The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-06 00:00:00

A PROCLAMATION.

In conformity with one of its provisions, I have this day pro-
claim( d the Act 1 and 2 Victoria, chap. 112, entitled " An
Act for indemnifying those who have issued or acted under
certain parts of a certain ordinance, made under colour of an
Act passed i❑ tic present Session of Parliament, entitled,
" An Act to make temporary provision for the government of
Lower Catuda."

I have also to notify the disallo wance by her 'Majesty rif the
Ordinance 2d Victoria, chap. I, entitled, " An Ordinance to
, provide far the security of the Province of Lower Canada."
I cannot perform these official duties without at the same
time informing you, the people of British America, of the
course which the measures of the Imperial Govern!, ent
and Legislature make it incumbent on me to pursue. The
mystery which has heretofore too often during the progress of
the most important affairs, concealed from the people of these
colonies the intentions, the motives, and the very actions of
their rulers, appears to me to have been one of the main
causes of the numerous errors of the Government, and the
' general dissatisfaction of the people. Undesirable at any
time, such concealment on the part of one entrusted with the
supreme authority in the present crisis of your affairs would
be most culpable and pernicious. With a people from whom
I had so many and such gratifying proofs of warm and con-
fiding attachment I can have no reserve. And my implicit
reliance on your loyalty and good sense will justify me in
making you acquainted with what it imports you to know.
It is the more necessary for me thus to act, because when I
first entered upon this Government I explained to you, in
a Proclamation issued immediately on my arrival on these
shores, the mouse of the powers vested in me, and the
principles on which it was my intention to exercise them.
Now, therefore, that I am about to return to England, I feel
it my bounden duty to state to you, as fully and as frankly,
the reasons which have induced me to lay down those powers,
rendered inadequate to the carrying into effect those or any
other principles of Government.
I did not accept the government of British North America
without duly considering the nature of the task which I im-
posed on myself, or the sufficiency of my means for perform..
ing it. When Parliament concentrated all legislative and
executive power in Lower Canada in the same hands, it
established an authority which, in the strictest sense of the
word, was despotic. This authority her Majesty was gra-
ciously pleased to delegate to me. I did not shrink from as-
suming the awful responsibility of power thus freed from cot-
stitutional restraints, in the hope that, by exercising it with
ju-tice, with mildness, and with vigour I might secure the
happiness of all classes of the people, and facilitate the
speedy and permanent restoration of their liberties. But I
never was weak enough to imagine that the forms by
which men's rights are wisely guarded in that country
where freedom has been longest enjoyed, best understood, and
most prudently exercised, could be scrupulously observed in a
society, almost entirely disorganised by misrule and dissension.
I conceived it to be one of the chief advantages of my posi-
tion, that I was enabled to pursue the ends of substantial
justice and sound policy, free and unfettered. Nor did I ever
dream of applying the theory or the practice of the British
Constitution to a country whose Constitution was suspended—
where all representative 'Government was annihilated, and
the people deprived of all controul over their own affairs—
where the ordinary guarantees of personal rights had been
in abeyance, during a long subjection to martial law, and
a continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus—where there
neither did exist, nor had for a long time existed, any
confidence in the impartial administration of justice in any
political case.
To encourage and stimulate me in my arduous task, I had
great and worthy objects in view. My aim was to elevate the
province of Lower Canada to a thoroughly British character,
to link its people to the sovereignty of Britain, by making
them all participators in those high privileges, conducive at
once to freedom and order, which have long been the glory of
Englishmen. I hoped to confer on an united people a more
extensive enjoyment of free and responsible government, and
to merge the petty jealousies of a small community, and the
odious animosities of origin, in the higher feelings of a nobler
and more comprehensive nationality.
To give effect to these purposes, it was necessary that my
powers of government should be as strong as they were exten-
sive—that I should be known to have the means of acting as
well as judging for myself, without a perpetual control by dis-
tant authorities. It were well, indeed, if such were the ordi-
nary tenure of government in the colonies, and that your local
administration should always enjoy so much of the confi-
dence of those with whom rests the ultimate decision of
your affairs, that it might ever rely on being allowed to carry
out its policy to completion, and on being supported in
giving effect tot
r its promises and its commands. But, in
e ofyour affairs, it was necessary that the
the present posture
most unusual confidence should accompany the delegation of
a most unusual authority; and that, in addition to such great
legal powers, the government here should possess all the mo-
ral force that could be derived from the assurance that its
acts would be final, and its engagements religiously observed.
It is not by stinted powers, or a dubious authority, that the
present danger can be averted, or the foundation laid of a
better order of things.
I had reason to believe that I was armed With all;the power
which I thought requisite, by the commissions and instruc-
tions under the royal sign
manual with which I was charged
as Governor-General and High-Commissioner, by the autho-
