amity, friendly feeling and reciprocal intercourse. In 
 this statute, which has been liable to much misinterpre- 
 tation, the Parliament asserts its own supremacy and 
 claims the exclusive right to regulate the foreign tradé 
 of her Colonies, by taxes or prohibitions; and its effect 
 too was to be prospective,—not to repeal any duties then 
 payable to the Crown in the Colonies except the duty on 
 Tea which had been the immediate occasion, and main 
 spring of the rebellion at that time raging in this Conti- 
 nent, 
 
 With this brief exposition of some leading principles 
 of the British Constitution and of the nature of those 
 privileges which have been guaranteed to us as Colonists, 
 I trust every one will be now prepared to accompany me 
 into the consideration of the disputes in Lower Canada 
 and to guide himself by the lights that have been set up 
 in this perplexing field of enquiry. If the positions I 
 have asserted or the definitions I have given of Constitu- 
 tional principles be incorrect, I call on the Canadian 
 Patriots to expose their fallacy ; for the merits of the 
 question at issue between those and the Executive must 
 be tried by the tests which I have attempted to establish. 
 If I have not practised on my own judgment some gross 
 and wonderful delusion, there cannot be a doubt, that 
 the popular party are aiming at an impracticable object, 
 
 
 

 
 60 
 
 
 
 and which cannot be attained without subverting that 
 Government, and prostituting that liberty, of which they 
 profess to be the admirers and advocates. 
 
 | 
 
 | 
 
 ; SCAEVOLA. 
 | | 
 
 
 
 | [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.} 
 ; 
 
 , aia 
 
 | LETTER IV. 
 
 : _—— 
 
 On the present state of the British Colonies. 
 eva 
 Sir, 
 
 Before applying the principles. and usages of the Bri- 
 tish Constitution, illustrated in my last letter, to the 
 differences now pending betwixt the Representatives of 
 the people and the Executive government of Lower-Ca- 
 nada, it may not be improper, by way of introduction, 
 to give a brief abstract of the political and civil history 
 of that Colony. Without this knowledge, it will be ab- 
 solutely impossible to form a correct estimate of the con- 
 rary views and conflicting reasonings, by which either 
 party attempt to defend the ground which they have 
 chosen. The different writers who address the public 
 through the medium of the papers edited in Quebec and 
 Montreal, are at this stage of the controversy, so imbued 
 with the spirit of party ; that they deal much more in the 
 language of vituperation, than in exhibiting lucidly and 
 in order, the merits of the question. 
 
 In 1759 Quebec surrendered to the arms of his Britanic 
 Majesty, and Montreal submitted to the same fate in the 
 year following—the period in which George III. ascend- 
 ed the Throne of EKogland, In the capitulation of the 
 
 
 

 
 61 
 
 Marquis de Vaudreuil, be expressly stipulated fora safe 
 conveyance to France, of all such as might be disinclined 
 to transfer their allegiance to a new Master, and to live 
 under the British Government. This privilege, asked in 
 the 36th article, was unconditionally granted to the 
 French, Canadians, merchants and other persons who chose 
 to retire to France, either at that time, or at the definitive 
 treaty of peace. ‘The acceptance, therefore, of the new 
 order of things arising out of the events of that war, was 
 to every subject of his most Christian Majesty, an act of 
 his free will and pleasure; and if dissatisfied, he had the 
 liberty of selling his effects, and withdrawing from the 
 country. 
 
 In 1763, when Canada was finally ceded and guaran- 
 teed:to the British Crown, His most Christian Majesty 
 conveyed and made over, “the Sovereignty, property, 
 ‘ possession, and all rights acquired by treaty or other- 
 “ wise, which he had, till then, over the said countries, 
 “ islands, places, coasts, and their inhabitants, and that 
 “in the most ample manner and form, without restric- 
 “ tion, or liberty to disturb Great Britain in the pos- 
 “session thereof.” In this way His Majesty by right of 
 conquest first, and of treaty afterwards, succeeded to the 
 duties and taxes which were levied in Canada, by French 
 authority ; and he continued to collect these and to appro- 
 priate them, to the support of the new Government, for 
 the space of Il years, before they were discontinued by 
 act of Parliament, 
 
 n 
 
 But in 1774, all these French taxes were repealed, 
 and in place of them rates were imposed on brandy, rum, 
 spirits and molasses, by 14th Geo. III. cap, 88 ; for the 
 avowed object, as the title of the imperial act sets forth, 
 “to establish a fund for defraying the charges of the 
 administration of Justice, and support of the Civil Go-« 
 vernment.” This fund sv raised was to be applied by the 
 Lord High Treasurer or any three or more of the Coms 
 
 
 

 
 62 
 
 missioners of His Majesty’s Treasury, by warrants under 
 their hands, towards the payment of the said expenses ; 
 and the residue, if any, was placed at the future disposal 
 of Parliament.—The King, by this act, was legally vest- 
 ed with the power of appropriating these duties to the 
 purposesof his colonial government, and his right of con- 
 quest was swallowed up, and absorbed in this legitimate 
 gift of the two branches. It must also be brought into 
 notice, that at this period 1774, it was deemed inexpe- 
 dient to grant a representative Assembly to Canada; and 
 its affairs were managed by a Governor and Council. 
 No local Legislature, therefore, existed to raise the 
 necessary supplies for the maintenance of the Civil Ad- 
 ministration, and under these circumstances the British 
 Lords and Commons were the only constitutional autho- 
 rity. 
 
 It ought further to be observed, that this statute, 
 which creates a revenue to the Crown, by internal taxa- 
 tion in an American Colony, was passed four years prior 
 to the celebrated 18th Geo. III. cap. 12, which we al- 
 ready designated as the Magna Charta of our Provincial 
 Liberties, and which renounced in future the exercise of 
 such aright on the part of the British Government. But 
 as the produce of these duties never was, at any time re- 
 mitted to England to swell the receipts of the Exchequer, 
 but has been wholly expended in the payment of official 
 Salaries in Canada; there is not a plea left for murmur- 
 ing against the measure, and indeed so inadequate is the 
 provision of this Imperial Statute for the necessary exi- 
 gencies of the Civil Administration, that the Provincial 
 Legislature, when it was constituted and called into ex- 
 istence 18 years afterwards, gave His Majesty the further 
 sum of £5000 Sterling for meeting these indispensable 
 charges. The first Legislative Council and Assembly of 
 Lower Canada, met in Dec. 1792, and in their third 
 session gave a perpetual grant of the above sum, to be 
 paid annually “ towards farther (mark the word) defray- 
 
 
 
 } 
 
 a 
 
63 
 
 ing the expenses of the Administration of Justice, and of 
 the support of the Civil Government,” 35th Geo. ILL. 
 cap, 9, section 17. 
 
 After this hasty sketch of their political history, let us 
 now stop and reason a little on constitutional grounds. 
 The facts which I have stated, are all correct and drawn 
 from the most authentic sources ; and I have taken these 
 pains, to check the mischievous spirit of disaffection, 
 which breathes in the columns of some Canadian papers 
 that have lately fallen into my hands. So satisfied am I 
 of the incalculable benefits we derive in these Colonies 
 from our connection with Britain, and of the paternal care 
 with which she has watched over our interest ; that it is 
 our duty to feel gratitude rather than to express disloyalty, 
 or to unloose any of the ties by which we are bound to 
 her. IfI have falsified any of my statements or coloured 
 my quotations, [ stand amenable at the bar of the Public. 
 
 The King then, by the session of Canada, came in the 
 place of its original sovereign, and succeeded to the 
 rights and privileges of the latter. The duties collected 
 from the people by the Old Government were continued 
 by the new, and applied to the necessary expenses of 
 the administration of the Province. A British act com- 
 muted these French taxes for others, substituted in their 
 room eleven years after the conquest ; and empowered 
 the Lords of the Treasury to pay out of them the chargres 
 of the Civil Government, This application is virtually 
 acceeded to by the Provincial Parliament of Lower-Ca- 
 nada in the further grant of £5000 sterling, which they 
 made for the same purpose in 1795. Now, I ask, is there 
 any power in the House of Assembly at Quebec to inter- 
 meddle with these two appropriations! In the first place 
 the King received the former grant from his British Par- 
 liament and the latter grant he received from his Provin- 
 cial, so that in holding both he is exercising no indefen- 
 sible and high act of prerogative, as they are the gifts of 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 his subjects. Besides, he has given his Royal assent to 
 both bills, that of 1774 as well as that of 1795; and 
 these must continue Law, till they are abrogated by the 
 selfsame authority. Is there a statesman who can offer 
 the shadow of a single constitional argument in behalf of 
 the House of Assembly or of its Speaker, Mr. Papineau ? 
 Every attempt to seize those revenues vested in and con- 
 ferred on the Crown by Public Acts is levelling a blow 
 at the Constitution, and if carried home must plant there 
 a deadly wound. The Government is subverted, if the 
 Lower House shall gain the victory in the quarrel. 
 
 But setting aside all the force which this view of the 
 matter borrows from the existence of Statutes, and con- 
 templating it in the light of mere political expediency ; 
 Ishall beg leave to propound a simple question, to be 
 answered by the wholesome doctrines of genuine British 
 freedom. Could His Majesty stand at the head of the 
 Government in Canada, and exercise there the functions 
 of his regal prerogative, if he possessed no independent 
 fund, from whence to pay the Salaries of his official ser- 
 vants? As the world is now constituted, money is the 
 only true source of substantial power ; and a King with- 
 out the means of providing for those around his govern- 
 ment, would be little more than an airy vision of royalty. 
 Why is the civil list voted to His Majesty during the 
 term of his natural life, and that too by a people jealous 
 of their liberties, enlightened in the mechanism of Go- 
 vernment, and profoundly versed in all its details? It 
 is to make him independent, and to provide a fund not 
 liable to the fluctuation and caprice of a popular Assem- 
 bly. It is vain to argue further, for a King known and 
 recognised by the British Constitution must havea re- 
 venue in every colony where his sovereignty is exercised, 
 and he must derive it either from that colony itself or 
 from his native dominions. The civil establishment must 
 be set on a permanent and stable footing, which can 
 only be effected by an independent revenue. 
 
