Chapter XXIV: Section XXXIII: “And to the end that the Church of England may

be established both in principle and practice and that the said
inhabitants may by degrees be induced to embrace the Protestant
religion and their children be brought up in the principles of
it, we do hereby declare it to be our intention when the said
province shall have been accurately surveyed and divided into
townships, districts, precincts or parishes in such manner as
shall be hereinafter directed, all possible encouragement shall
be given to the erecting of Protestant schools in the same
districts, townships and precincts by settling, appointing and
allotting proper quantities of land for that purpose and also for
a glebe and maintenance for a Protestant minister and Protestant
schoolmaster, and you are to consider and report to us by our
Commissions for Trade and Plantation by what other means the
Protestant religion may be promoted, established and encouraged
in our province under your government.”

This instruction to Murray is repeated in those to Governor Carleton, 1768, and to Governor Haldimand, 1778.

Let us see how the civil government worked out. It was proclaimed on April 10, 1764, the delay being caused to allow the French Canadians the eighteen months, stipulated by the treaty of Paris, in which they might leave the country. Murray had been appointed governor-general of the province of Quebec by the commission of November 21, 1763, and the instructions were dated on December 7th. But Murray had not promulgated the new dignity accorded him till on September 17th, 1764, the first great act of the new régime being opened by his ordinance establishing civil courts. It may be briefly stated as follows: there was to be a Superior Court of judicature or King’s Bench, which should be held at Quebec twice a year at the Hilary term commencing on January 1st and at Trinity term on June 21st. Its president should be the chief justice of Canada. This was William Gregory. This man, with the attorney-general, Suckling, were soon removed for incompetency. Later in 1766 a Michaelmas term was added. Montreal and Three Rivers were to have the chief justices’ court of assizes and jail delivery after Hilary once a year.

Strangely enough, though not unnaturally, Murray had inserted a clause in the act which was afterwards violently objected to by the English merchants as going beyond his commission, viz., that _all the subjects of the colony_ could be called upon without distinction to take their place on the jury. Murray had to explain this to the English government and accordingly with the copy of the above act sent, he remarked to the following effect: “As there are only two hundred Protestant subjects in the province, the greater part of which is composed of disbanded soldiers of small fortunes and of little capacity, it is considered unjust to prevent the Roman Catholic new subjects from taking part on juries, for such an exclusion would constitute the said two hundred Protestants perpetual judges of the lives and fortunes not only of the eighty thousand new subjects but of all the military in this province. Moreover, if the Canadians are not admitted to juries many will emigrate.” Murray felt that his position might not carry, for he adds: “This arrangement is nothing else than a temporary expedient to leave affairs in their present state until the pleasure of His Majesty on this critical and difficult point be made known.”

Besides the superior court there should be an inferior court of “Common Pleas” to settle civil cases involving sums of beyond ten _louis_. Beyond twenty _louis_ there was appeal allowed to the superior court. If desired there could be juries called in this court. French advocates and proctors could practice in this court, though not in the superior court. Murray explains the liberty taken by him in allowing this: “Because we have not as yet a single English advocate or proctor understanding the French language.” He also observed that the court of common pleas was established solely for the protection of the French Canadian.

In addition to the other two courts, Justices of the Peace were established at Quebec and Montreal who should hold quarter sessions. These officers of the magistracy, according to Murray’s instructions, had to be Protestants. One justice was to have jurisdiction in disputes to the value of five pounds; two were required for cases to the value of ten pounds. Three justices should form a quorum to hold quarter sessions, to adjudicate in cases from ten pounds to thirty pounds. Two justices were to sit weekly in rotation in Quebec and Montreal.

Finally there should be elected in every parish in the country bailiffs and sub-bailiffs. The elections were to take place every 21st day of June and they were to enter upon their duties on September 29th. “We call them bailiffs,” commenced Murray, “because the new subjects understand the word better than that of constables.” The word constable, will, however, better explain the nature of their multifarious duties.

We now have a view of the change in the law courts in Montreal: a yearly session of the king’s court and of the court of common pleas, quarter sessions held by the justices of the peace, and in the parishes, the bailiffs or constables.

Hardly had the courts erected by the act of September 7th been held, than the grand jury of Quebec protested vehemently at the new courts and especially at the privileges given the new subjects. Their opposition was expected by Murray for his comment, sent with the act, ran: that some of the English merchants residing here of whom only ten or a dozen at most possess any settled property in this province, are very dissatisfied at the privileges granted to the Canadians to act on juries; the reason of this is very evident as their influence is restrained by the measure.

Britishers on the jury who thought the favours to Catholics unconstitutional were only victims of their narrow prejudices formed by the prevailing intolerance then existing in England and its colonies. The toleration to Catholics according to the phrase “as far as the laws of Great Britain allow” was not the wide freedom we see nowadays.