rity vested in me and my council, by the Act of the Impe.
rial Legislature, and by the general approbation of my ap-
pointment which all parties were pleased to express. I also
trusted that I should enjoy throughout the course of my ad_
h which
can
tlie cordial and Steadfast sup-
ministration all the strength
port of the •authorlsies ngatt home alone give to their dis-
tant officers., andthat even party feeling
would refrain from
molesting me vi hilst occupied in maintaining the integrity of the
British empire.
In these just expectations I have been painfully disappointed.
From the very commencement of my task, the minutest details
of my administration have been exposed to incessant criticism,
in a spirit which has evinced an entire ignorance of the state
of this country, and of the only mode in which the supremacy
of the British Crown can here be upheld and exercised. Those
who have,
in the British Legislature, systematically depreei_
ated my pothers, and the Ministers of the
Crown, by their tacit
acquiescence therein, have produced the effect of making it
too clear that my authority is inAadteqlounagtteh
an actfvr the
of
emerorygegneoy..
which called it into existence.
vernment, the first and most important which was brought under
the notice of the authorities at home, has been annulled ; and
the entire policy, of which that act was a small though essential
part, has thus been defeated.
The disposal of the political prisoners was, from the first, a
matter foreign to my mission. With a view to the more easy
attainment of the great objects contemplated, that question
ought to have been settled before my arrival. But as it was es-
sential to my plans for the future tranquillity and improvement of
the colony that I should commence by allaying actual irritation,
I had in the first place to determine the fate of those who were
under prosecution, and to provide for the present security of
the Province, by removing the most dangerous disturbers of
its peace. For these ends the ordinary tribunals, as a recent
trial has clearly shown, afforded me no means. Judicial pro-
ceedings would only have agitated the public mind afresh—
would have put in evidence the sympathy of a large portion of
the people with rebellion, and would have given to the
disaffected generally a fresh assurance of impunity for political
guilt. An acquittal in the face of the clearest evidence, which
I am justified in having anticipated as inevitable, would have
set the leaders of the insurrection at liberty, absolved from
crime, and exalted, in the eyes of their deluded countrymen,
as the innocent victims of an unjust imprisonment and a vin-
dictive charge. I looked on these as mischiefs which I was
bound to avert, by the utmost exercise of the powers entrusted
to me. I could not, without trial and conviction, take any
measures of a purely penal character; but I thought myself
justified in availing myself of an acknowledgment of guilt, and
adopting measures of precaution against a small number of the
most culpable or most dangerous of the accused.
Whether a better mode of acting could have been devised
for the emergency is now immaterial. This is the one that
has been adopted—the discussion which it at first excited has
I passed away, and those who were once most inclined to con-
demn its leniency, had acquiesced in, or submitted to it. The
good effects which must necessarily have resulted from any
settlement of this difficult question had begun to show them-
se vcs• Of these, the principal were, the general approval of
my policy by the people of the United States, and the conse-
quent cessation of American sympathy with any attempt to
disturb the Canadas. This result has been most gratifying
to me, inasmuch as it has gone far towards a complete restora-
tion of that good will between you and a great kindred nation,
which I have taken every means in my power to cultivate, and
which I earnestly entreat you to cherish as essential to your
peace and prosperity.
It is also very satisfactory to me to find that the rectitude of
d
my Policy has hardly been disputed at home, and that the s-
allowance of the ordinance proceeds from no doubt of its
sub-
stantial merits, but from the importance which has been at-
tached to a supposed technical error in the assumption of a
power which, if I had it not, I ought to have had.
The particular defect in the ordinance which has been made,
the ground of its disallowance, was occasioned, not by my
mistaking the extent of my powers, but by my reliance in the
readiness of Parliament to supply their insufficiency in case of
need. For the purpose of relieving the prisoners from all ap-
prehension of being treated as ordinary convicts, and the loyal
inhabitants of the province from the dread of their immediate
return, words were inserted in the ordinance respecting the
disposal of them in Bermuda, which were known to be lope-

rative. I was perfectly aware that my powers extended to
landing the prisoners on the shores of Bermuda, but no fur-
ther. I knew that they could not be forcibly detained in that
island without the co operation of the Imperial Legislature.
That co-operation I had a right to expect, because the course I
was pursuing was pointed out in numerous Acts of the Imperial
and Provincial Legislatures, as I shall have occasion hereafter
most fully to prove. I also did believe that, even if I had not
the peecedence of these Acts of Parliament, a Government and
a Legislature, anxious for the peace of this unhappy-country, and
for the integrity of the British Empire, would not sacrifice to a
petty technicality the vast benefits which my entire policy pro-
mised, and bad already in a great measure secured. I trusted they
would take care that a great and beneficent purpose should
not be frustrated by any error, if error there was, which they
could rectify, or the want of any power which they could
supply ; finally, that if they found the ordinance inoperative,
they would give it effect—if illegal, that they would make
it law.

