proceedings in the courts. The bill was dropped. In consequence, however, of the complaints against the administration of justice, the council voted an address to the governor, asking that an investigation should be held, both with regard to the procedure observed in the courts and the conduct of the judges; the investigation to include the practice followed in the court of appeal. Chief justice Smith was appointed the commissioner to conduct the inquiry, and he commenced his labours in June, 1787. Many witnesses were heard, and much evidence was admitted, attacking the personal character of the judges. The record is preserved in a voluminous array of papers, the examination of which is the less necessary as the investigation led to no result. The report, to a great extent, is a reflex of the passions of the time, which, as experience has shewn, rage with the greater violence the smaller the community in which they are called forth. The personal habits of the judges were described in some cases in the reverse of complimentary language ; charges of partiality were adduced even to absurdity. Some idea may be formed of the evidence received by the fact that testimony was given that Haldimand had personally influenced the judges of the court of appeal to cause an unjust judgment to be given against Du Calvet for £6,000.

The testimony, however, appears to establish that there was great uncertainty as to the prevailing law, owing to French or English law being followed as equity suggested. Lawyers writing on the point describe the inquiry as disclosing a condition of legal anarchy and confusion, presenting a melancholy state of the administration of justice. The inquiry was not in any way advanced by the boards of trade which were called together, both in Montreal and Quebec, to draft replies to the queries submitted to them. These bodies by no means confined themselves to the questions under examination. They entered into the view of constitutional government, asking for an elective chamber, with English laws, in all matters excepting the laws of land,

[History of Canada, W. Smith, II., p. 175.]

1787]

THE WESTERN DISTRICTS.

259

and of inheritance. Although it is plain that there was an absence of a uniform system of jurisprudence, and there was much incongruity of principle in many of the decisions, no writer of the times has urged there was wrong-doing in the sense of corruption, and I can find no trace of any charge that the decisions were unjust. The passage of the Canada bill in 1791 was doubtless the cause that no steps consequent on the inquiry were taken.

In July, 1787, Dorchester reported the ordinance which established four new districts on the Saint Lawrence, with that to the east at the bay of Chaleurs, to which the name of Gaspé was given. With the exception of Detroit and of Niagara, where the fur trade was actively carried on, which places called for special consideration, little interference on the part of government was required in the new settlements, beyond the establishment of law and order. The names given by Dorchester to these new districts, commencing at Detroit, were Hesse, Nassau, Mecklenburg and Lunenburg, the last named being situate west of the seigniories in Lower Canada proper, at lake Saint Francis. This nomenclature, however, was not long retained. By the 14th clause of the Canada act, authority was given to each lieutenant-governor by proclamation to divide the province into districts. In 1795 a map prepared by Mr. Chewett established six counties and districts, to be known as Eastern, Johnston, Midland, Home, London, and Western districts, the division that remained unchanged until the period of the union of the provinces in 1841.

Division-courts of justice were established and clerks-ofcourts, sheriffs, and coroners appointed with general provisions for executing justicé.

In 1788 Dorchester visited the loyalist settlements and reported his favourable impression of the progress that had been made. Even at this date, the division of the province was proposed to commence at the western line of the scigniory of new Longueuil. Applications for land were constantly being received from the United States, addressed

by those who had retained their attachment to the mother country, or who now repented that they had been induced to act hostilely against her. The tenure of land, however, under French law was distasteful to this class of settlers. Free grants had likewise been offered to the French Canadians who had served during the war; they were accepted only in few instances, from the fear of incurring an obligation to serve as soldiers for life.*

At this date the British population in Canada was confined to the cities of Montreal and Quebec. Dorchester, in 1788, estimated its number in the proportion of one British to two Canadians, owing to the influences prevailing from commercial life. Some few English-speaking inhabitants were established at Three Rivers, Terrebonne, Sorel, Saint John's and at the discharge of lake Champlain; only a small number were scattered in the parishes. The proportion in the country districts, independently of the cities, was one English-speaking to forty French Canadians, but, including the cities, one in fifteen.