A protest against allowing the latter class to practice in the courts or to serve on juries was made early by the Protestant members of the grand jury of Quebec on October 16, 1764, as follows: “That by the definitive treaty the Roman religion was only tolerated in the province of Quebec as far as the laws of Great Britain had met. It was and is enacted by the third act, January 1st, chapter V, section 8, ‘No Papist or Popish recusant convict shall practice the common law as a counsellor, clerk, attorney or solicitor, nor shall practice the civic law as advocate or proctor, nor practice physick, nor be an apothecary, nor shall be a judge, minister, clerk or steward of or in any court, nor shall bear any office or charge as captain, master, or governor, or bear any office of charge of, or, in any ship, castle or fortress, but be utterly disabled for the same, and every person herein shall forfeit one hundred pounds, half to the king and half to them that shall sue.’ We therefore believe that the admitting of persons of Romish religion, who own the authority, supremacy and jurisdiction of the church of Rome, as jurors is an open violation of our most sacred laws and liberties, tending to the utter subversion of the Protestant religion and His Majesty’s power, authority, right and possession of the province to which we belong.” Later these jurors pretended that they had never meant to exclude Catholic jurors, but only as jurors when Protestants were contestants. The above argument shows their original _intrinsigeance_.

Later, in February, 1766, modifications were introduced; when the contestants were British the jury should be British; when Canadians, Canadians; when the contestants were mixed the jury should also be mixed. These conflicts were inevitable in unsettled times when two peoples were of different mental outlooks, politically, racially and religiously. The melting pot of time will solve such difficulties, when the viewpoints of both parties would be more sympathetically understood. In the meantime the historical situation at the time was painful.

Governor Murray’s letter to the Lords of Trade, written a few days after the presentment of the jury is a fair and statesman-like view of the difficult period.

“Quebec, 29th of October, 1764.

“* * * Little, very little, will content the new subjects, but nothing will satisfy the licentious fanaticks trading here, but the expulsion of the Canadians who are perhaps the bravest and best race upon the globe, a race who, could they be indulged with a few privileges which the laws of England deny to Roman Catholics at home, would soon get the better of every national antipathy to their conquerors and become the most faithful and most useful set of men in this American empire.

“I flatter myself there will be some remedy found out even in the laws for the relief of this people. If so, I am positive the popular clamours in England will not prevent the humane heart of the king from following its own dictates. I am confident, too, my royal master will not blame the unanimous opinion of his council here for the ordinance establishing the courts of justice, as nothing less could be done to prevent great numbers from emigrating directly and certain I am, unless the Canadians are admitted on juries and are allowed judges and lawyers who understand their language, His Majesty will lose the greatest part of this valuable people.”

His letter immediately continues with the following allusion which helps us to place the position of Montreal in the above general constitutional crisis then affecting the colony. “I beg leave further,” says Murray, “to represent to your Lordship that a lieutenant governor at Montreal is absolutely necessary. That town is in the heart of the most populous part of the provinces. It is surrounded by the Indian nations and is 180 miles from the capital. It is there that the most opulent priests live and there are settled the greatest part of the French noblesse. Consequently every intrigue to our disadvantage will be hatched there.”

A postscript to this letter to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, gives Murray’s appreciation of some of the great commercial class: “P.S.--I have been informed that Messrs. William McKenzie, Alexander McKenzie and William Grant have been soliciting their friends in London to prevail upon Your Lordship to get them admitted into his Majesty’s council of this province. I think it my duty to acquaint Your Lordships that the first of these men is a notorious smuggler and a turbulent man, the second a weak man of little character and the third a conceited boy. In short it will be impossible to do business with any of them.”

This postscript indicates the strain and bitter personal relations between Murray and some of the British commercial element in the colony, who finally succeeded in obtaining his recall.

Unfortunately, Murray was not always as discreet or as just in the consideration of his opponents, as his position justified. He was a soldier rather than a peace maker. In addition, others besides the British merchant did not see eye to eye with him in the interpretation of the new Treaty of Paris or in the application of English laws in Canada.

They retorted as did the Quebec traders, that the governor “doth frequently treat them with a rage and rudeness of language and demeanour as dishonourable to the trust he holds of Your Majesty as painful to those who suffer from it.”

In commenting on this period, Prof. F.P. Walton, dean of the faculty of Law at McGill University, has the following criticism (Cf. University Magazine, April, 1908):

He is speaking of the charge against Murray’s interpretation of the new situation of the application of the new civil government.