 
 
65 
 
 But the democratic party may turn round and become 
 the assailants in the argument, by desiring me to look 
 to Nova Scotia for any practical example of those max- 
 ims which I have been inculcating. There, say they, 
 the King derives no means from the people of sustaining 
 the weight of his government, and the House of Assem- 
 bly has the unlimited controul over all the appropria- 
 tions. In reply, I shall take the liberty of remarking, 
 that the colonial policy of Great Britain has been of an 
 accommodating and paternal character, and infinitely 
 varied according to the peculiar circumstances of her 
 foreign possessions. When she had founded a colony of 
 her native subjects, for the purpose of extending her 
 fisheries or trade on a coast of inhospitable aspect, her 
 treatment of the infant settlement has been regulated by 
 rules and maxims, different from those she would apply 
 to one begun under happier auspices; or to another 
 which might come under her dominion, as did Canada, 
 when the sources of its wealth were pouring outa full 
 stream of prosperity. ‘This colony was planted in a re- 
 gion bleak and ungenial, covered with an unsubdued 
 forest and far from being rich in cultivation. Besides, 
 it offered an asylum to those who fled from the storm of 
 the American Revolution, and preferred the dictates of 
 loyalty to the claims of interest or the seduction of repub- 
 licanism. The British feeling which was expelled from 
 the United States, sought here a resting place and habi- 
 tation ; and for these political reasons, Nova Scotia has 
 been ever regarded by the Mother Country with the 
 greatest favour and most tender solicitude. The Crown 
 has up to this period forgone the exaction of those duties 
 which are strictly territorial, and has regularly drawn 
 from the public funds of the kingdom the sum needed for 
 the support of our Civil List.— But these are boons aris- 
 ing from the munificence of the Government, which 
 might be warranted by sound considerations in the earli- 
 est stage of our infancy, but which cannot be expected 
 by us in perpetuity, when our pene are evolving and 
 
 
 

 
 66 
 
 the elements of national prosperity in vigorous action. 
 We see the time approaching, when England will call 
 on us to take our full share of the burthen of our own 
 establishment, and will relieve herself from the expendi- 
 ture incurred entirely for our benefit. Already this 
 “ coming event is casting its shadows before,” and giving 
 us intimations that cannot be misunderstood... Lands are 
 now ordered to be sold to settlers, in place, as formerly, 
 of being gratuitously conveyed by the Crown ; the quit 
 rents which have so long slumbered are to be demanded ; 
 and foreign trade was opened to us avowedly in the ex- 
 pectation of our disburdening the mother country of our 
 Civil List. Indeed, it seems quite preposterous, that her 
 people, loaded as they are with a national debt contract- 
 ed in the wars undertaken for the security and glory of 
 the General Empire, and with vast naval and military 
 establishments essential to her rank in Europe, should in 
 addition be taxed, to pay the salaries of those officers 
 who are doing the duty and performing the business of 
 her Colonies. Is it equitable in us who are wallowing 
 in comparitive luxury, abundant in all the comforts of 
 life, and these within the reach of moderate industry, 
 with a scanty population and a wide and unoccupied 
 country ;—is it, I ask, generous and fair in us to mur- 
 mur, unless the mother country shall persevere in draw- 
 ing what suffices for our Civil List from the famished 
 poor of. Ireland, and the half employed labourers of 
 Great Britain? But it is incontestibly obvious, that if 
 the Representative branch of Lower Canada can make 
 good its present assumption, and establish an uncondi- 
 tional control over the Civil expenditure ; His Majesty 
 must either renounce the country to these democratic 
 leaders, or fal! back on his on own treasury for the means 
 of paying his servants. Lord Dalhousie cannot accept 
 his salary as Commander-in-Chief at the hands of Mr. 
 Papineau, and afterwards pretend to refuse his behests; 
 neither would the Judges be exempt from a contagious 
 influence, were they to depend on an annual vote of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 67 
 
 In this Province our Judges of every kind are provid- 
 ed for by permanent Bills ; “and paid, with the excep- 
 tion of the Chief Justice, out of vur own revenue ; and 
 I believe it is now acknowledged by all enlightened legis- 
 lators, to be essential to the purity of Justice, that those 
 who preside on the Bench should be rendered independent, 
 both as to the amount of their Salaries, and the manner in 
 which they are bestowed. No act has been more eulo- 
 gized than that of the British Parliament which made 
 and constituted the Judges, after their appointment and 
 elevation, independent of the Crown. 
 
 It is morally impossible, that these palpable truths in 
 politics, could either be unknown or overlooked by the 
 party in Canada, who have set themselves in opposition 
 to the Executive ; ; and one cannot help believing that 
 the dispute does not rest on constitutional principles, 
 but originates in certain grievances or abuses, real or 
 supposed, for which they wish to find a remedy. The 
 Magnitude of their Civil List seems the chief topic of 
 eloquent complaint, by all the advocates of that faction. 
 If this be the evil which lies at the bottom of the strife and 
 uproar, the Constitutional means of redress are lodged in 
 the hands of the Assembly, which they could effectually 
 employ without infringing on any great first principles ; 
 and if they do not use those means, they leave room for 
 the suspicion, in all the friends of good order, that this 
 ismerely a theme of popular declamation, to which de- 
 magogues in every age have resorted, to stir up the 
 passions of the multitude, and the more effectually to 
 cover their deeper and darker designs. ‘his evil, ina 
 greater or lesser degree, cleaves to every Governiiteutt 
 founded on freedom, and that aims at ruling men by ad- 
 dressing their interests. ‘The despot crushes every mur- 
 mur by the axe or the bowstring, and drowns all opposi- 
 tion by open undisguised force. A milder method: of 
 binding men to his purpose, must be adopted -by the 
 Prince, who is to reign over the hearts of his subjects, 
 
 
 

 
 68 
 
 and is himself under the direction of precedents, ordi- 
 nances and laws. The rewards of office, pensions, sin- 
 ecures, are inseparable from such a Government, and 
 must grow up with it in proportion as it becomes sub- 
 stantially free. These are the prizes in the lottery of 
 politics, which the more restless and ambitious spirits 
 are eager to secure ; while they strive with all theirmight 
 to guard from injury and violation, the machinery and 
 wheels that distribute them among the adventurers. 
 
 The Civil List of Lower Canada will be the subject 
 matter of my next. 
 
 SCA. VOLA. 
 
 
 
 (FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 SS 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 On the present state of the British Colonies. 
 fe 
 Mr. Eprror, 
 
 In every State, where the principles of freedom 
 have become predominant, the expense of the Adminis- 
 tration has ever been a fruitful source of contention be- 
 twixt the Governors and the governed. The latter have 
 almost without exception, shown an extraordinary solici- 
 tude to have their affairs managed with a scrupulousand 
 watchful regard to economy ; while the former have been 
 no less anxious to. seize and appropriate for their own 
 special use, as large. a share of the public money as the 
 genius of the Government or the temper of the people 
 would allow. Hence wasteful extravagance and sordid 
 parsimony have been the terms of reproach bandied, the 
 
 
 
 
 
69 
 
 one from the other; aud this war of interest will never 
 cease, so long as man is prone to selfish gratification and 
 prefers his own to that of all others. It is a malady inei- 
 dent to human nature, for which, though there can be 
 no radical cure, may be found palliatives in the salutary 
 restraint of moderation. And this moderation must be 
 respected and exercised by both. It is the sacred duty of 
 the Rulers, to make every possible reduction on the pub- 
 lic establishments compatible with the well-being of the 
 State ; and it is equally that of the people to make libe- 
 ral and ample allowance to those men who hold high and 
 momentous trusts; that they may be placed beyond the 
 influence of those temptations and besetting sins, peculi- 
 arly appertaining to office. 
 
 It is easy to recommend this happy medium in loose 
 and general language; but there is no task which the 
 politician has so hopelessly undertaken, as to mark the 
 evanescent line by which it is to be bounded and defined. 
 This is the difficulty that has given occasion to that cla- 
 mour, which has exhausted itself in ringing the changes 
 on corruption and venality, on saving and retrenchment. 
 There subsists no standard, by which the civil expenses of 
 any government can be precisely measured, and hence a 
 door is left wide open, for the factious and discontented 
 apparently to espouse the cause of the people, and to give 
 vent to their own spleen and disaffection. But the im- 
 possibility of fixing on any universally acknowledged scale 
 of expenditure has operated as mischievously, although 
 differently on those who are posted at the helm of affairs, 
 and led them often to an inexcusable and wasteful prodi- 
 gality and to the multiplication of unnecessary offices. 
 The revenues of an industrious and flourishing commu- 
 nity swell and flow is so full a tide, as to drown all those 
 careful, parsimonious and calculating habits that are the 
 genuine offspring of poverty. The possession of a trea- 
 sury that is never empty or quickly replenished, is dan- 
 gerous to public virtue, and very apt to beget the desire 
 
 
 

 
 of providing for partizans and favourites, and of indulg- 
 ing in all criminal sorts of profusion. 
 
 These are the two extremes which with equal anxiety 
 ought to be shunned; because when the civil expenditure 
 leans too strongly to either side, the balance is destroyed 
 that alone can harmonize the various parties in the State. 
 When the officers of Government enjoy emoluments or 
 salaries out of all proportion to the ordinary style of liv- 
 ing in the sphere to which they belong ; envy and dissa- 
 tisfaction would be created and the cry of extravagance 
 instantly raised. On the other hand, if the provision 
 made for them be beneath that level, the situation would 
 not be sufficiently attractive to men of birth and talents ; 
 and public affairs would suffer from the incompetent hands 
 to which, in such a case, they must be entrusted. This is 
 the reason that the Civil List in every nation varies with 
 the sum total of the revenue, and the advances that have 
 been made in the acquisition of capital, and the corres- 
 ponding display of opulence among the different orders 
 of Society. A Judge of the Supreme Court in N. Scotia 
 with £600 a year, can hold the first rank and maintain a 
 suitable establishment —a sum which would be totally in- 
 adequte fur the same end in Quebec—the capital ofan old 
 colony, abounding in comparative riches and surrounded 
 with a fertile and populous country. Nine hundred ster- 
 ling a year is there allowed to their Puisné Judges, and 
 fifteen hundred to their Chief Justice. These salaries, 
 perhaps, when compared with the ordinary profits of the 
 profession, suffice to allure to the Bench, their best and 
 soundest Lawyers ; and it is obvious that they must be 
 raised to this point, to command the talents at the bar. 
 
 But these allowances whether at Halifax or Quebec, 
 exorbitant as they may appear to our microscopic eye, 
 would be accounted paltry and contemptible at West- 
 minster ; and hence the English Government is compell- 
 ed of necessity to augment the salary of their Judges, the 
 
 
 
 <i 
 
 aaa — — 
 
 
 
71 
 
 lowest to £6,000, and the Chief Justice and Chancellor 
 to £10,000 per annum. Their Sergeants of first note, 
 practising in the Courts, are, many of them, in the re- 
 ceipt of twelve or fifteen thousand from their professions 
 and would not of course resign them for a seat on the 
 bench unless a nearly similar sum was secured to them. 
 