The loyalist settlements on the Saint Lawrence were so distinct in character that the necessity of placing them under conditions differing from those of eastern Canada, with regard to the laws of property and municipal institutions, early became apparent as a political necessity.

The militia ordinance of 1787 was also brought into operation. Dorchester recommended that the three battalions to be called out should be embodied as an established force, the officers to be permanently appointed, the men to be renewed at the expiration of every two years. The measure, he conceived, would create a good spirit in the province; modifications from time to time might be necessary, as difficulty would be experienced in carrying out its provisions. He held that it was indispensable in no way to neglect the militia act, even in time of peace, so that its efficiency could be tested and the dependence to be placed on its operation fairly judged.

[Can. Arch., Q. 39, p. 6, 4th November, 1788.]

1787]

DISMISSAL OF MONK.

261

The agitation for the establishment of a house of assembly still continued. The project found general favour only with the British minority, for it was not accepted, except in an extremely limited degree, by the French Canadians. They regarded it as opposed to their interests, and as threatening the existence of the institutions which they had been led to cherish and sustain. Mr. Lymburner, a Quebec merchant, was sent to London to advocate the demand, while petitions* and memorials from those asking for the measure were placed in the hands of the government.

Owing to the part taken by Monk, the attorney-general, before the council, in the petition of the merchants against the administration of the law, he was dismissed from his office and Gray appointed in his place. From the consideration that the course taken by him was irreconcilable with his position as a law officer of the crown, instructions were sent by lord Sydney from London to that effect. The merchants, considering that this extreme measure had been taken because of his having pleaded their cause, addressed a memorial in Monk's favour. It is proper to state that, after the passing of the Canada act, Monk, in 1794, became chief justice of the court of King's Bench.

Enjoying in modern times, owing to the operation of railways in all directions, the increased comforts and conveniences which give a zest to life, the present generation has difficulty in bringing within its comprehension the privations which a century back were universally felt. Our daily wants are now so satisfactorily supplied, and, in spite of much that happens to shake the belief, civilization is so constantly and steadily advancing, affirming and widening its influences, that it is by no ordinary effort we can bring to view the rude conditions of existence then experienced. The imperfectly formed roads everywhere to be met, even at short

We learn that the petition from Montreal was not received by Dorchester. Having been sent in a box, the postage of £28 16s. was demanded. Dorchester would not take it from the post-office, on the ground that it would open the door for a similar expensive correspondence.

distances from the main lines of communication, made intercourse almost impossible between communities at no remote distances apart. The simplest articles of supply unattainable near one's own threshold, however plentiful a few leagues distant, passed out of thought with those who had once enjoyed them.

But for the introduction of railways, the history of the whole American continent would have been a different record from that which can to-day be read. There would be a wide interval between what now is seen to be and what, deprived of these influences, would have been found. It is entirely owing to the facilities that the railway has conferred, in making possible the existing political relationships, in creating an outlet for the products of the farm, the forest and the mine, and for supplying at a moderate cost the ordinary daily requirements of widely separated communities, that the development of British America and the United States has made such rapid strides. A century back the Apalachian range was regarded as presenting a formidable barrier to any identification of relationship between the east and west. As settlement found its way to the Ohio, extending northward to lake Erie and southward to Kentucky, the thought of connection with the Atlantic seaboard became greatly weakened. The Mississippi appealed to the imagination of the dwellers in this new land, as furnishing the true and only route to the ocean by which the fruits of their labours could reach foreign markets. There was at the same time little inclination to seek intercourse with the Spaniards. The feeling was one of extreme distrust towards Spain, and this sentiment went to the length that, if circumstances dictated the policy, its power should be defied. As the necessity of an unimpeded navigation of the great river became more apparent, it was hoped that Great Britain might obtain possession of Louisiana, and, in such a case, New Orleans would be the port to which the new state would look for connection with the ocean. It was by no means an uncommon speculation that relationship with the Atlantic cities of the States