The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-05 00:00:00

were before
,in possession. He must take le.ng.
ave
to say the instructions said --no such thing.
' They said, they were to continue & possess
and occupy—a very important word, because. it
seemed they were to continue in possession
of only those things of which they were in occupation—
that they should continue to possess and occupy their
houses of residence to which they were lawfully entitle]
on the 13th of September, 1759. Unless, therefore,
on the 13th of September 1759, those seminaries were
lawfully entitled to the possession of the property which
•
they now claimed, those instrucfons the Commissioners
appealed to as conclusive in their favour, were conclu-
sive against them. The Commissioners themselves ad-
mitted they were not lawfully entitled, that their legal
title was a mere joke and farce. But what was the
property they were then considering? Was it houses
_ and lands ? No, seignorial rights and dues. If ha
might be permitted to call the attention of the Noble
and Learned Lord opposite to this, (and he wished
there were more Noble and Lea-ned Lords pre-
s-et) he would beg of him t consider whether
the phrase " houses and lands," which those
parties were to continue to possess and occupy,
could cover the claims of those seignorial rights and
dues? Unless they did, those words would exclude
instead of bring them within the- contamplation of
the statute. But the case, strong as it was, did not
rest there. Unless they were in possession, they were
not to be permitted to hold them. He would not de-
tain their Lordships by going at large into the nature
of these seminaries. They were most respectable semi-
naries, and of great antiquity—they were bodies that
were known to the primitive Church—they were
bodies which the Church of Rome had done wisely in
retaining, and which he would be much pleased to see
i a our own Church. They were insftuted, filet, for
the purpose of giving instruction to persons who were
qualifying:for holy orders, a most useful purpose, and he
thesight such an institution would prove of great benefit
to our Church. Another purpose of the seminaries was
to attend to foreign missions, and this St. Sulpice was
a most illustrious instance of the piety of an excellent
man, an intimate friend of Fenelon. To his piety did
it owe its existence. The exertions of the missionaries
its New France, as the United Province of Canada was
then called, were crowned with much success ; they had
been very successful in converting the Indian tr.bes ; he
was sorry to say that the impression was not more per-
manent. However, the consequence of their success
was the formation of a society resembling our Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
and to them was made over the Island of Mont-
real by Louis the Fourteenth in the year 1667;
but he distinctly guarded against permitting the
Montretl seminary to be anything more than a mere de-
pendency to the society in Paris. They occupied the
houses end lands even now; they occupied near 15,000
acres, 800 of which was wood, from which they obtained
tl eir fuel—one farm of 180 acres was in their own oc-
cupation, ar d another farm was let. With regard to
the seignories they were distinctly possessed by the
Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, as was clearly proved
by Sir John Sewel in 15301—he adduced proofs clearly
showing that the society in Montreal was an cff shoot—
a dependency of the society in Paris. Now he appre-
heneed that the recognised principle of national law was
that all the corporations, nay, that all the rights of in
dividuals which were opposed to the institutions of the
conquering State, were ipso facto abolished by that
conquest. Thee was the ordinary r.nd common sense
doctrine, and therefore it was perfectly open to the new
State to say that they should devolve to the Crown for
the cot:eversion and instruction of the Protestant popu-
lation, as they were formerly applied to the Roman
Catholic population. If that was not done they
fell to the Crown of right. From the year
1773, down to the year 1829, various officers
of the Crown, after investigating the legal rights of
these ecclesiastics, affirmed the principle he had stated.
What occurred? Why, that besides being extinct,
they were not even to be dealt with as individuals. They
were not even entitled to the benefit of the capitulation.
None of the terms of the capitulation of Montreal gave
any recognition to these parties. On the contrary,
they had permission to hold the property till his Ma-
jesty's pleasure should be known. They were per-
mitted to go to France and dispose of the property, no
intimation having been given of his Majesty's pleasure,
and in 1784 the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris, who
were not parties to the capitulation, executed a deed of
gift of their seminary (although they did not pretend
to be a corporation)of St. Sulpice at Montreal. That was
the title by which these gentlemen claimed, and it was
a title wholly repudiated by all the Commissioners.
