during the aforesaid period. The civil expenditure of Lower Canada, from the cession of the country down to the year 1818, was partially at the charge, and exclusively under the controul of the Government of Great Britain, and its officers in the province. A portion of the supplies was raised within the province, under permanent acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, and since the year 1793, under permanent and temporary acts of the Legislature of the province. To these were added his Majesty's casual and territorial revenue, and the deficiency was supplied out of his Majesty's military chest. In 1793, Lord Dorchester, then Governor-in-Chief, in his speech delivered at the opening of the session on the 11th November, states as follows: "The general expenditure is very great, but it cannot all be placed to the Provincial account; such parts of it as more particularly relate to that head, I am not at this time enabled to bring forward; I can only say it greatly exceeds the provincial fund; yet it is not my intention at present to apply to you for aid; that you may have more time to consider by what means the provincial revenue may be rendered more productive; in hopes, nevertheless, that Great Britain will, in the mean while, continue her generous assistance to this colony, and defray such surplus expences as are absolutely necessary to its prosperity." In 1794, when the first statement of the expenditure was laid before the House of Assembly, the total amount of warrants issued by the Governor or the Receiver General, was £23,769 currency. The receipt was £5,854 7s. 5d. On the 16th February, 1795, his Excellency Lord Dorchester, Governor-in-Chief, again laid before the Assembly the public accounts. It was in this year that the first appropriation, not exclusively for the expences of the Legislature, was made by the House of Assembly, consisting of several special appropriations, and of a permanent appropriation of five thousand pounds per annum for the administration of justice, and the support of the civil government. In the following year the expenditure was £27,225 currency, and Lord Dorchester, in his HOUSE CXFORD LIBRARY message to the Assembly of the 8th March, 1796, after stating that the balance of the expenditure exceeded the provincial revenue to the amount of £12,718 6s. 7d., and referring to the British acts 25th Ch. 2d c. 7-6th Geo. II. c. 13-4th Geo. III. c. 15, and 6th Geo. III. 52, observes, "But supposing these, as well as the other revenues collected within the province, had been in the first instance appropriated to defraying the expences thereof, the expenditure has still exceeded the receipts in the sum of £11,585 3s. 6d. currency." The total of the general expenditure and of the receipts, from the year 1794 to the year 1818, both inclusive, according to a statement drawn up from the annual accounts in the journals of the Assembly, by order of the House, was- Expenditure, Balance, Cy. £1,756,860 12 4 1,474,527 1 10 £282,333 10 6 The highest expenditure throughout the same period, according to the above mentioned statement, was in 1813, when a large proportion of the provincial fund was applied in support of the war, under the appropriations made by the Provin cial Legislature, viz: Expenditure, £206,800 5 9 The highest receipt was in the following year, viz: 203,656 8 11 In 1810, according to the same statement, the expenditure was 58,564 14 3 70,398 13 7 The Receipts, Surplus of revenue beyond the expenditure £11,833 19 4 It was on the 10th February, in the year 1810, that the Assembly resolved, That this province is at present able to pay all the civil expences of its Government. 2dly. That this House ought to vote during this Session, the necessary sums for defraying the civil expences of the Government of this province. 3dly. That this House will vote in this session the necessary sums for defraying the civil expences of the Government of this province. And on the 13th of the same month an humble address was voted by the Assembly to his Majesty and both Houses of Parliament, stating, That this House had engaged, in the course of the present session of the Legislature, to pay the civil expenditure of the provincial government, which has hitherto been chiefly defrayed by his Majesty. On the 7th January, 1818, his Excellency Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, in his speech at the opening of the session, communicated to both Houses "the commands of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, to call upon the Provincial Legislature to vote the sums necessary for the ordinary annual expenditure of the province;" and at the same time addressing the House of Assembly, he added: "In pursuance of these directions which I have received from his Majesty's Government, I shall order to be laid before you an estimate of the sums which will be required to defray the expences of the civil Government of the province, during the year 1818, and I desire you, in his Majesty's name, to provide, in a constitu. tional manner, the supplies which will be necessary for the purpose;" and his Excellency added, "I anticipate with confidence a continuance of that loyalty and zeal for his Majesty's service on your part, which I have hitherto experienced, and a ready execution of the offer which you made on à former occasion, to defray the expences of his Majesty's Provincial Government, with a liberality that did you honor."* * This statement is taken from the Journals of the Assembly, Vol. 2930, Appendix R.-being the first Report on the Civil List. We shall next proceed to complete the whole of the subject stated in the opening of this paper by examining the proceedings had by the Imperial Government, and by the Provincial Legislature, in relation to the revenue and expenditure of the colony, from the day that the above message was received down to the close of the session of the Provincial Legislature now under review. 206 No. XXI. FINANCES. UTRUM Chimera bombinaus in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones. UTRUM, la froidure hybernale des Antipodes, passant en ligne orthogonale par l'homogénée solidité du centre, pourroit par une douce antiperistasie eschauffer la superficielle connexité de nos talons.- -RABELAIS. 14th and 18th of the King. THE SUBJECT RESUMED AND CONCLuded. I pass over the proceedings had in the Assembly from the delivery of the Message adverted to in the preceding number, for the present, to come to the consideration of the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, in the Session of 1823. The intermediate proceedings will find a more proper place in the following number,-and I shall here confine myself exclusively to that part of the report in question which relates to the statutes at the head of this number. In the preceding number I have submitted the reasons which induced me to believe that the 14th of the King is a subsisting law, by which all his Majesty's subjects are bound. The report in question is the first official document that I am acquainted with which enunciates a contrary doctrine. This report having been followed by various resolutions of the Assembly, in accordance therewith, and the same continuing to be adhered to by the Assembly, it is material to enquire into the grounds and reasons which have been stated for them, to the end that a right judgment may be come to there |