 Observations of the same import and tendency might 
 be made on other items of the civil expenditure in Lower 
 Canada. ‘Their salaries to every public servant seem ex- 
 cessive when compared with ours ; but as their revenue is 
 more than double, these, it may be fairly presumed, are 
 settled on a proportionate footing of equality. They give 
 for instance to Mr. Papineau as Speaker £900 sterling, 
 to the Clerk of the Assembly £450, to his Assistant £360 
 and to the Sergeant at Arms £90 ; while the contingent 
 expenses of each Session, that seldom lasts as long as ours, 
 rise to the enormous sum of £4,500, making the whole 
 charge of the Representative body on the public purse 
 annually about £6,800 sterling. It need not then be mat- 
 ter of surprise, that the charges of the Civil Government 
 and of the Administration of Justice should amount to 
 £58,000 sterling, when it is considered that these com- 
 prehend, the salaries of the Commander-in-Chief, of the 
 Lt.-Governor, of the Provincial Secretary and his Assis- 
 tant, of the Receiver-General, of the Auditors of Land 
 Patents and of Accounts,, of 13 Judges, of two Attorney 
 Generals, of the Sheriffs of Districts, of Jailors, Turn- 
 keys, and Bailiffs, of the Officers of Police, and the Keep- 
 ers of the Court Houses.— But furthermore the whole ex- 
 penses of their Executive and Legislative Councils, of the 
 House of Assembly, of a numerous body of Schoolmasters, 
 of Militia Officers and of the Inspectors of Roads fall 
 under this head, besides Pensions and the Rents and Re- 
 pairs of Public Buildings. Were all these items to be 
 included in what is called the Civil List of Nova Scotia, 
 it would be found that the necessary charge of conduct- 
 ing the Government, taking into consideration our com- 
 
 
 

 
 oy 
 
 12 
 
 paratively smaller revenue, would be on ascale not much 
 less extended than that of Lower-Canada; and that there- 
 fore great part of the clamour on the score of Pensions, 
 Sinecures, and needless offices, set up by the faction that 
 stand opposed to Lord Dalhousie’a administration, pro- 
 ceeds less from a regard to public economy, than from the 
 strenuous assertion of their unqualified right to appropri- 
 ate all monies in their own way and manner, raised within 
 the Province. This is the doctrine of the new political 
 School that has lately started up among us, and is indefa- 
 tigable in the conversion of proselytes ; that His Majesty 
 in these Colonies, in right of his Crown, possesses no ca- 
 sual, territorial or hereditary revenue which he can dis- 
 pose of freely in the support of his Government, nor any 
 Duties of Customs, although granted by his Parliament, 
 which he can appropriate without the consent of the lo- 
 cal Legislative Council and Assembly. I shall soon in the 
 course of this discussion, seize an opportunity of exposing 
 the fallacy and absurdity of this assertion of right—a 
 dogma fraught with peril, and steeped in democracy, and 
 which if maintained in its broadest acceptation, will in- 
 fallibly embroil us all in a desperate struggle. 
 
 To return. No better method can be adopted to unco- 
 ver the real views of the popular party in Canada, and ex- 
 hibit clearly that something else than the waste of the 
 public money is the cause of this mighty hubbub; than 
 to set in contrast against theirs our resources and civil 
 expenditure, and thus evince that there is no just ground 
 for discontent in Lower Canada, more than in Nova Scotia. 
 
 The public income of this Province varies slightly from 
 year to year, but may be set down at £50,000 sterling. 
 Of this sum, our Civil List, strictly so denominated as be- 
 ing made up of the pay of the official servants of the 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 
 

 
 73 
 
 Government will exhaust about....,0.+..++0++417,000 
 And the sum allowed us by Britain for the same 
 
 purpose was last year £11,000stgz........ 12,200 
 Let us add to these the contingent expenses of 
 
 the House of Assembly,......... £1,800 
 Repairs of Public Buildings.......... 500 
 Expence of Education for the mainte- 
 
 nance of three Academies........ 1,000 
 
 — 3,300 
 
 And our Civil List constructed on the same plan 
 as that of Lower Canada will come to £32,500 
 
 The Public Income of Lower-Canada on the other hand 
 may be reckoned about £115,000 exclusive of the 
 £29,000—a fourth part payable out out of the Duties for 
 the use of the Upper-Province—If we deduct the supply 
 required for defraying the annual charges of the Civil 
 Government, and of the Administration af Justice, of the 
 Legislature, of the Militia, of Schoolmasters, and of va- 
 rious other items thrown under this head and which sup- 
 ply is estimated at about £58,000 sterling, or £64,000 
 currency, we shall still have a balance left of £51,000 
 available for objects of internal and public improvement, 
 and free and unimbarrassed at the control of the Assem- 
 bly. It isnot then the want of funds at the disposal of 
 the House nor any financial difficulty, arising out of the 
 extravagance of the administration, that has created the 
 troubles in Lower Canada ; but it is the new assumption 
 of rights in the popular branch which have been only 
 claimed of late years, and in defiance of which they are 
 willing to encroach on the prerogatives of the Crown. 
 
 For the further understanding and the clear exposition 
 of this dispute, happily there is a document, published 
 by authority, of the ordinary and extraordinary revenues 
 and the appropriation thereof by the Assembly in the year 
 1825, under the administration of Sir Francis Burton, 
 
 K 
 
 
 

 
 14 
 
 when Lord Dalhousie was in England. In what manner 
 the Lieut. Governor could have been so completely hood- 
 winked as to surrender the rights of his royal master and 
 cast them at the feet of the Assembly, must forever re 
 main a mystery ; unless he himself chooses to make a con- 
 fession of the motives and views ,by which he was actuat- 
 ed—W hatever light may be thrown on this part of his po- 
 litical conduct in some future day, it is sufficient for us to 
 prove that he allowed the Assembly to pass an annual 
 Bill of appropriation 5 Geo. 4, chap. 27, in which they 
 granted Salaries to the Governor and Lieut-Governor, to 
 the Judges, Receiver-General and all other officers of the 
 Crown, and thus directly interfered with the appoint- 
 ments of his Majesty. True, the representatives showed 
 no passion for retrenchment at this time, but freely and 
 fully gave the customary allowances to the public officers, 
 “being solicitous merely to establish and assert the princi- 
 ple that these salaries were their gifts,and that to a favou- 
 rite, they had the power of augmenting them, as they 
 bestowed an additional £1000 on Sir Francis Burton, 
 giving him that year £3,500 Sterling, and £450 more as 
 
 House rent. 
 
 But while the House were thus distributing Salaries 
 and rewards with a liberal hand, and relieving his Ma- 
 jesty of all the burthen of his Servants, they thought pro- 
 per to grasp those branches of his revenue that belonged 
 to him since the era of the conquest. In the exercise of 
 their sovereignty, the Auditor and Inspector General of 
 Accounts received their commands to bring in a Schedule 
 
 representing the different heads of income, and to place - 
 
 among these, not the duties alone levied by Provincial 
 Acts, but those imposed by authority of Parliament in 
 14 Geo. 3, and in addition the casual and territorial re- 
 venues of the Crown. Thus they assumed the direction of 
 public money, partly collected under a statute that was 
 passed before they hada constitutional existence, and 
 partly belonging to the inherent patrimony of the King. 
 
 
 
 i 
 

 
 75 
 
 Extract from No. 14, of Public Accounts, Lower-Canada. 
 Net Income for the year ending 10th Oct. 1825. 
 From Duties under Impl. Act, 14 Geo. 3, £30,919 4 22 
 
 Deduction for Upper-Canada, of 7,729 16 04 
 
 23,189 8 2 
 To Licences for Houses of Entertainment 
 under same Act..... ish wu thts Mkiekeneel uate 0.90 
 «© Duties under Provincial Act, 4lstGeo.3, 16 19 3 
 “© Casual—territorial revenue,......see0- 1569 18 83 
 “ Fines and Forfeitures, (patrimony of the 
 WEOWD) ob ios tox k dinkeodnnes ecose, 943 15 34 
 28,304 17 
 « £5000 Sterling, granted to the King by 
 Provincial Act, 35 Geo.3....seseeves 5,555 11 1 
 
 making in Currency...ssesseeseseers , £33,859 12 8 
 
 This sum constitutes what has been designated, in the 
 present disputes, as the Permanent Fund, and has always 
 been applied by his Majesty through the medium of the 
 Lords of the Treasury to the payment of the higher and 
 more important officers of the Government. Twenty-six 
 thousand pounds of it flow from the duties onrum, and 
 other spirits, molasses and syrups, that were substituted 
 in the place of the French taxes, 1774, and the residue 
 with the exception of a very small sum, from the Crown 
 revenues, which were specially reserved in the 6th, sec- 
 tion of thesame Act. We have now arrived at the foun- 
 tain head of all the confusion. The House of Assembly 
 deny the right of the King, or of the Lords of the Trea- 
 sury, to apportion this money into parts and assign them 
 to the respective officers of the Government. As the Re- 
 presentatives of the people, who contribute those taxes, 
 they assert their right to appropriate this fund, and hesi- 
 {ate not avowedly to declare their intention of wresting 
 it from the Crown. Their advocates interpret the 18th 
 
 
 
a 
 
 16 
 
 Geo.8—the famous Colonial Magna Charta—as having a 
 retrospective application, and to have reference no less 
 to the taxes that existed prior to its date, than to those 
 that might be afterwards imposed. While the reigns of 
 the Administration were in the feeble hands of Sir Francis 
 lf Burton, they first succeeded, by adding to the permanent 
 i fund about £32,000 more, to pass a Bill of Supply, 5th 
 | Geo. 4, cap. 27, in which they specified the Salary of 
 every Officer from the Governor downwards, and thus 
 asserted practically their control over the whole revenue 
 of the Province. In that Session by this means they dis- 
 posed in their appropriations of £1 18,079 11 05 Cury. 
 being the total amount arising from all taxes, and the 
 former available balance. But as they felt no scruples to 
 trench on the regal prerogatives and revenues, little haste 
 was shown to repair the error by displaying any sort of 
 generosity to theSovereign. They voted him no Civil List, 
 in lieu of his violated revenues ; and he was thus left pros- 
 trate at their mercy, dispossessed of all real power. The 
 events which followod were allin the natural order of 
 things. No sooner were the Acts of the Session transmit- 
 ted to the Secretary of the Colonies, than the mischie- 
 vous blunder of Sir Francis was discovered, and immedi- 
 ate measures taken to repair it. In an official dispatch of 
 the 4th June, addressed to him on the subject, there is 
 conveyed a censure for a breach of the Royal Instructions 
 in having so tamely and passively renounced the fund ap- 
 propriated for the support of the Government, and which | 
 was held independently of the local Legislature. By an 
 ample apology, he endeavoured to make his peace, and 
 sheltered himself by his not being possessed of positive 
 Instructions, and by declaring that had they been com- | 
 municated to him, he would have yielded the most im- 
 plicit obedience. On his departure from the Province, 
 Lord Dalhousie was stationed in the front of that battle 
 which had been well nigh lost ; and has been since la- : 
 bouring, but ineffectually, to restore harmony, and a good 
 understanding. The disputes have come to a crisis dur- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 77 
 