The Commissioners had considered that the Crown
bad invariably treated the members of the Seminary
of St. Sulpice as legally and equitably entitled to con-
tinue in possession of the property. He had shown
that by the instructions which continued to be given to
each successive Governor, down to the time of Lord
Gosfotd, the members of the seminary were entitled to
the subject of their claims, but from the time of Lord
4Gosford those instructions were changed, and the right
was in his (Lord Grosford's) time first withdrawn. That
Visuld show that the notion wasrepudiated, of the assert
of the Crown being given to the possession of this pro-
perty, by the members of St. Sulpice. He would give
another instance of it to their Lordships. He was sorry
that the Noble Earl who, in the year 1835, fillet the
office of Colonial Secretary, was not in the House, but
lra would beg leave to read to their Lordships an ex-
tract from a despatch of the Ist of January, 1835,
which he had sent to Lord ALerdem. It
happened that the Provincial Legislature passed a
811 relative to public education. That Bill con.
tained some provisions of so objectionable a nature
that the then Government thought it necessary to ad-
vise his Majesty to withhold h's sanction from it. In
the despatch to which he refers their Lordships, we find
those words—" The decision of the question in favour
of the seminary would involve consequences which every
Canadian, whatever might be his origin or of whatever
religious persuasion? he might happen to be, would alike
deprecate. So much for the acquieFcence of Govern-
ment in the uninterrupted tit'e of the seminary to the
property claimed. There was, then, he contended, no
necessity for holding a great commercial city hound by
usages which were now become obsolete. There hey
had a complete contradiction to many of the allegations
of the Commissioners on which they founded the opi-
nion, tbtft this seminary was entitled to bold this in
equity whatever they were in law. But they had the
authority of the Government in 1835, announced by
the Secretary for the Colonies, at the time
of the disastrous consequences which every Canadian,
whatever his religious profession or political opinior.s
might be, would have reason to anticipate. He (the
Bishop of Exeter) rejoiced that the petitioners had so
high au author ty in their favour. He would now say
t% few words on a part of the subject which involved
a great deal of delicacy in its consideration ; he mean.
the merits of this body. As individuals, he be:ieved
they were entitled to the honour, respect, and re-
verence of every religious communion upon earth. In-
deed this was exemplified by their conduct and by the
uniform testimony of everybody in the colonies ; but
their merits as a useful body was a different thing to
their merits as individuals. To what object had they
directed their exertions? Their objects were stated in
the appendix_ to Lord Durhsen's Report, as returned by
the
.Superior of the seminary. They were first the
a
Tame of the parishes of Montreal, containing 20,000
Roman Catholics, only 3,0000 f whom were Engl;sh,
Irish, and Scotch ;
secondly the mission 'to the Lakes
of the Two Mountains;
c taliLdo7, the little seminary of
scholars ; fourthly, a
masters and fourteen hundred children Consistin,
of thirty
; fifthly,
the foundation of Grey
aSyei.d-ter.s ; sixthly, a
'fort Individuals ; se-
foundation for poor and
for
ywaslrish •:female
Tenthly, a foundation
orphans ; and in the year 1838 there
established, that of the Brethren of taheneCwhroibject
Schools. This was a body of men brought from France,
and be (the Bishop of Exeter) confessed he did not
think the worse of them on that account, but it was
right to say he had heerd and they were
Jesuits. He did not wish to enter kb any discussion
of the merits of ti at order, but he thought it was not
entitled to special favour from their Lordships.--
icHear.)This establishment was frequented by 260 young
Auee, who were taught Avriting, arithmetic, &c. The
sec...nd ofthcse objects was the only one that at all agreed
with the 'objects for which the Seminary of S'. Sulpice
40 Paris tad endowed flit property. This semi-
zary was in Montreal, and the only ohjsct for which it
lined been established, by King Louis XIV., in 1677,
was for the conversion and instruction of all his sub-
accts. Their Lordships would observe it was not given
for the iebabitents of Montreal alone, bat for all the sub-
jeets of Louis XI In New France it belonged to all.
It
baeosed equally to all—first to the environs of the
Indians, and arter that to all the subjects of the Crown in
that part of the French dominions called New France.