This small aid has not been extended to me, even for this
great object ; and the usefulness of my delegated power ex-
pires with the loss of that support from the supreme authority
which could alone sustain it. The measure now annulled was
but part of a large system of measures which I promised when
I proclaimed the amnesty. When I sought to obliterate the
traces of recent discord, I pledged myself to remove its causes,
to prevent the revival of a contest between hostile races—to
raise the defective institutions of Lower Canada to the level
of British civilization and freedom—to remove all impediments
to the course of British enterprise in this province, and pro-
mote colonization and improvement in the others—and to
consolidate these general benefits on the strong and perma-
nent basis of a free, responsible, and comprehensive Govern-
ment.

Such large promises could not have been ventured, without
a perfect reliance on the unhesitating aid of the supreme
authorities. Of what avail are the purposes and promises of
a delegated power, whose acts are not respected by the
authority from which it proceeds ? With what confidence can
I invite co-operation, or impose forbearance, whilst I touch
ancient laws and habits, as well as deep-rooted abuses, with
the weakened hands that have ineffectually essayed but a little
more than the ordinary vigour of the police of troubled times ?
How can I provide against the immediate effects of the dis-
allowance of the ordinance? That ordinance was immediately
connected with other measures which remain in unrestricted
operation. It was coupled with her Majesty's Proclamation of
Amnesty ; and as I judged it becoming that the extraordinary
Legislature of Lower Canada should take upon itself all mea-
sures of rigorous precaution, and leave to her Majesty the con-
genial office of using her royal prerogative for the sole purpose
of pardon and mercy, the Proclamation contained an entire
amnesty, qualified only by the exceptions specified in the
ordinance. The ordinance has been disallowed, and the
proclamation is confirmed. Her Majesty having been advised
to refuse her assent to the exceptions, the amnesty exists with.
out qualification. No impediment therefore exists to the
return of the persons who had made the most distinct admis-
sion of their guilt, or who had been excluded by me from the
province on account of the danger to which its tranquillity
would be exposed by their presence; and none can now be
enacted, without the adoption of some measures alike repug-
nant to my sense of justice and of policy. I cannot recall
the irrevocable pledge of her Majesty's mercy. I cannot at-
tempt to evade the disallowance of the ordinance, by re-enact-
ing it under the disguise of an alteration of the scene of
banishment, or of the penalties of unauthorised return. I
cannot, by a needless suspension of the Habeas Corpus, put
the personal liberty of every man at the mercy of the Govern-
ment, and declare a whole province in immediate danger of
rebellion, merely in order to exercise the influence of a vague
terror over a few individuals.
In these conflicting and painful circumstances it is far better
that I should at once and distinctly announce my intention of
desisting from the vain attempt to carry my policy and system
of administration into effect with such inadequate and re-
stricted means. If the peace of Lower Canada is to be again
menaced, it is necessary that the Government should be able
to reckon on a more cordial and vigorous support at home
than has been accorded to me. No good that may not be ex-
pected from any other Government in Lower Canada can be
obtained by my continuing to wield extraordinary legal powers,
of which the moral force and consideration are gone.
You will easily believe that, after all the exertions which I
have made, it is with feelings of deep disappointment that I
find myself thus suddenly deprived of the power of conferring
great benefits on the province to which I have referred—of
reforming the administrative system there, and eradicating the
manifold abuses which had been engendered by the negligence
and corruption of former times, and so lamentably fostered by
civil dissensions. I cannot but regret being obliged to re-
nounce the still more glorious hope of employing unusual Le-
gislative powers in the endowment of that province with those
free municipal institutions, which are the only sure basis of
local improvement and representative treaty, of establishing a
system of general education, of revising the defective laws
which regulate real property and commerce—and of introduc-
ing a pure and competent administration of justice. Above
all, I grieve to be thus forced to abandon the realization of
such large and solid schemes of colonization and internal im-
provement as would connect the distant portions of these ex-
tensive colonies, and lay open the unwrought treasures of the
wilderness to the wants of British industry, and the energy of
British enterprize.
For these objects I have laboured much—and have received
the most active, zealous, and efficient co-operation from the
able and enlightened persons who are associates with me in
this great undertaking. Our exertions, however, will not,
cannot be thrown away. The information which we have ac-
quired, although not as yet fit for the purpose of immediate
legislation, will contribute to the creation of jester views as to
the resources, the wants, and the interests of these colonies,
than ever yet prevailed in the mother country. To complete
and render available those materials for future legislation is an
important part of the duties which as High Commissioner I
have yet to discharge, and to which I shall devote the most
anxious attention.