 ing the last session, and all men are turning their eyes to- 
 wards Canada, to watch the result. The Assembly was 
 suddenly prorogued in a speech, replete with manly un- 
 dismayed feeling, and breathing his Lordship’s unaltered 
 determination to brave all consequences in the discharge 
 of his trust. He accuses them of the assumption of exe 
 cutive authority, ofa disregard to the accustomed forms 
 of courtesy, in acknowledging his messages, and of a re- 
 fusal to grant the supplies demanded in his Majesty’s 
 name. ‘The democratic party in the Lower House, in an 
 instrument which has gone the rounds of the Colonial 
 Press, deny these charges, and aver that they have offered 
 the supplies in the manner in which they were accepted 
 in 1825, when Sir Francis, as before narrated, was cajol- 
 ed and drawn into fault—that is to say, the Assembly will 
 grant the Supplies to His Majesty on condition of their 
 being allowed to seize his territorial and hereditary reve- 
 nues, and appropciate these and all other public funds 
 from Imperial and Provincial Statutes, without being 
 under any control from the tenor of the Royal Instruc- 
 tions to the Governor, or from the warrants of the Lords 
 of the Treasury. The contumacious resistance of the 
 wishes of the British Government, and of the known will 
 of the King, on the part of the Canadian Assembly, 
 springs from the adoption of two principles which have 
 been lately introduced into the creed of the new Political 
 School, that is rising amongst us, and trying to give a 
 bias to public opinion. 
 
 (1) That the King, though supreme head of the Go- 
 vernment, and as such possessing in his own right certain 
 branches of revenue in these Colonies, cannot apply them 
 out of his mere good pleasure, without the consent of the 
 Representative body. 
 
 (2.) That duties raised and leived by acts of Parliament 
 of a date prior to the 18th Geo. 3, and appropriated to 
 the use and benefit of the Civil Government, must merge 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 18 
 
 into the pubic income, and be placed anew under the 
 control of the local Legislature. 
 
 If these propositions are to be carried into effect, and 
 backed with the whole strength of the General Assem- 
 blies, it is high time for Great-Britain, to modify and 
 materially alter her Colonial policy, for she will shortly 
 have no other power than simply the liberty of erecting 
 our fortifications and defending us by sea and land out of 
 her own treasures ; and every attempt to throw the bur- 
 den on us, or even to pay our public servants out of the 
 taxed levied here, will occasion murmuring and discon- 
 tent, and afford us fresh opportunities of showing her our 
 eternal ingratitude. 
 
 SCASVOLA, 
 
 
 
 [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 oe 
 
 On the present state of the British Colonies. 
 fe > 
 
 The most remarkable feature of the disputes in Lower- 
 Canada, is the studied obscurity in which the opponents 
 of the Government have affected to warp up their preten- 
 sions. Under colour of the most profound reverence for 
 constitutional forms, of the most devoted attachment to 
 the person of the Sovereign and of a conscientious regard 
 to the best and dearest interests of the people, they have 
 planted a masked battery, of such dangerous and tremen- 
 dous power, that, should the match be ever applied to it, 
 the whole frame of society and the safeguards of genuine 
 liberty must be blown to atoms. But while they are con- 
 structing their works and drawing round their lines of 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 79 
 
 entrenchment, they try to pass as the professed defenders 
 of the citadel which is the object of attack, and which of 
 necessity must be rased to the ground till one stone is not 
 left upon another. Their obvious design is tosubvert the 
 constitution ; but they wish to accomplish this by strata- 
 gem, not by force, and to trepan their constituents. into 
 a contest with the existing administration about princi- 
 ples which ase not endangered, and which could not pos- 
 sibly be called in question if rightly understood. It is 
 thus that lurking disaffection ever seeks to hide itself in 
 the folds of political duplicity. It cannect, it dare not 
 assume the bold, the uncovered front of righteous and 
 upright patriotism. It expresses itself in vague and un- 
 defined language, and is fearful of uttering its secret and 
 inmost thoughts. It alludes to past resolutions and past 
 events as the grounds of its decision, but that decision it- 
 self is intentionally kept under a veil of mystery. Nothing 
 about about it is clear, open, and explicit. It walks 
 in darkness, and only dimly presents it shadowy forms. 
 Like the phantoms of superstition, it flies the light, and 
 loses its dreaded power, when distinctly seen and brought 
 under notice, 
 
 I have been led into these expressions of honest indig- 
 nation, by looking into the proceedings of the last session 
 of their Provincial Parliament. When the motion was 
 introduced for granting an aid to his Majesty for the sup- 
 port of the Civil Government, these respecters of the 
 Royal authority—these champions of freedom evaded 
 the question, not by a frank avowal of the principles on 
 which they have made a stand, nor of the expenditure in 
 the Civil List that they intend to retrench, but by astring 
 of four Resolutions, in themselves unintelligible to most 
 readers, and well calculated to keep the other Colonies 
 in the dark as to the real designs of the party. 
 
 1. Resolved, that this House do continue to adhere to 
 the Resolutions and addresses which it has made on the 
 
 
 

 
 80 
 
 expenses of the Civil Government, as recorded on its 
 Journals, 
 
 2 Resolved, that the manner and form of auditing the 
 public accounts, and accounting for the due application 
 of the public Revenues, is insufficient for a just, correct, 
 and responsible application of the public monies, and that 
 there is still no adequate security against the mis-applica- 
 tion of the funds deposited by law in the hands of His 
 Majesty’s Receiver General for the Province. 
 
 8. Resolved, that this House do not acknowledge, or 
 in any way sanction any payments made out of the Public 
 Revenue of the Province, which have not been authoris- 
 ed by an Act of the Legislature, or advanced on an Ad- 
 dress of the House. 
 
 4. Resolved, that this House nevertheless continues dis- 
 posed to grant a supply for the current year in the man- 
 ner provided in the Act passed in 1825 and in the Bill 
 of 1826. 
 
 These Resolutions, read by one not versed in the con- 
 trovercy, wear a remarkably meek and innocent aspect, 
 and breathe a spirit no wise inconsistent with the exercise 
 of the just rights and privileges of the lower Branch ; 
 when properly understood, carry treason in their bosom 
 and are armed with the dagger of the assassin. The truth 
 is, that the Government cannot accede to these without 
 prostrating its dignity, and surrendering the very sem- 
 blance of power in the Province. What are the resolu- 
 tions to which the House assert their adherence, and the 
 Bill they propose to pass in support of His Majesty’s go- 
 vernment ? The Resolutions refer to an annual supply for 
 the Civil List ; and the bill is to be constructed on the 
 model of that, by which Sir Francis Burton was over- 
 reached in 1825, and which was formally and distinctly 
 disapproved at the Colonial Office. It is the offer of an 
 
 
 

 
 Sl 
 
 annual supply and on conditions which the King never 
 can accept without the derogation of his dignity, and the 
 abandonment of his just and legitimate prerogative. 
 These obstacles on the part of the Crown are known to 
 the House, have been the subjects of repeated discussion, 
 and are distinctly expressed in the Instructions to the 
 Commander-in-Chief. The supply on such terms is ten- 
 dered by the house in the fullest conviction of its being 
 rejected, and their persistance in this course is an act of 
 undisguised resistance and hostility to the Government. 
 Let Mr. Papineau and his associates speak out boldly 
 and unreservedly to the world, and not in this manner 
 plunge the poinard in the bosom of British liberty, with 
 an insidious smile on their countenance, and the show of 
 friendship by the extended proffer of their hand. The 
 mean and ignoble enemy that lies in ambush is ever less 
 respected, than they who take the field with the most 
 imposing and even ostentatious display of their forces. 
 Before we can clearly comprehend the meaning of these 
 Resolutions, we must refer tothe unfortunate Adminis- 
 tration of Sir F. Burton as detailed in our last letter ; 
 when the House of Assembly artfully laid hold on the 
 territorial revenue, and undoubted patrimony of the 
 King, and on the taxes raised by the British Act of Par- 
 liament, 14th Geo. III. in lieu of the French duties de- 
 volving on the Crown at the period of the Conquest, 
 and incorporated these into the public income of the 
 Province,—thus asserting their right of control over 
 every shilling levied on the subject. Should they carry 
 this point, is it not undeniable that the supremacy of the 
 Imperial Parliament is at an end, and the dignity and 
 independence. of the Executive power trodden under 
 foot? What limits after this could be set to their pre- 
 tensions. It would be a virtual overthrow of the Go- 
 vernment, and can neyer be effected but by an appeal 
 
 to the sword. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 ww 
 82 
 
 But to show the monstrous unreasonableness of this 
 demand, let us enquire a little into the sources, whence 
 the casual and territorial revenues of the Crown are de- 
 rived, and into the claim of right attached to them, in 
 virtue of the Royal prerogative. 
 
 {t has been maintained throughout the whole of this 
 political argument, that the justest and most correct 
 notions of the frame of the British Government and of 
 the rights and privileges of each of its three distinct 
 branches, are to be best learned from the peculiarities of 
 the Feudal System that rose on the ruins of the Roman 
 Kmpire. This singular polity which was established in 
 Europe, should be well studied and thoroughly appre- 
 hended by the politician who desires to obtain a clear 
 insight, into the laws and constitution of England, or 
 into the prerogatives of the Crown, or of the usages, 
 forms and liberties of Parliament. The rights of the 
 three co-ordinate branches of the Government were ail 
 equally founded in conquest and usurpation ; and the 
 property and persons of the aboriginal inhabitants were 
 forcibly seized without any respect to equity or justice. 
 —The Prince or Commander-in-Chief his nobles, and 
 the freemen who followed his standard, were all, with- 
 out distinction, inyolved in the same guilt of winning 
 their possessions by the sword and holding them after- 
 wards by the same tenure, and therefore it would be 
 quite idle, in looking into the prerogatives of the Crown, 
 to raise any objections on the score of their loyalty, by 
 calling in question the original violence which gained 
 and secured them. The titles of all the landed property 
 in Europe, as well as in Britain, would be shaken, were 
 any doubts to be cast at this late day on the right of con- 
 quest, by means of which alone they were acquired. 
 