It-was remarkable that in the capitulation of Montreal
there was a special demand that the Indians who had
taken part with the French during the war should he
protected ; and in the 40th article it was demanded
that the Catholic Bishop should hellallowed to send
A
missionaries amongst the Indians.
that part of the
article which referred to the protection of the Indians
was agreed to, but the British general refused to Artv
the Bishop the power of sending missionaries.
All the
Governments since that time had acted upon those
principles up to the recent despatches
sent to
to the
present Governor-General, Lord Sydenhain. Reassured
their Lordships that he held the exertious of those gen-
tlemen in great respect. But what had been the result of
their exertions? The Learned Prelate then read an
extract from Lord Durham's Report, in which it was
stated that it was impossible to exaggerate the want of
education amongst the labouring population, and
the gross neglect of their teachers.—( Hear, hear.)
The Noble Earl added, that no more than two hue-
dyed
_ three hundred persons were educated in the
Canadian schools • and that those parties who were all
maduveocdateinshooronneoetaeies, or surgeons, possessed an unli-
The instructed el:ver their uneducated neighbours.
distinct from the restss had no sympathies or interests
theta a confidence wh. the population, who reposed in
feeling could generate. The neoettibrine want
but a similarity of
of education had

rendered the pepuletion ungovarnaide, and given the
agitators a power which they . wielded against the laws
and interests of the community'. Such were the
statements of the Earl of Durham; in his able
Report—Le would not say wise Report, for
he did not agree with many of its dactrinee—( Hear.)
He admitted that the prie-ts of tee sernitiaay of Saint
Sulpice had done great good in preventing an outbreak
in Meet. eel, but it could not he denied that it was in
those parts of Canada which we-e most under the in-
fluence of the clergy, that the worst excesses of the
insurrection lad taken place. He the7efore said that
oa that head there was no special reason which should
interpose between that body and justice—if it should
be found that justice required that that vast property
shoull be employed by the Crown for the public good.
There could be no doubt but the ordinance materially
benefited the seminary. That, however, he held to be
nothing ; but there were higher considerations which,
proved the illegality of this ordinance. The ordinance,
effected to create an Ecclesiastical Corporation of kfi,
wish priests. He would venture to say, that this'was
the first attempt to do such a thing. King James IL'
never attempted it, and Father Peter never attempted it.
No, such an attempt was reserved for the present Go-
vernment in the year 1840 —an attempt, be would
venture to say, which was against the fundamental
law of the country. Now, what was the first object of
incorporation ? Why; to make perpetual ; and could
a Protestant Government, or a Protestant Legisla-,
ture, if it was what it professed to he, dare to per-
petuate that which ought not to be perpetuated, and
which must cease to exist ? If he were called upon to
cite a statute that defined clearly, and declared the
Constitution of the land, he would cite the statute of
appeals of the 24th of Henry VIII.,• chap. 12. That
statute described the state of England, and it claimed
for the Crown to be independent of every foreign
Power. It stated that there were bodies politic of
different classes of persons, cal'ed by the names of
spiritual and temporal, that that body which was bound
to the Crown of Great Britain was sufficient to dis-
charge all the demands for justice in the realm, and
it proceeded to declare that it should be un-
lawful to appeal to any foreign State, .and it espe-
cially ousted the authority of Rome ; and that statute
passed before Henry VIII. ceased to be in communion
with the Church of Rome. The next statutes to which
he might refer were the Quebec Act, and the Consti-
tutional Act of 1831, which stated that while every
favour should be given to the Roman Catholics of Ca-
nada, it must be subject to the supremacy of the Crown
declared end enacted by the Ist of Elizabeth, and that
Act declared that that supremacy should exist over the
whole of the British Empire, and it was beyond the
moral power of Parliament to do any thing in deroga-
tion of those fundamental statutes, what then must be
said to this ordinance ? But then it might be said that
it was necessary to pass some ordinance to make this
an Ecclesiastical Corporation ; he thought such a state-
ment would be perfectly farcical. For this he bad the
authority of the British Legislature in the establish-
ment of the College of Maynooth. That Col'ego was
enabled by Act of Parliament to hold lands ; but the
Legislature of those days never dreamed of making it
a corporation ; they only meant it to continue as
long as the educational necessities of the
Roman Catholics of Ireland required ; and they
studiously avoided giving it a corporate character.