“It is probable,” he says, “that at no period in the history of Canada were legal questions so much discussed among the mass of the population as in the first ten years of the English _régime_. This is not surprising when we consider that the question whether the English or the French law was in force in the Province was one of no little difficulty. It was contended with much plausibility that Murray’s Ordinances were of no legal validity because, under the King’s proclamation, legislative authority in the Province was to be exercised only by the governor with the consent of a council and assembly, and that no assembly had ever been summoned. This is not the place for a discussion of this subject. I prefer the view of those who maintain that the English law was introduced by the proclamation of 1763. The case of Campbell and Hall is sufficient authority for the proposition, that the King had the power without parliament to alter the law of Quebec. It seems to me that the natural construction of the proclamation itself is, that the King intended to introduce the English law there and then. Murray, as Masères says in his very convincing argument, ‘meant only to erect and constitute courts of judicature to administer a system of laws already in being, to wit, the laws of England.’ The whole affair was to a great extent a misunderstanding. The English government had no intention to force the English laws on an unwilling people. They understood that they were giving ‘Home Rule’ to the Province of Quebec, and expected that the Canadians would abrogate such parts of the English law as they did not consider suitable, and would re-enact the portions of the old French law which they desired to retain. They did not foresee that, owing to the impracticability of calling an assembly, the Province would be left without any authority competent to legislate.”

It was, indeed, a time of great misunderstanding.

NOTE

GOVERNORS UNDER BRITISH RULE

As it may be convenient henceforth to omit mention of the advent of successive governors, this list is appended for the purpose of reference.

* (Gen. Jeffrey Amherst) 1760
* Gen. James Murray 1763
P. Aemilius Irving (President) 1766
* Gen. Sir Guy Carleton (Lieutenant Governor and Acting
Governor General) 1766
H.G. Cramahé 1770
* Gen. Sir Guy Carleton 1774
* Gen. Frederick Haldimand 1778
Henry Hamilton (Lieutenant Governor) 1784
Henry Hope (Lieutenant Governor) 1785
* Lord Dorchester (Guy Carleton) 1786

ON THE DIVISION OF THE TWO CANADAS

Alured Clarke 1791
* Lord Dorchester 1793
* Maj.-Gen. Robert Prescott 1796
Sir. R.S. Milnes 1799
Hon. Thomas Dunn 1805
* Sir James H. Craig 1807
Hon. Thomas Dunn 1811
* Sir George Prevost 1811
Sir Gordon Drummond 1815
Gen. John Wilson 1816
* Sir John Sherbrooke 1816
* Duke of Richmond 1818
Sir James Monk 1819
Sir Peregrine Maitland 1820
* Earl of Dalhousie 1820
Sir. F.N. Burton 1824
* Earl of Dalhousie 1825
Sir James Kempt 1828
* Lord Alymer 1830
* Earl of Gosford 1835
* Sir John Colborne 1838
* Earl of Durham 1838
* C. Poulett Thomson (Lord Sydenham) 1839

UNDER THE UNION

* Baron Sydenham (Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson) 1841
R.D. Jackson (Administrator) 1841
* Sir Charles Bagot 1842
* Sir Charles Metcalfe 1843
* Earl Cathcart 1845
* Earl of Elgin 1847
W. Rowan (Administrator) 1853
* Sir Edmund Head 1854
* Lord Viscount Monck 1861

UNDER THE CONFEDERATION

* The Rt. Hon. Viscount Monck, G.C.M.G. 1867
* The Rt. Hon. Lord Lisgar, G.C.M.G. (Sir John Young) 1868
* The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Dufferin, K.P., K.C.B., G.C.M.G. 1872
* The Rt. Hon. The Marquis of Lome, K.T., G.C.M.G., P.C. 1878
* The Rt. Hon. The Marquis of Lansdowne, G.C.M.G. 1883
* The Rt. Hon. Lord Stanley of Preston, G.C.B. 1888
* The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Minto, G.C.M.G. 1898
* The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Aberdeen, K.T., G.C.M.G. 1893
* The Rt. Hon. The Earl Grey, G.C.M.G. 1904
* Field Marshal, H.R.H., The Duke of Connaught, K.C., G.C.M.G. 1911

----

Those not marked * acted only as administrators. When a governor
had acted as administrator immediately before becoming governor,
the earlier date is given. The names of all the ad interim
administrators are not given.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS OF QUEBEC

(After Confederation)

The Rt. Hon. Sir Narcisse Fortunat Belleau
The Rt. Hon. Sir Narcisse Fortunat Belleau (re-appointed)
Hon. Rene Edouard Caron
Hon. Luc Letellier de St. Just
Hon. Theodore Robitaille
Hon. Louis François Rodique Masson
Hon. Auguste Real Angers
Hon. Sir J.A. Chapleau
Hon. L.A. Jetté
Hon. L.A. Jetté (re-appointed)
Hon. Sir Charles A.P. Pelletier
Hon. Sir François Langelier