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steadily co-operated in 1688 in the establishment of the constitution. Nevertheless, since that date they had been constantly persecuted by high churchmen. They claimed for themselves and for the ministry of every other denomination the power to perform the marriage rite.

This reasonable demand, conceded in modern times as an ordinary provision of social economy, worked in a totally contrary direction upon Simcoe's mind. The petition appeared to him an act of disloyalty to the government, and he brought his whole influence to oppose consideration of it. His personal feeling was strangely enlisted against it. He records that in the interview with some of those interested "he thought it proper to say that he looked upon the petition as the product of a wicked head and most disloyal heart." His only remedy was to recommend the establishment of church of England clergymen throughout the province.

It may be proper here to remark that the marriage law of 1793 remained unchanged until 1830, when by chap. 25, 11th George IV., it became lawful for any clergyman or minister of church, society, or religious community of persons professing to be members of the church of Scotland, Lutheran, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Independents, Methodists, Tunkers, or Moravians, to celebrate marriages. By this act, also, all former marriages were confirmed, the prescribed conditions having been observed.

The one act of relief in this interval was that of November, 1818, which permitted all who had failed to comply with the law of 1793 to legalize, within three years, their marriage in the mode prescribed.

Simcoe remained in York until the 20th of July, the date of his last official letter; on the following day, Peter Russell was sworn in as administrator. From a letter of Peter Russell, Simcoe appears to have been detained a month in Quebec.* He was, however, in London early in November. In July, previous to his departure, the posts of Oswego and

* [Russell to Simcoe at Quebec, 22nd of Sept., Q. 282.2, p. 583. Ib., p. 589, 10th of November.]

1796]

TRANSFER OF POSTS.

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Detroit had been given over to the United States. Niagara was not transferred until the 11th of August, when the guard of the 5th, which had remained in charge, sailed for Quebec. This delay appears to have arisen from the nonarrival of the United States troops from Oswego. There was likewise delay in the new garrison reaching Michillimackinac, as appears from a letter from Peter Russell to Portland.

Although the posts were not transferred until August, by a general order of the 31st of May the garrisons were withdrawn in June, except small parties which were left to give over the forts to the United States troops.

There is ground for the opinion that Simcoe looked forward to return to Upper Canada. Russell wrote to Portland that the legislature had been prorogued and new writs issued. It was not, however, his intention to convene the houses before June, except in case of necessity, as he hoped before then to resign his charge to Simcoe. Simcoe, although not in good health on his arrival in London, had been there but a few days when he was ordered to the government of San Domingo. He was then major-general,

having been appointed to that rank in October, 1794. †

At the end of the year Simcoe's health was so bad that he applied for leave to return home. He must have obtained

* The following detachments were present at the several posts at the period of the transfer:

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On the occupation of the posts by the United States troops, these detachments, according to the order they received, descended the Saint Lawrence to Kingston. [Simcoe papers, V., p. 206.]

+ The curious circumstance is that no official communication of his promotion reached Dorchester. Even as late as October, 1795, Simcoe was officially addressed as colonel [Simcoe papers, IV., p. 411]. In January, 1796, colonel Beckwith, the adjutant-general, wrote privately to Simcoe by Dorchester's request [Simcoe papers, V., p. 25], that he had hitherto addressed him by his former rank, in expectation that the promotion would be notified from home. Nothing had been heard on the subject, but he would no longer defer giving him the rank to which he had been raised.

it in an irregular way, for Portland, from whom he asked permission to sail in a king's ship, in acceding to the request, wrote as if guided by Simcoe's information only. He left San Domingo on the 27th of September, 1797. After his arrival in England, in a memorial to the duke of Portland, he states that it had been believed that he left his government without authority. The explanation given is that by the misunderstanding of a clerk his name was taken out of the order granting leave and that of sir Ralph Abercrombie substituted. An interview with Mr. Pitt satisfactorily explained the difficulty, and in order to establish Simcoe's good standing in the army, in October, 1798, he was promoted to lieutenant-general and nominated colonel of the 22nd foot. In 1800 he was placed in command at Plymouth. On tendering his resignation of that position and applying to be sent on foreign service, he was appointed commander-in-chief in India. In 1806 he was directed to join lord St. Vincent's fleet in the Tagus, having, in connection with the earl of Roslyn and the earl of St. Vincent, been included in a diplomatic mission to Lisbon. There was a peculiar fitness in Simcoe's appointment, for his father, when captain in the navy, had been sent to that city after the great earthquake with money collected in England to aid in relief of the distress.