Not only, then, was this ordinance not necessary for
the purposes contemplated, but the framers ought to
have been warned by the example of the wise men of
those days, to adopt some other scheme far carrying
their object into effect. He must say, he said it with
pain, but he must say frankly and fairly, that he re-
garded this as only one of many instances of the en-
croachments of Rome at the present time. Bigot as
their Lordships might think him, be fairly avowed that
he believed that never, from the era of the Reformation,
were the rights and liberties of every state in Europe,
of America, of our Colonies, of Newfoundland, and of
other pats, more endangered than at the present
time. At no period were such gigantic efforts made by
Remo to resume her empire ; and never, never were
they met with—he wished that he need only say such
utter indifference, but he must add, with such partiality
and favour.—(" No," from Viscount Melbourne.) He
rejoiced to hear the Noble Viscount disclaim this par-
tiality and favour. He would give him ample credit for his
averment in spite of all the appearances to the contrary ;
he would give him credit for not meaning to extend
such favour. But then, whether the Noble Viscount
meant favour or not, some how or other favour was
shown. The Noble Marquis near him did not mean
anything of the sort ; yet it so happened that in a docu-
ment given to that House by the authority of the No-
hie Marquis when he was Colonial Secretary, a certain
Roman Catholic functionary in Canada was called the
Bishop of Quebec. No doubt it was done quite inad-
vertently, but it indicated the manner in which such
things were regarded. At the capitulation of Quebec,
one of the points required on the part of the inhabitants
was that the Bishops of Quebec should be of the Roman
Catholic community. The Legislature laughed at the
very notion, and every attempt which was afterwards
made to establish a Roman Catholic Bishop had totally
f ,fled. On one occasion an inavidilial who had assumed
that title under the authority of the Pope, had a severe
reproof administered to him by Lord G.lsborougb.
Yet the Colonial Office of the present day did not
scruple to recognize a Roman Catholic functionary as
Bishop of Quebec. He (the Bishop of Exeter) thought
it a great misfortune, that when the late admirable
Bishop died his successor did not assume the title,
but he was only called the Bishop of Montreal,
and the Government recognised a Roman Catholic as
the Bisl op of Quebec. Th shouli at least be aware
of these things, that they might be prepared to meet
the enemy. This ordinance must, in some way or
other, be blotted out of the legislation of Canada. The
Act of Union passed last year, was in the very teeth
of this ordinance. By that statute, the consolidated
fund of the province was charged with the payment to
her Majesty of two several sums of 45,0001. and
30,0001., for the several services and purposes named
in the schedules. Then it went on to say, that so long
as the said sums should be payable, they should be ac-
cepted instead of all territorial and other revenues then
at the disposal of the Crown. In whet he said upon this
subject,' he was supported by the spirit of the first Re..
port of the Canadian Commission, in 1837. The Rev.
Prelate read a paragraph from the speech of Lord
Gosford, on opening the Legislature of Lower Canada,
in which he promised to give up all the King's casual,
territorial, and hereditary revenues, on conditioa,of
being granted a Civil List—and in the rppendix to
that appeared a list of what was proposed to be given
up ; and in article 10 in that appendix, was the el tint
of the Crown to the seignories of Montreal. That
appeared in the Report of the Commissioners. Now
he would ask, was that either fair—nay, he would ask,
was it honest ? Was it what would be done
between man and man in decent common life ?