I shall also be prepared at the proper period to suggest
the constitution of a form of government for her Majesty's do-
minions on this continent, which may restore to the people of
Lower Canada all the advantages of a representative system,
unaccompanied by the evils that have hitherto proceeded from
the unnatural conflicts of parties, which may safely supply any
deficiencies existing in the governments of the other colonies,
and which may produce throughout British America a state
of contented allegiance, founded, as colonial allegiance ever
must be, on a sense of obligation to the parent State.
I fervently hope that my usefulness to you will not cease
with my official connection. When I shall have laid at her
Majesty's feet the various high and important commissions with
which her royal favour invested me, I shall still be enabled, as
a Peer of Parliament, to render you efficient and constant ser-
vice in that place where the decisions that affect your welfare
are in reality made. It must be, I humbly trust, for the advan-
tage of these provinces if I can carry into the Imperial Par-
liament a knowledge, derived from personal inspection and
experience, of those interests, upon which some persons there
are too apt to legislate in ignorance or indifference—and can
aid in laying the foundation of a system of general Govern-
ment, which while it strengthens your permanent connection
with Great Britain, shall save you from the evils to which you
are now subjected by every change of the fluctuating policy of
distant and successive administrations.
Given under my hand and seal at arms, at the Castle of
St. Lewis, in the city of Quebec, in the said province of Lower
Canada, the 9th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1838,
and in the second year of her Majesty's reign. By command.
CHARLES BULL E R, Chief Secretary.

PROVINCF, OF LOWER CANADA.
DrRHAM.
By his Excellency the Right Honou.able John George
Earl of Durham, Viscount Lambton, &c. &c., Knight Grand
Cross of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath,
one of her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, and
Governor-General of all her Majesty's provinces within, and
adjacent to the continent of North America, &c. &c,
o all to whom these pieseats shall come—Greeting :
Whereas by the 112th chapter of the statute of the Parlia-
ment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
intituled " An act for indemnifying those who have issued or
acted under certain parts of a certain ordinance made under
colour of an act passed in the present Session of Parliament,
intituled An Act to make temporary provision for the Go-
vernment of Lower Canada, ' " passed in the first and second
years of the reign of our Sovereign Lady the Queen Victoria,
it is amongst other things enacted, that the said Act shall be
proclaimed in the said province of Lower Canada by the Go-
vernor, or the person authorised to execute the commission of
Governor of the said province, forthwith after he shall
have received a copy of the same from one of her Ma-
jesty's principal Secretaries of State ; and whereas I, the
sail John George, Earl of Durham, being the Governor of
the said province of Lower Canada, have received a copy of
the said act from one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries
of State ; now, therefore, know ye, that I, the said John
George, Earl of Durham, being such Governor as aforesaid,
by virtue of the power and authority reposed in me by her
Majesty, and of the sail Act of the said Parliament, do, by
this proclamation, proclaim the said Act of the said Parlia-
ment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
intituled " An Act for indemnifying those who have issued or
acted under certain parts of a certain ordinance made under
colour of an Act passed in the present session of Parliament,
intituled An Act to make temporary provision for the Go-
vernment of Lower Canada,' " so that the said Act of the
said Parliament shall and may continue and take effect within
the said province from the day of the date of these presents.
Given under my hand and seal at arms, at the Castle of
Saint Lewis, in the city of Quebec, in the said Province of
Lower Canada, the Bth day of October, in the year of our
Lord 1838, and in the second year of her Majesty's reign.
D. DAL Y, Secretary of the Province.
PROVINCE OF LOWER CANADA.
DURHAM.
By his Excellency the Right lion. John George, Earl of
Durham, Viscount Lambton, &c.,her Ma
i 1..:e Most lion. Military Order of the Bath,,
verpor.
General
Knight
one Grand
o f Cross of
I jesty's Mast Hon. Privy Council, and (1,1) •