 Conformably then to the spirit of the British Consti- 
 tution, the Monarch in possession of the throne was the 
 great proprietary of the kingdom, in whom were vested 
 
 —_ eee. ee, 
 

 
 83 
 
 all the lands over which his dominion extended, and from 
 whose .gift or grant they were conferred, bestowed, or 
 conveyed to others, on such conditions and for such con- 
 siderations as he chose to impose or accept. The per- 
 formance of those conditions, some of which are merel 
 nominal, and others little more than acts of feudal hom- 
 age, is still essential to continue and perpetuate the 
 title on which they were originally founded, and abun- 
 dantly proves the necessity of recognizing the rights 
 and prerogatives of the Crown, as the surest and firmest 
 basis on which rests the landed property of the whole 
 Empire. For the same reason it was, that estates for- 
 feited by the commission of high crimes and treasons 
 reverted to the sovereign, which he either might retain 
 for the support of his dignity and government, or grant 
 anew to any of his courtiers, who had merited his confi- 
 dence or earned his particular grace and favour. But it 
 is needless to multiply instances or proofs of this doctrine, 
 which is as old as the times of the Saxons, and appears 
 throughout all the revolutions and changes of dynasty 
 to which England was subject. 
 
 When Britain, from the expansion of her commerce, 
 began to plant Colonies of her own people, or by the 
 chances of war, to conquer those of other States, the 
 King, as matter of course, succeeded to those rights and 
 prerogatives appertaining to him as liege Lord. He be- 
 came immediately invested in the whole property of the 
 new country, and parcelled out among the settlers, on 
 such conditions as at once secured his own supremacy and 
 provided for their prosperity and welfare, He was at 
 liberty, from the motions of his own will, to sell it or 
 gift it freely—to exact a quit rent in acknowledgment 
 of his superiority or forego the payment of it—to reserve 
 the mines and minerals, or grant them along with the 
 soil—to clog the title with fines and penalties, and even 
 to render it liable to escheat. No House of Assembly 
 which may be afterwards called into existence in the 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 Oo 
 
 84 
 
 Colony, can pretend to have the least claim to these re- 
 venues of the Crown; for this simple reason, that they 
 were not of their gift, nor were they the fruits of their 
 industry, nor in any shape ever belonging to them or their 
 constituents as property. The House of Assembly can 
 only direct, control and appropriate what itself gives ;_ 
 and the moment it assumes to carry its usurpations into 
 the Royal prerogative, the despotism of democracy 1s 
 commenced, and should be sacredly resisted by all the 
 rational supporters of freedom. The casual and territo- 
 rial revenues of the Crown are as much the property of 
 the reigning Sovereign, as are the rents, profits and fruits 
 of the same lands, the property of their lawful owners. 
 These revenues cannot be called taxes, and as such be 
 appropriable by the Representatives of the people, with- 
 out at the same time subjecting to their authority all the 
 incomes derived by the Nobility, and landed proprietors 
 from their various estates. All these remarks are appli- 
 cable to the King, as the fountain and executor of Jus- 
 tice, as to him belong the fines and forfeitures incurred 
 by breaches of the peace. 
 
 The only way in which the Crown can be deprived of 
 this patrimony is by voluntary compact, where a given 
 fixed sum is offered and accepted in compensation of it. 
 This is the foundation on which the English Civil List is 
 established. At various periods of our history, His Ma- 
 jesty, for the time being, commuted different branches 
 of his royal income, for what he esteemed an equivalent ; 
 and if the local Legislatures of these Provinces feel any 
 unequal pressure from the existence and exaction of these 
 dues, they must be bought up by providing an adequate 
 support for the officers, judicial or others, that must be 
 paid. Toattempt wresting from the Crown these sour- 
 ces of revenue, without a just equivalent being offered 
 and accepted, is at variance equally with the claims of 
 natural equity and the maxims of the constitution. 
 
 SCALVOLA. 
 

 
 85 
 
 [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 On the present state of the British Colonies. 
 
 In the conduct of this political argument with the party 
 in Lower Canada, that stand in open opposition to the 
 Government, we have been labouring to establish certain 
 doctrines on Constitutional grounds, by which to un- 
 ravel the perplexities of the disputes, that, if appearan- 
 ces can be trusted, is fast approaching to rupture. The 
 dispute itfelf, to such readers as have only adverted 
 slightly to the previous details, must by this time be 
 readily comprehended and may be summed up in these 
 few words ; that the House of Assembly assert a right to 
 lay hold of the Casual and territorial revenues of the 
 Crown, and of the duties levied by the British act of 
 Parliament, 14th Geo. ILI. both of which constitute a 
 Permanent Fund at present for the support of the Civil 
 Government, and under the control and direction of His 
 Majesty, and to appropriate this fund by annual votes in 
 the same way and manner as the other taxes confessedly at 
 their disposal. In this brief annunciation, the contro- 
 versy will be seen to resolve itself into two distinct heads: 
 
 Ist. They claim the specific appropriation of the Casu- 
 al and territorial revenues. 
 
 2d. And they claim also the same power over the du- 
 ties of Customs raised by virtue of an Imperial Act passed 
 in 1774, anterior to the Colonial charter often alluded to 
 
 18 Geo. 3d. 
 
 In my last letter on the first of these heads, T advanced, 
 that, according to the acknowledged principles of the 
 British Constitution, the King was the supreme and ori- 
 ginal Lord of the soil over which he swayed his sceptre— 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 86 
 
 that he granted it to others under conditions, and with 
 reservations, in the free exercise of his Sovereign prero- 
 gative—that these conditions and reservations—whether 
 implying services to be performed, or rents to be paid— 
 formed sources of revenue vested in and disposed by the 
 Crown in England as well as in all other European feu- 
 dal Kingdoms—that these royal revenues could be no 
 more seized by the Representative Branch under the no- 
 tion that they were taxes, than the rents of the lands in 
 the hands of the proprietors,—that the great Nobles and 
 the lesser freemen had no better title to the one, than his 
 Majesty had to the other, as being both founded in the 
 right of Conquest—that these ideas of the Constitution 
 extended to and prevailed in the Colonies, and could not 
 be infringed without subverting the Government,—lastly, 
 that if the legitimate exertion of the territorial preroga- 
 tive pressed heavily on the Colonists, we must adopt the 
 practice of Britain, and pnrchase exemption from it by 
 the establithment of a Civil List. At all events it is plain 
 that whatever may be given in exchange for these reve- 
 nues, must be permanent like themselves, and not liable 
 to be altered by the levity or caprice of the popular 
 Branch. The King on his accession became entitled to 
 possess them in right of his Crown, and to enjoy them 
 uninterruptedly till they pass into the hands of his succes- 
 sors; so the Civil List in lieu of them must be also an he- 
 reditary appanage of the Crown, and voted for the natu- 
 ral life of its wearer. 
 
 
 
 A very appropriate exemplification of the most of these 
 views may be met with in the present condition and prac- 
 tice of Nova-Scotia. Here the King exercises all the func- 
 tions of his territorial prerogative, without having excit- 
 ed a murmur or having been questioned by the local Le- 
 gislature.—First of all, grants from the Crown of Forest 
 lands are subjected to certain fees payable to the public 
 Officers, and settled as to their amount by the sole au- 
 thority of His Majesty. In most of those Grants, Mines 
 

 
 87 
 
 and Minerals have been reserved ; and accordingly a duty 
 per ChaJdron on all coals raised at Sydney in Cape Breton, 
 and an annual rent for those dug at Pictou, have been 
 demanded by, and are at the disposal of the Crown, 
 Besides, orders have been now issued to sell all forest 
 lands in future, ata regulated upset price ; and the quit 
 rents are to be exacted. These various sources of terri- 
 torial income have never so much as awoke discussion 
 in the House of Assembly, but been silently and respect- 
 fully acquiesced in, as flowing from the. legitimate 
 powers of the regal prerogative. We have not yet been 
 visited with those mighty revelations, that have decend- 
 
 ed in evil hour on the overstrained vision of Monsieur 
 Papineau. 
 
 If the casual and territorial revenue should have been 
 exempt from the unconstitutional grasp of the Canadian 
 Assembly, so equally should have been those taxes levied 
 by virtue of the British Act of Parliament, 14th Geo. 
 lif. and which were substituted in the room of the 
 French imposts, existing at the time of the conquest. 
 These now amount annually to about twenty thousand 
 pounds currency, and have been invariably applied, un- 
 der warrants of the Lords of the Treasury, in payment of 
 the Salaries connected with the Civil and Judicial estab- 
 lishment. ‘They ought to be considered as making part 
 of the Civil List assigned to His Majesty for the main- 
 tenance of his Government ; and in this light they have 
 been contemplated at the Colonial Office. Successive 
 attemps have been made by the democratic party to get 
 them into their own hands, that the power of augment- 
 ing and diminishing all salaries may be transferred from 
 the King, or what is the same thing, from the Lords of 
 the Treasury, to themselves ; and in this way they hoped 
 to exert an efficient influence and control over the whole 
 of the administration. This isthe true meaning of their 
 second and third Resolutions aforementioned, but is a 
 point which never can be conceded by the Crown, until the 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 Cabinet come to the determination of abandoning the Co- 
 lony. No compromise can ever be effected, while the 
 principle is maintained by the House, that it is their un- 
 doubted privilege to seize the revenues which constitute 
 their Civil List, and subdivide, aportion and apply these 
 among the Public Officers, independently of the consent 
 of the Sovereign. Ifthe British Commons were to aro- 
 gate the like power, and lord it over the King, he would 
 cease to reign and become an empty pageant.—By the 
 command which he has for life over the enormous sum of 
 £1,057,000, sterg. it is that he holds his pre-eminence at 
 the head of the Government, can fix and pay the salaries 
 of his official servants, can name his Ambassadors and 
 support their dignity, and can incline the scale often by his 
 own weight, of that set of men, that he calls to his coun- 
 cils. Without this mighty, overruling influence in the 
 Crown, what danger of civil commotion on every change 
 of Ministry! ‘The present scene in the House of Com- 
 mons, created by the elevation of Mr. Canning, demon- 
 strates the necessity of guarding and upholding the Royal 
 prerogative-—And it is this conviction on the minds of 
 sensible men, that reconciles them to the expense of Roy- 
 alty, asa necessary check on the violent passions of the 
 contending parties, inseparable from a free Government. 
 These prerogatives are essential parts of the system, and 
 cannot be invaded with impunity. Whenever the Colo- 
 nies succeed 40 disposses His Majesty of the revenues, 
 belonging to him and indispensable for his Government ; 
 they are severed from the Empire, and must model and 
 construct a constitution for themselves, 
 