first propose to give it to one party, and then turn
round and give it to another ?—(Hear.) The Noble
Viscount might think that there was no daeger in this,
but of late they had found that unions did not always
give satisfaction ; that even after forty years, much
agitation prevailed against a union with which there
was not one particle of fraud connected. Now what
might be the case in Canada? The people of that coun-
try would have no shadowy grievance to complain of—
they would feel it in their purser, in their religion, in
all that man held dear ; they would feel the bad faith
which would be dealt t) the Canadians if the ordinance
were passed into a law. If common honesty and common
sense had anything to do
,with the question their
Lordships wool I comply with the ptaaer of the petition,
un:ess the Noble Viscount could satisfy them that in-
justice would be done by it. It wits for their Lordships
to consider how deeply they would be responsible for the
frightful evils which might and would flow from the
measure, if, when he called upon them for a vote,
they allowed the ordinance to become law. When
that time came he would call upon them to deal
with it as a Bill on their Lordship's table, without
whose concurrence it could never become law. The
British population -of Mln'real called it a fraudu.;
lent inva.ion of the tights of propert,-, and had they
urged it still further, al..d called it a manifest and di-
rea violation of the compact, he thought they would
have Lea right. They who urged that it was a viola-
tion of good faith, and well they might, for it was these
men, who, at the risk of their lives, and by their valour
and virtue, at a time when the parties connected with
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, endeavoured to wrench
the province from the British Crown—it was these
men who had secured that province to Great Britain.
Their Lordships would bear in mind that the time
chosen for passing that ordinance was when there had
negative of that system of representation to
were entitled. The subject was a grave
o
whichbeee n a
antdLey should Sc gravely attended to. The Governor-
Generaln himself had adnetted that the ordinance was
not a good one, and that it haft!
tbheencrelwuctantz.hforced
upon him by the
v,t obligationsa talent,
t, Undoubtedly
and
whoseh on. wasae t s a
werewa man
ability
of great a
the Governor-General
to them by that ordinance alone. He had recommended
a measure which bad come under their consideration
(Canada) Bill. They did not then bear anything f
the obligations of the Crown, although their Lordships
last Session. He alluded to the Clergy Reserveso
never to be
would recollect that George 111. a name
mentioned without honour, when he consented to favour
the Roman Catholics in Canada, so far as to give. them
the free exercise of their religion, sent a message to
Parliament asking them to make a grant of land (his
property) for the support of the Protestant Establish-
ment. Parliament did so, and there was the obligation
of the Crown recognised. That did not, however, ap-
pear so stringent to the Governor-General as the other
obligations to which he alluded, nor did it prevent him
from setting at naught all those rights which had been
consecrated and acknowledged by the oath of the Sove-
reign. He rejoiced to say that that example had been
followed by his late Majesty William IV. who had sent
down a message to the Legislature of Canada, desiring
them to make sonao arrangements to put an end to the
differences about the Clergy Reserves, and stating
therein that he was bound, no less by personal feeling

than by the sacred obligations of the station to which Providence had called him, to watch 6V2t the interests
of the Protestant Church in all parts of the empise,
and never to abanden them to any other p Irty.
The first purpose to which those clergy reserves were to
be applied, was to pay those ministers of re'igion to
whom the faith of Government was pledged. Aincing
those ministers were the Roman Catholic priests. The
amount to be paid to them was 1,500/. That was done
by a statute which their Lordships passed. They were
now ten by that same Governor-General who urged
that measure that he would be glad not to urge it; hut
that he was so hampered he could not help it. He
(the Bishop of Exeter) called upon their Lordships to
stand between the country and the danger which such
a measure as that to which the petition referred was
calculated to produce. The high considerations of duty
and faith were not trampled even by the Legislature
with. impunity. He would therefore move that the
petition be received.
Viscount MELBOURNE'said that the subject on
hwhichlhe Rev. Prelate had spoken at such length, was
.certainly one of considerable importance. It, however,
involved some degree of obscurity, and he be-
' lieved their Lordships were not familiar with
its details. It was net, then, unnatural that the Rev.
Prelate, conceiving what he had to say was of great im-
portance, should have entered somewhat more into de-
tail than seemed necessary on the present occasion. The
Rev. Prelate, in stating his views on the subject, had
entered into such length, that he (Viscount Melbourne)
thought their Lordships would see that it was not ne-
cessary for him to follow the Rev. Prelate through all
the details. It would, he conceived, be sufficient for
him (Viscount Melbourne) to treat this matter in the
light in which it really stood as the presentation of a
petition. He did not think it necessary to go into the
full and complete length of the whole of the statements
and arguments which had been gone through by the
Rev. Prelate. The Rev. Prelate, in the first place,
took some objections against that ordinance which were
stated in the petition. He (the Bishop of Exeter) made
allegations which were not made in the petition, and
which rested entirely upon his own authority.