Simcoe had scarcely reached Lisbon when he became prostrated with sickness and was recommended to return to England. He sailed in the "Illustrious," man-of-war, and reached Torbay on the 20th of October, whence he was conveyed in a sloop, fitted up to receive him, to Topsham. With difficulty on that day he arrived at the house of archdeacon Moore in the cathedral close of Exeter. He died on Sunday, the 26th of October. He was buried at his domestic chapel at Woolford on the 4th of November. A monument to his memory, by Flaxman, was erected in Exeter cathedral. Simcoe, at his death, was but fifty-four years of age.

In April, 1796, Dorchester received official information

1796]

DORCHESTER'S DEPARTURE.

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that lieutenant-general Robert Prescott had been appointed lieutenant-governor of Lower Canada and commander-inchief in North America.* He was informed that the man-ofwar, the "Quebec," which was taking out Prescott, had been placed at his service, to bring himself and his family to England. He was desired to give full instructions to Prescott for the final evacuation of the posts; with the information that the military stores they contained were the property of the king and would be of importance to the new posts to be formed.

General Robert Prescott was of a good Lancashire family. He had served in the American war, and, on the declaration of war in 1793 by France, in the West Indies. For a short period he had been governor of Martinique, and owing to ill health had applied for leave of absence. At the date of his arrival in Canada, he is represented as being in his seventy-first year. He must, however, have been in full vigour, for he lived until his eighty-ninth year, having died in 1815.

Dorchester assembled the last parliament held during his government on the 20th of November, 1795; it lasted until the 7th of May. He directed its attention to the bad harvest which had been gathered in the province, owing to which he had found it necessary to lay an embargo on the exportation of wheat until the 10th of December; he asked their consideration, whether further steps were necessary to meet any distress which might be suffered by the poorer population, owing to the failure of the crops. A road act was passed, which afterwards caused some discontent, but this unpleasantness led to no complications during Dorchester's government. After his departure the feeling of dissatisfaction. took a more active form, and attempts were made to resist it. Dorchester embarked for England on the 9th of July, 1796. The lieutenant-governor, general Robert Prescott, by procla

*

[Can. Arch., Q. 75.1, p. 32.] Prescott's commission was dated the 7th of April, 1796, if the date of the letter communicating the fact can be accepted as proof.

mation assumed the government on the 12th of the month. Addresses from Quebec and Montreal were presented to the governor on his departure. They bore testimony to his mild and auspicious administration, by which the resources, prosperity and happiness of the provinces had increased in a degree almost without a parallel. They dwelt upon the advantages derived by the example set in the lives of himself and his family, and expressed the deepest regret at his departure. The addresses gave assurance of loyalty to the crown, and of warm appreciation of the "happy government under which it is our glory to live."

The "Active" frigate, on which Dorchester left, was wrecked on the island of Anticosti. There was no loss of life; the governor and his family were embarked on vessels to reach Percé, near Gaspé. A ship was obtained from Halifax to carry them to England, where he arrived on the 19th of September. Dorchester retained his office as governor-in-chief until the 27th of April, 1797, when Prescott was appointed as his successor.

Dorchester thus ceased to be the protagonist on the political stage of Canada. His name still lives in our memory and must ever be a household word. In the county of Carleton, in which Ottawa the capital of the dominion is situate and where this attempt to write the history of Canada is being made, it is daily repeated in the commonest acts of our lives. In the change of nomenclature, enacted by the Representation bill of March, 1829, by which the members were increased in number from fifty to eightyfour, and the old names of the counties were replaced by those connected with French Canadian history, that of Dorchester was retained, being given to the county, south of the Saint Lawrence, extending from the county of Levis, opposite Quebec, to the boundary of New Brunswick.

Dorchester's career is inscribed in the annals of the dominion at intervening periods, from the conquest of Quebec to his departure in 1796. He was, in the first instance, present with Wolfe's army. He had been appointed

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