 But it has been argued by the conductors of the 
 Press, who have listed themselves in the cause of the de- 
 mocratic party, that powerful reasons exist in these Co- 
 lonies to deter from the appointment of a permanent Civil 
 List, that have little or no weight in the United King- 
 dom. They found this opinion of the dependence of the 
 Legislative Council on the Executive Government ; by 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 89 
 
 which they say, the Hon. Members of that body, some of 
 them, from a regard to place and future preferment, 
 must crouch and temporize—on the want of the powers 
 of impeachment in the Lower House tokeep in awe public 
 delinquents—on the precariousappointment of the Judges 
 who hold their seats not during their good behaviour, 
 but the pleasure of the Crown. With these defects in 
 the constitution given them in 1791, they infer that the 
 House of Assembly could not act with sufficient vigor 
 nor apply any effectual principle of restraint against mal- 
 administration,unless they retained in their own hands the 
 funds, to be voted annually, that were needed for the 
 payment of salaries and other expenses of the Civil Go- 
 vernment. On these and other grounds they cannot 
 adopt the practice of the British Parliament and vest the 
 Crown, from reign to reign, with the disposal of an am- 
 ple sum for their Civil List, without a surrender of their 
 dearest rights and the subversion of their just authority. 
 How far these evils are felt in Lower Canada, is not for 
 me to determine, but certain I am we have no such grie- 
 vances in Nova-Scotia. Our Judges hold their places 
 equally during pleasure, and such of them as have been 
 raised to the Council are acknowledged on all sides to 
 deliver on questions of legislation, bold, manly and in- 
 dependent sentiments. The power of impeaching the 
 officers of the Crown would be, perhaps, too dangerous 
 and terrible a weapon in a Colonial Assembly, and would 
 jostle, often rudely and unseasonably, with the supre- 
 macy and consequent instructions and orders of the Im- 
 perial Government. It would be unwise to clothe a 
 subordinate Legislature with the plenitude of authority, 
 and the high and important functions that of right ap- 
 pertain to the sovereignty ofthe British Parliament ; and 
 therefore these imperfections are, I fear, irremediable 
 and might be aggravated by the applications of political 
 empiricism, | 
 
 M 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 90 
 
 On the whole view of the case, one cannot help being 
 of opinion that there is little call for our sympathy in 
 these their complaints, Let us concede to the party that 
 a mis-application or unnecessary waste of the public 
 money isauthorised to a certain extent, under the orders 
 of the treasury—that some salaries are exorbitant—that a 
 plurality of lucrative places is conferred on the individu- 
 al distinguished either for the talent of flattery or ser- 
 vility—that pensions are secured to absentees and sine- 
 curists—and that their isa lavish prodigality to the ex- 
 tent of £3000 which unquestionably ought.to be curbed. 
 What of all this?—Do not these clamourers know, that 
 in every free State where men are to be governed by «nte- 
 rest, or what those out of place call, corruption, such 
 stains have ever been detected on the drapery of the court, 
 and that the unsullied whiteness of doubly refined demo- 
 cracy becomes dingy on a sudden in such an atmosphere ? 
 Let them toss these idle complaints to the winds, and 
 bless God that civil and political liberty can be enjoyed 
 at the cost of so poora sacrifice. Have not Westminster 
 and St. James’ furnished copious themes of radical com- 
 plaint and lamentation on the self same grounds. Are 
 not murmurs of a like kind beginning to be heard in the 
 purlieus of Washington—are not these sturdy republic- 
 ans already shivering under the aguish tremours of a costly 
 display of profusion in some departments of the Execu- 
 tive ? Free institutions where the voice of the people is 
 heard, will always offer sufficiently efficacious correctives 
 to the higher and more blameable degrees of improvi- 
 dent expense, and the lesser must be borne as incurable 
 maladies. 
 
 But the main stronghold of defence taken by the dis- 
 satisfied party lies in their construction of the 18th Geo. 
 Ill, by which they maintain every colonial Legislature 
 was empowered thenceforth to appropriate every item of 
 taxation levied and collected by act of the Imperial Par- 
 liamentin the American Provinces, and West India Islands, 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 9] 
 
 whether the act was of a prior or posterior date. Lap- 
 peal to any lawyer who can look into the statute of 18th 
 Geo. III. whether or not it be the intention of the law- 
 giver, that our great Colonial charter should operate 
 retrospectively. I thinkit clear asnoon day, that such 
 was not in the contemplation of the British Parliament ; 
 and that it is a wresting equally of its letter and spirit, 
 to give it such latitude of interpretation. Its effect is 
 manifestly to be future, and accordingly it runs in the 
 future tense. That to quiet the fears and apprehensions 
 of His Majesty’s subjects, “ the King and Parliament of 
 Great Britain will not impose any duty, tax or assessment 
 whatever,” payable in any of these colonies, but for the 
 regulation of commerce, and the net produce of the du- 
 ties arising therefrom, is to be delivered over to the trea- 
 sury, and be at the disposal of the local Legislature. 
 No former statute is repealed, except the 7th Geo. III. 
 cap. 46, which was to raise on Tea a revenue available 
 for the general defence of the Empire. That tax was 
 abrogated, and the principle too on which it was found- 
 ed—with an express declaration of what would be there- 
 after the great maxim of British Colonial Policy, in 
 respect of taxation. But to set the matter at rest, as to 
 the views of the Parliament, let us consult the Statute 
 Book, wherever the l4th Geo. IIL. is referred to, and 
 see if the Imperial Government ever meant to place the 
 duties levied under it, at the disposal of the local Legis- 
 lature. 
 
 1. They did not do it in the 3Ist Geo. III. cap. 31, 
 wherein a constitution of King, Legislature, Councils, 
 and Houses of Assembly, is conferred in the Upper and 
 Lower Provinces. 
 
 2. They did not do it in the Canada Trade Act of 1822, 
 for the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury 
 are authorized to divide the duties levied under 14th 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 _7 a 
 
 92 
 
 Geo. III. ch. 88, into such proportions, betwixt the two 
 Provinces of Canada “ as to them shall seem meet.” 
 
 3. Nor did they do it in the late final arrangement of 
 the domestic and foreign trade of the British Empire, as 
 is undeniably evinced in 6th Geo. IV. ch. 114, section 
 10th and llth, for in the first of these it is declared, 
 “ that nothing in this act shall extend to repeal or abro- 
 gate, or in any way. to alter or affect the 18th Geo. III. 
 concerning taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain 
 —Nor to repeal any act now in force, passed prior to the 
 last mentioned acts (18th Geo. IIL.) ; and by which any 
 duties in any of the British possessions in America, were 
 granted, and continue payable to the Crown—Nor to 
 repeal 3ist Geo. ILI. cap. 31, (the Constitutional act of 
 Canada): and the eleventh section further enacts that 
 the duties imposed by any of the acts before mentioned 
 or referred to, passed prior to 18th Geo. III, shall be 
 received, accounted for, and applied for the purposes of 
 those acts. The permanent fund raised by 14th Geo. III. 
 cap. 38, is four years prior to 18th Geo. III, was grant- 
 ed, and shall continue payable to the Crown, and must 
 therefore be accounted for to the King, by the Lords of 
 the Treasury, and be applied by them for the charges of 
 the Civil Government, and the administration of Justice. 
 No sophistry wielded by the most acute mind, can parry 
 off this irresistible conclusion. It may cloud the under- 
 standing of the ignorant, it may deceive the obstinate 
 and headstrong of a party, it may find some little loop- 
 hole or evasion, but the clear understanding of the Bri- 
 tish Government as to its control over these revenues, 
 expressed in all its consecutive acts, establishes beyond 
 the shadow of doubt that the 18th Geo. III. was not to 
 have a retrospective construction. 
 
 But I shall go further and throw down the gauntlet of 
 defiance, even under the risk of being denouned as the 
 Knight Errant of the Clerkarchy—the low cant phrase 
 
 
 

 
 93 
 
 by which the officers of the Civil Government are desig- 
 nated by the antagonist Canadian Press, Abuse there is 
 the order of the day, and no writer can expect good treat- 
 ment after reading the strictures and remarks levelled 
 against the four letters of the “ Nova Scotian,” that ap- 
 peared lately in the Acadian. The author of these letters 
 is the temperate defender of Constitutional liberty, shows 
 his regard for the prerogative of the Crown, without in- 
 fringing on the rights of the Assembly, and displays with 
 great strength of colouring and beauty of language, the 
 fearful consequences of that course in which L. J. Papi- 
 neau, Esq. has embarked. Notwithstanding, a perfect 
 tempest of scurrility is directed against him, his words 
 are perverted, and his best arguments turned into ridi- 
 cule, Such has ever been the fate of political disputants. 
 
 I contend that the democratic party who gave this re- 
 trospective construction to 18th Geo. III. and under 
 colour of which they found their claim of specifically 
 appropriating by their local Legislature, the permanent 
 fund vested in the Lords of the Treasury, cannot bring 
 forward a single instance of any duties payable to the 
 Crown, levied by acts prior to the colonial charter, 
 which have been since surrendered to the control of the 
 general assemblies either in America or the West Indies. 
 
 So tenacious has the British Government been of these 
 duties that they have uniformly guarded and reserved 
 them in their future enactments—obviously for the pur- 
 pose of lessening the burthen of the Colonies to the Mo- 
 ther Country, and for that same reason we should sub- 
 missively acquiesce, when we derive from her other 
 mighty and more than countervailing advantages. 
 
 But furthermore, I desire that party to show me where 
 the revenues of the territorial prerogative have been, on 
 any pretence whatever, claimed except in Canada—or 
 where the representative Branch of any colony has tried 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 94 
 
 to gripe within its clutches the Crown Duties of anterior 
 date to 18th Geo. III. Their assumptions are not only 
 at variance with the Constitution, but unexampled in co- 
 lonial history. The struggle of the American States was 
 directed against the right of taxation in the Parliament 
 of Britain for the purpose of general defence, and by 
 which the duties were to flow into the Imperial Treasu- 
 ry ; but as this right is abandoned for ever in consequence 
 of the liberal exposition put on constitutional Principles 
 by the great and wise men of that day, there is not the 
 slightest ground for the novel pretensions of the Cana- 
 dian patriots. These form a new case in the contests of li- 
 berty, and contain in them the active elements of revolu- 
 tion. They aim atthe prostration of the Monarchical 
 power, and convert into intolerable grievances the slight- 
 er abuses which ever have existed, and always will exist in 
 free governments. 
 