He (Viscount Melbourne) supposed that he learned
them from the persons from whom he received
his instructions. The Rev. Prelate said, that the Le-
gislature, in pressing that ordinance, had not received
that which it ought to have received—that some of the
motions made for information on the subj ct were nega-
th ed. Now, they must always give credit to an As-
sembly for proceeding on the information which might
be necessary. The Rev. Prelate complained of the
course of proceedings in Canada. It was to be sup-
posed:that the Special Council in that country did their
duty. The Rev. Prelate made statements about what
persons voted, and the reasons why they voted, and
that somebody would have voted but that he was sent.
for by the Governor-General. The Rev. Prelate did
not mean to say that the vote of that person would
have had the least influence on the proceedings ; but
merely that he was absent. Why there never was a
measure passed in any Assembly that was not subject to
imputations and observations of that nature, and it
woult be, therefore, fitting for their Lordships to dis-
miss from their minds all that the Rev. Prelate had
said on that subject. It was stated that the Attorney-
General, contrary to his usual custom, presided over the
proceedings of the Council. That was a matter on
which he (Viscount Melbourne) was not instructed,
and he could only say that, if the Attorney-
General did preside, he did nothing unbecoming
on that occasion. Whatever was done was in accord-
ance with ti e rules of proceeding there, and was un-
connected with any unfitting or improper mode of
proceeding. The Rev. Prelate went on at great length
to observe upon the number and importance of the
persons who signed the petitior. He (Lord Mel-
bourne) was not instructed to say anything to the con-
trary. That petition was precisely identical in terms
with the petition transmitted by the Governor-General
in the despatch of the 13th of March, 1840, and which
was addressed to her Majesty. The Rev. Prelate had
gone into the whole question of what was the state of
this Seminary of St. Sulpice before the conquest of
Canada, and of how far it was affected by the capi-
tulation, of bow far it was effected by the grant
of the Seminary of Paris, and of how far
it was affected by the Act of 1774, and had said that
on all these matters considerable legal doubts had
arisen and been entertained, and that many Govern-
ments had received opinions of great legal authority
impugning the right of the Seminary of St. Sulpice to
these estates, and to the feudal tenures with which
they were accompanied. There was no doubt of that,
and the Right Rev. Prelate had gone into a long ar-
gument against the Report of the Commissioners, by
which, unquestionably, he felt himself much embar-
rassed, and which, in his (Lord Melbourne's) opinion,
was so distinct, clear, and decisive, that it was impos-
sible to allege a word against it. The Commissioners
reported that it was true there was no legal title in the
Seminary of St. Sulpice, but that it would be deroga-
tory to the honour of the Crown to contest it, but for
some great principle, in the seminary having been in
uninterrupted possession of it for seventy years. He
(Lord M.) begged their Lordships to consider what the
claim of the Seminary of St. Sulpice was. Since the year
1773, when the country came into the possession of
the British Crown, they had been in possession of all
this property, and in the complete exercise of all these
seignorial rights. Here was the recognition by the Go-
vernor-General, by as many Councils as had sat in Ca-
nada since the Act of 1794, and by as many Assemblies
as bad sat in Lower Canada since the year 1790, when
the Act was passed. Now, he (Lord Melbourne)
said this permission, notwithstanding any legal or spe-
culative opinions that might be entertained on the sub-
ject, a permission of this kind by the Seminary of St.
Sulpice, of the cornpl to exercise of these rights—he
said if a possession of this kind was not to be con-
sidered as a settled and fixed possession, there was no
such thing as a settled and fixed possession among man-
kind. If this was not to be considered as
a moral and equitable right to this pro-
perty, superseding any prior legal right that
might possibly exist, there was nothing in
human affairs that could by possibility be con-
sidered as fixed, settled, stable, and permanent. It
was on these grounds, the possession being so settled,
that this ordinance had been framed in order to make a
future means of relieving the country, by the regular
course of purchase and sale, of the evils which these
feudal tenures were supposed to inflict. The Res.
Prelate had not made any serious attack upon the terms
in which the ordinance was framed, but he had made
an attack upon his Noble Friend, saying that the mat-
ter was set ied by contract betweeo the seminary at Paris
and that at Montreal and between the litter aad the
Commissioners. But therein he (Lord Melbourne)
apprehended that' the only evidence furnished by Mr.
Buller in his report was the statement that there was
as fair evic'ence of consent on the part of the semi-
nary at Montreal as could be coilected, not meaning
that these persons were exactly authorised to contract
on their part. If the Rev. Prelate should be induced
to effect that he seemed to hope for, and bring the
matter forward in a manner which would lead to more
decisive consequences, he (Lord Melbourne) did trust
that on consit!eration their Lordships would fuel this ar-
rangement was the best mode in which the whole mat-
ter could be Settled, and that their Lordships would
think it their duty not to advise her Majesty to with-
hold her assent from it. The Right Rev. Prelate had
taken a great many objections to the ordinances as con-
trary to the previsions of the Canada Act, for which he
(Lord Melbourne) thought there was no foundation
whatever. He had also taken an objection to it, as
establishing an ecclesiastical Romish corporation, which
he said was coatrary to the fundamental principles of
the Constitution. In that reasoning he (Lord Mel-
bourne) could not go along with the Right
Reverend Prelate.—(Hear, hear.) He did net think
there was any thing whatever in these objections.
or in the objections with respect to the ,•Act, because
unquestionably the Act of Union related to property in
possession of the Crown at the time it was passed,
so that this was morally and equitably in possession of
the Seminary of St. Sulpice. It did not appear to
him (Lord Melbourne) to be in the slightest degree an
infringement of the Act of Parliament. The Rev.
Prelate said it was also evidence of, and originated from, a
disposition in the Government to favour and assist the
progress of the Realists Church. He ( Lord Mel
bourne) of course could only deny any feeling or in-
tention of that-kind, and he did not think that the
slight matter he had mentioned of the recognition of the
title of a Roman Catholic Bishop was quite sufficient
ground for the foundation of so grave a charge. The
orpcßefa
resistance.
uvstß.tr Prelateoaconhmeheoee:
RometTß(oho rtemotaorir lae n k
?Ina
etkbeerlearwoaessatrgidreesat aaddisposition
great
encroach-
ments, n
co r no
act he
ments, and that it met with very weak and feeble
t
i largel
at
Melbourne)i b t ehs t e
rai
Presbyterianddei.sd dispositionanne and great
gs
raeya t ont
encroach-
ments,htheer e pwaar
octo
t;l
abnudt
beweans
vtehrayt
fedei disposition o. n
deearnti
ar tnld cs
onfined
.p
present
these n t
e in
occasion ? Was the its Church of England
from a disposition of this ort to encroachCqmhuelunt
domination ? He had heardsd'n
tthe speech of theretelthfarents;:f
Discipline rines, and the sane
toPonlrdetlieht3eCirhtEcurhii~ht similar
lships, that though wlicn
measure beyond their legal and
legishitiveNpotw"eer,Repevt. v‘Pt'alrisealtnaotiett
d that
en
chreo
a(cfshoi
nr sc.]
Melbourne)wabeyond tchael re
d moaraidoPmowineere.ring owa
spirit.—( Hear, hear.) If the Right Rev. Prelate
said that there was in all the Chpunrweheers, ahegr(eLatorddispioesli.-
btioounrntoe) antic
eutsle neocteltbseiasdtiicsuplosedeit,oardzieffetr,, ft'rhoemchhimurcsho
eActsofa thoughtthiet
cohoenafir:aetnldthaaltaugh.) u
interfere with thoseAl
owmfouunclhdo
ma
bsee. when_u unwise
wlli
seheae r
Colonial Government, upon which depended the pre-
sent tranquillity and the u!timate prosperity of that part
of the empire.
The Duke of WELLINGTON
Righthuandd under
setgve.rnepeadrte
olwabititeih:
was
ahbeled them to dceide
he
eight which he had thrown upon
agnredatheatttheonutigoina ttohtahtethsipecHebcaoldluoseefnt
tghaet osubject, byul farwh
itchhe