 To proceed in my argument, we have in Nova Scotia 
 and New Brunswick certain duties of customs payable to 
 the Crown by virtue ofa British act 4th Geo. III, cap. 
 15, passed prior to the 18th Geo. III, which never have 
 been claimed nor are appropriable by the local Assem- 
 blies.--These are at the Custom House in Halifax : 
 
 On Coffee.....0++....%8. sterg. per Cwt. 
 « Pimento........+--3d. do. per tb. 
 «© Molasses.....+++..-1s. do. per gallon. 
 «© Wines from 101 t 
 
 Great has ee ae 
 « Do. from Ma- 
 
 diy; bce: PEAR do, 
 
 These duties have always appertained to the Crown, 
 and been at the disposal of the Lords of the Treasury ; so 
 that we have ample food for civil strife were our House 
 predisposed to carry high constitutional principles 
 against the kingly prerogative. But in the provinces on 
 
 
 

 
 ~~ 
 See _———"Tia 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 this side of the St. Lawrence, settled by a people of Bri- 
 tish feeling and of British extraction, there is none of the 
 leaven of French jealousy, and much of the intelligence 
 and liberal tone of thinking that are the strongest bul- 
 warks of constitutional liberty. The better class have 
 read and thought and pondered on the science of poli- 
 tics, have made an estimate of the different forms of Go- 
 vernment, and have from principle and conviction, given 
 a decided preference to the mixed mode of--King, Lords, 
 Commons--which has more effectually aided the progress 
 of civilization, and laid a more stately fabric of glory and 
 happiness than any other system of rule hitherto devised 
 by the sagacity of the sage or founded by the power and 
 dominion of the victor : we love not to quarrel with the 
 maternal Government; andto this hour the utmost har- 
 mony prevails among the three branches of our Legisla- 
 ture. Your Commander-in-chief while here among us 
 was the idol of the Province and we discovered in him no 
 acts of arbitrary authority, no desire to invade popular 
 rights. How deeply to be pitied the Governor who 
 quits his power in Halifax and assumes it at Quebec. 
 Here the territorial revenues and the duties levied by 
 British acts prior to the 18th Geo. III, are respected by 
 the Assembly, and suffered to pass quitely under the di- 
 rection of the Crown. He beholds a contented, a happy, 
 a loyal population “rowing with the growth, and 
 strengthening with the strength ’’ of their mternal re- 
 sources. He comes in his legislative capacity, into 
 friendly contact with an intelligent and independent coun- 
 cil, and with a free, temperate and manageable Assembly. 
 He sees a country on which Ceres from her horn of plen- 
 ty pours the fruit of summer, and the treasures of harvest: 
 and he knows these blessings to be prized as the gifts of 
 providence, and to be enjoyed under the protection of 
 that noble and imperishable constitution that has with- 
 stood every shock and is endeared to the people he com- 
 mands. But how sad the change whenever he is preced- 
 ed by the usher of the black rod! He is introduced at 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 96 
 
 once into a war of elemental discord, and has his admin- 
 istration embittered by the most cruel jealousies. There 
 must be something in the people more than in the Go- 
 vernor, to produce these different effects, and it may be 
 worth while for Mr. Papineau and his adherents to medi- 
 tate onthe causes--the real, the true causes of these un- 
 
 happy disturbances. 
 SCANVOLA. 
 
 
 
 (FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 On the present state of the British Colonies. 
 
 w24AGIo— 
 
 Mr. Epiror. 
 
 Last week we were at some pains to obviate the ob~ 
 jections of the democratical party against a permanent 
 provision for their Civil List, and now one other view, 
 much insisted on, and in more than one or two instances 
 conspicuously brought forward, remains to be noticed ; 
 that nothing may be omitted in this discussion, having a 
 show of reason, or to which the slightest importance is 
 attached by the opposers of Lord Dalhousie’s Administra- 
 tion. 
 
 They argue thus, that though a revenue was created 
 in Canada, by 14th Geo. III. and placed by the act at 
 the disposal of the Lords of the Treasury for the main- 
 tenance of the Civil Government, and the judicial es- 
 tablishment, yet the subsequent statute 18th Geo. III. 
 according to a just and liberal construction, restored to 
 the local Assembly, the controul over these taxes; and 
 for this unanswerable reason, that the same immutable 
 
 
 
i 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 justice which led the King and Parliament of Great Bri- 
 tain to give their assent to the Principle, “ That the 
 Colonial Legislature should direct, dispose of, and ap- 
 propriate all duties raised from the people,” will equally 
 apply to past as to future time; and that the rights, 
 liberties and privileges of the Commons are coeval with 
 the constitution, aad depend not on any act which may 
 be passed prior or posterior to another. In other words, 
 they contend that although the Mother Country has 
 thought fit to give the Great Colonial Charter a pros- 
 pective interpretation only, this proceeds from a narrow 
 and illiberal policy inconsistent with the lights of the age, 
 and the growing ascendancy and adoption of popular 
 Opinions. Such are the sentiments of the angry wrang- 
 lers in Lower-Canada, and they defend these in the daily 
 napers with no littie art and a perseverance and obstina- 
 cy that would befit a better cause. But their view pro- 
 ceeds on a palpable misconception of that celebrated sta- 
 tute, the true intent and meaning of which can be best 
 gathered from the history of the times. And while the 
 present ferment is working in these colonies, it is of pre- 
 eminent and prodigious importance that its fair and legi- 
 timate construction be correctly set forth and generally 
 understood. 
 
 Early in the reign of His Majesty, the Parliament of 
 Britain first conceived the idea of rendering the Ameri- 
 can Province tributary by the imposition of taxes, which 
 were to be available for the support of the General Go- 
 vernment. Accordingly in 1764 the House of Commons 
 passed resolutions declaratory of their right to tax and 
 bind the Colonies in all cases whatever, & the next session 
 the Stamp Duty Bill passed both houses, and received the 
 royal assent on the 22d of March. The object proposed 
 to be gained, was to put the Americans on the same foot- 
 ing as the inhabitants of Great Britain, in respect of con- 
 tributing to the general defence of the Empire ; and to 
 
 N 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 lini: 
 98 
 
 raise the supplies for the year with the greater facility. 
 It was the first step in a sweeping and extensive scheme 
 of taxation, which as it acknowledged no limits, might 
 be carried on without end. The bold resistance made 
 against this act, andthe unanimity by which all the mea- 
 sures were encouraged to prevent its going into effect, 
 particularly in Boston, undoubtedly led to its hasty re- 
 peal. It also met with a host of enemies, both in Parlia- 
 ment and in the country, who condemned it as subversive 
 of one of the main pillars of constitutional liberty “to tax 
 any subject, foreign or domestic, without his consent. ” 
 Stamps, they maintained, could not be levied, and collect- 
 edin America, by authority of Parliament, and the pro- 
 duce of them remitted to England, without infringing the 
 most sacred rights of the colonists, who by their own as-~ 
 semblies could alone exercise legitimately the power of 
 internal taxation. 
 
 But though the Ministry were compelled, with the view 
 of allaying the irritations that had spread so widely, to 
 abandon this claim, yet they adhered to the belief that 
 the right of External taxation remained in full force,— 
 and could be safely asserted by the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. Under this conviction, a new Bill was introduced 
 1767, and passed apparently with general approbation, 
 to impose certain duties of export on tea, glass, paper,and 
 painters’ colours, shipped from Great-Britain to the Co- 
 Jonies. In this way the Americans would be made to 
 contribute towards the necessary supplies for the carrying 
 on of the Government, and the only difference would lie 
 in the mode of collecting the taxes from them. This de- 
 vice was hailed by the friends of the Administration as a 
 happy deliverance from the former difficulties, and as 
 being perfectly accordant with the genius of the consti- 
 tution. It was a power which every free state could ex- 
 ercise over foreign trade, in selling the wares and mer- 
 chandize, which were the products of its art and indus- 
 try, at whatever price it might choose todemand, But 
 
 
 
— 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 99 
 
 the Ministry, in their anxiety to raise a revenue from the 
 Colonies, and to retrieve, at least in part, the errors they 
 had committed, and the imbecillity they had betrayed, 
 seem to have forgot, that the rule which in this second 
 instance they had precipitately adopted, might be admis- 
 sible and perfectly harmless, when applied to independent 
 countries, but was impregnated with all the elements of 
 mischief, extortion and oppression when extended to Co- 
 lonies, which were shut out of every other market but 
 that of the Parent Government. Ifa foreign Prince was 
 so impolitic as to impose high duties on the articles of ex- 
 port from his dominions, he only crippled histrade and 
 gave force and vigor toa counteracting principle ; for the 
 purchaser, guided by the universal impulse of self-inte- 
 rest, would seek and repair to the cheapest market, and 
 
 _ cease to traffic on disadvantageous terms. The Colonists 
 
 had not this liberty, and they were therefore bound to re- 
 sist any attempt on the part of the Mother country, to lay 
 taxes on exports, needed for the consumption of her fo- 
 reigu dependencies. This bill of revenue met with no 
 kinder reception from the Provincials than the former. In 
 Massachusetts great discontent prevailed; and assacia- 
 tions began to be formed for encouraging domestic manu- 
 factures and discontinuing the import of British products 
 which might be charged indefinitely, with impost after 
 impost, at the discretion of the Ministry. ‘These troubles 
 acquired great strength and soon propagated themselves 
 through every nook and corner of America. Ineffectual 
 attempts to stop their progress were made more than once 
 by the British Government, attempts that vacillated be- 
 twixt feebleness and vigor, easy concession and high 
 handed force ; but all was unavailing’, for the injuries giv- 
 en and received left no other alternative save the decision 
 ofthe sword. ‘The difference, as is apparent from the 
 foregoing details, was simply this : a claim of right on the 
 one side and a denial of that right on the other, to raise a 
 revenue from the colonies, for the ends and uses of the ge- 
 neral Government either by internal or external taxation, 
 
 
 

 
 — 
 
 100 
 
 These disputes broke outinto open warfare in 1775, but 
 the question as to the power of Britain to levy taxes inthe 
 colonies for the expences of their own civil government 
 was never mooted in all the addresses, petitions and re- 
 monstrances, which the quarrel occasioned. When, there- 
 fore, in 1778, the third year of the Revolutionary War, 
 the colonial charter, 18, Geo. 3, was passed, the undoubt- 
 ed intention was to renounce the right of taxation claimed 
 by the Parliament of Britain, and exemplified in the stamp 
 and Tea acts, and which had engendered the then distur- 
 bances, andalienated the affections of the Thirteen United 
 Provinces. But it never was nor possibly could be the 
 design of the British Government to yield up all the du- 
 ties payable tothe crown by statutes which were then in 
 force, for all such were at the very passing of this act, then 
 claimed and have ever since, without any interruption, 
 been appropriated under the direction of the King for the 
 purpose specified in the acts themseives. Neither is the 
 application of these crown duties at variance with the 
 Colonial Charter. It abandons only ‘a claim of revenue 
 to Britain, and these duties belonging to the King by 
 prior acts go towards the payment of the Civil List in 
 every colony where they are collected, and in no case do 
 they exceed the sum needed for this indispensable purpose. 
 The Colonial Charter has therefore never been violated ; 
 for the produce of these duties has in no case left a sur- 
 plus to swell the receipts of the Exchequer. 
 
 The Crown duties in Nova Scotia under 4thGeo. 
 Ill, chap. 15 amount to about annually...... £2000 
 
 Our Civil List voted by Parliament as appears by 
 the late London papers, t0.......00ee.ee eee ord 10,649 
 
 The above duties in New Brunswick.......... £ 950 
 Her Civil List by same AUVICCs oc 100 eS GOR ee ee) GOOOV 
 
 
 
 
 
LL 
 
 
 
 101 
 
 The permanent funds both in Upper and Lower Cana- 
 da are known as being quite inadequate to the support of 
 the Civil Government. Observations of a like kind may 
 be extended to the West India Islands, so that it may be 
 truly affirmed that all the duties raised by acts of the Im- 
 perial Parliament in this western hemisphere, prior to the 
 18th Geo. III, are not sufficient to meet the respective ci- 
 vil administrations and that these Plantations and Colo- 
 nies have up to this hour been a burden on the Mother 
 Country. In my next letter I shall enter upon the remedy. 
 
 SCQEVOLA. 
 
 [FROM THE NOVA-SCOTIAN.] 
 
 LETTER. IX. 
 
 -—— 
 
 On the present state of the British Colomes. 
 
 —efe> 
 Mr. Eprror, 
 
 Having now arrived by gradual steps at the close of 
 our political argument, conducted throughout, with a 
 due regard to the free principles of our exccllent con- 
 stitution, and touching on such passages of past history 
 as could be aptly introduced by way of illustration, 1t 
 only remains to point out what appears the safest practi- 
 cable mode of composing the dissentions that have so 
 long agitated Lower Canada; and in entering on this 
 field, [shall abstain from all lengthened discussion, and 
 prescribe what occurs to be the most effectual remedy in 
 
 two or three propositions. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 VJ 
 
 102 
 
 Ist. The Representatives of the people can assert no 
 control over the territorial revenues of the Crown nor 
 over fines and forfeitures, which are its hereditary patri- 
 mony, without committing violent injustice on the ac- 
 knowledged prerogative of His Majesty. Itisan act of 
 grace to have applied these towards the payment of the 
 Civil List, which should have been received with thanks, 
 and no attempt whatever should have been encouraged 
 by the intelligent part of the House of Assembly in Cana- 
 da to seize and appropriate these, without the consent of 
 the King. The whole strain of English history, and the 
 unvarying usages of Parliament, bear me out in this po- 
 sition. 
 
 Qnd. The duties accruing from the Imperial Act 18 
 Geo. 3. so often referred to, with the £5000 afterwards 
 granted by the Provincial Legislature in 1795, constitute 
 a fund for the support of the civil Government and the 
 administration of justice, which is for ever placed beyond 
 the consrol of the Representative body, unless they can 
 contrive to ohtain the Royal assent to repeal the two 
 laws. The King by his simple veto can effectualy pre- 
 vent their interference ; and he cannot be forced into the 
 measure without dissolving the Government. Let the 
 House then quietly and respecfully submit to let these 
 duties pass towards the Salaries of the more necessary and 
 essential officers of the government, and to allow the 
 King, without murmuring, to subdivide and appropri- 
 ate them according to his Royal will and pleasure. It is 
 plain on constitutional principles, that they cannot dis- 
 possess the Crown of this fund without a desperate strug- 
 gle, and without attacking the supremacy of Parliament. 
 All the other Colonies in the West Indies and America, 
 acquiesce in the exaction of duties imposed before the 
 18th Geo. III. and the Canadians should cheerfully ac- 
 cede to arule which is of universal operation. While 
 these duties are applied towards the necessary charges, 
 incurred for the supply of the local government, any 
 
 
 

 
 103 
 
 supposed extravagance in its expenditure isa slight grie- 
 vance, and can never justify any determined opposition. 
 If the British Commons were to quarrel with the Ex- 
 ecutive for every flagrent case of sinecure and pension, 
 or for every exorbitant salary, a speedy end would be put 
 to that harmony which is so essential to their useful and 
 joint co-operation. 
 
 3rd. Should the territorial and casual revenue and this 
 permanent fund above described be acknowledged insuf- 
 ficient for paying the essential officers of the Govern- 
 ment, the Judges and all other charges which fall on the 
 Civil List in England; let such further sum be voted 
 forthwith during the life of the King, in order that he, 
 stationed illustriously at the head of the State, may be 
 enabled, out of his royal munificence, to satisfy all those 
 claims that may be made for the conduct and maintain- 
 ance of his government. This cannot be dispensed with 
 on any consideration, without derogating from his dig- 
 nity and encroaching on his executive power. The 
 amount of the Civil List must be granted to him in gross, 
 and he must deal it out among his servants. Like the 
 rental of a Baron or a Noble, which isalso collected 
 from the industry of the people, it must be placed at the 
 sole and absolute disposal of the Sovereign, without the 
 humiliating mortification of being checked and fettered 
 in every item of the expenditure by the people whom he 
 governs. But even here the popular Branch can exert 
 that principle of restraint, lodged in it for wise and use- 
 ful purposes, by limiting the aggregate amount which it 
 may will to confer on the Monarch. England presents 
 the example of very different sums having been bestowed 
 at the commencement of the respective reigns. George 
 III. on his accession received £800,000 sterling, which 
 was a considerable augmentation on that of his predeces- 
 sor, and his present Majesty enjoys £1,057,000 for the 
 charges of his Civil List. But it was voted to himina 
 round undivided sum, and once for all on his ascending 
 
 
 

 
 104 
 
 the throne. Many of thesalaries chargeable on it are 
 known, but much of its expenditure is unknown, and 
 none of it is accounted for. This respect for the dignity 
 and prerogative of the Crown must be transplanted into 
 the Colonies, if we are desirous of preserving the balance 
 of the Constitution. To provide for the first officers of 
 the Government, by annual votes of the Assembly, and 
 thus deprive the King of the disposal of a single shilling, 
 would be a violation of all decency, and end in overset- 
 ing the present order of things. He must have an inde- 
 pendent fund somewhere, and from it he must derive 
 those necessary expenses which he will be called on to 
 defray. These, I believe are constitutional ideas, how- 
 ever abhorrent to the levelling temper of democracy. 
 
 Ath There are many charges connected with the civil 
 government of every colony that ought only to be pro- 
 vided for annually ; and it would bea dereliction of du- 
 ty in the House of Assembly to settle them on any per- 
 manent establishment. Theannual control of that Branch 
 over the expenditure is the most sacred pledge intrusted 
 to their keeping, and the surest guarantee of their being 
 periodically and regularly summoned to the exercise of 
 their legislative functions. While the Crown, therefore, 
 should be invested with a sum that may suffice to keep 
 the great and master-wheels of the Government in steady 
 and uniform motion, the House of Assembly should re- 
 tain the power of guiding and impelling the lesser. 
 Though there are many powerful reasons, drawn from 
 constitutional sources, for making independent of the 
 people the Governor-in-chief, the Lieut. Governor, the 
 Chief Justice, the different Judges, the treasurer, the At- 
 torney and Solicitor General, the Pro. Secretary, the ofh- 
 cers of Customs and Excise, and such like indispensable 
 public servants, there are none for extending this privi- 
 lege to assistant Secretaries and clerks, to Registrars and 
 Translators, to the messengers and keepers of the public 
 offices, to the inspectors of accounts, to sergeantsat arms, 
 
 — 
 
 
 

 
 Le 
 EE ES  —— 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 nor even to the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Presi- 
 dent of the legislative Council. The servants of the 
 Public should never be made independent but to secure 
 some obvious and substantial advantage, and every Colo- 
 nial Assembly will do well to copy those prudent and so- 
 ber rules of practice which have grown up in England 
 with the dawn and maturity of her liberties. In Nova 
 Scotia a great deal of the expense incurred for the support 
 of our Civil Government, is voted annually, and no in- 
 convenience is found to accrue from what is so much 
 dreaded,—the wavering and irresolute temper of the Re- 
 presentative body. But what may be called in strict 
 propriety of language our Civil List, is securely placed 
 beyond the touch of the Assembly. All our Judges, for 
 instance, have their situations and salaries fixed by per- 
 petual Bills, passed in the Colonial Legislature ;—-Our 
 Lieut. Governor, the Chief Justice, the Crown Lawyers, 
 the Surveyor General, &c. are paid by the British Go- 
 vernment ; andthe officers of the Customs are authorised 
 by the Lords of the Treasury to hold their Salaries out of 
 the gross produce of the duties which may be collected 
 by them. 
 
 But though these high, essential, and important officers 
 are rendered independent, and consider themselves as 
 more immediately the servants of his Majesty, all others 
 of inferior account have to look to the annual votes of 
 the Assembly for their support, and no demand has ever 
 been made to establish these on a more permanent footing 
 —Such, however, is the loyalty and good sense of this 
 Province, that no doubt can be entertained, when the 
 time shall arrive for throwing on us the burden of our 
 civil list, of a ready compliance on our part to vote His 
 Majesty, for the term of his natural life, such a sum as 
 will cover the necessary disbursements. We see that day 
 fast approaching; and are prepared to meet it without 
 shrinking from our duty. 
 
 0 
 
 
 

 
 106 
 
 The path then for the Representatives of Lower Cana- 
 da is clear and patent, provided they harbour no machi-« 
 nations, hostile to the existing government. Let the per- 
 manent fund remain, without any further attempts to 
 seize it, in the hands where the act of the Parliament has 
 deposited it; and let them grant such further aid to His 
 Majesty, during his reign, as in their honest judgment 
 may provide for the necessary charges of their civil estab- 
 lishment ; and, after having done what the constitution 
 requires of them, they may hold up their heads boldly and 
 make a firm, manly and determined stand. Should they 
 adopt this course, I am satisfied they will be met half 
 way, by the Executive, in the true spirit of conciliation; 
 and the wounds will be closed which have so long been 
 festering.—At all events the other Provinces will see 
 where the blame lies, and will be inclined to throw the 
 weight of their advice and assistance into that scale which 
 leans to the side of justice. If this offer be made and re- 
 jected, the democratic party will even acquire a greater 
 accession of strength, for the friends of the Government 
 would be staggered, and somethiug like proof produced 
 that there existed with the Executive a love of usurpation 
 over popular rights and a culpable desire to stretch the 
 iba yeh of the Crown beyond their just and natural 
 
 imits. 
 
 That these nine letters may be conducive to the resto- 
 ration of peace and mutual harmony is the sincere 
 
 prayer of 
 SCAVOLA. 
 
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