good number for an aristocracy, but by no means for a democracy. He was perfectly aware that it was idle to expect or to maintain that in a representative House the number of the elected ought to bear a strict analogy to the number of the electors. He knew there was no necessity for it; and that 558 members of that House were just as good a representative of the people of England, amounting to eight millions, as any larger number whatever; but if they were legislating for a much more populous country (France, for instance), he did not believe he should be told that 558 members were fit representatives for the people of France. Mr. Fox thought sixteen by no means enough to form any thing that could bear the name of a popular assembly; he should rather have imagined that one hundred would have been the number, if one hundred fit members of assembly could have been obtained in Upper Canada.

Mr. Pitt said, as there were not above ten thousand individuals in Upper Canada (including men, women, and children), he thought sixteen, in the present state of the province, was about a reasonable proportion of those who were fit persons to be chosen members of the House of Assembly, and could spare enough time for due attendance. The blank was filled up with the word sixteen. It was here observed by Mr. Pitt, that the bill did not limit the number of members to sixteen, but only shewed that it ought not to be less than sixteen.

The number of the members of the House of Assembly in Lower Canada was moved to be filled up with the word thirty.

Mr. Fox condemned such a nomination, as infinitely too small. To transmit the British constitution to all the colonies of Great Britain, Mr. Fox said, he well knew was impossible; but to pretend to do any thing like it, and to

name 30 persons as a popular assembly representing 100,000, was so gross a fallacy, that he hoped it would be no longer attempted to be said that we gave Canada even a sketch of the British constitution, or any thing like it.

Mr. Powys said, the number of inhabitants he understood amounted to 150,000.

Mr. Barnard, in answer to Mr. Powys, said, that was supposed to have been the number of inhabitants in the whole province of Canada, before it was attempted to be divided.

Mr. Dundas said, they could not pretend to give Canada the same constitution as they themselves lived under: all they could do was to lay the foundation for the same constitution, when increased population and time should have made the Canadians ripe to receive it, and to enjoy the same blessings.

Mr. Fox insisted on it, that an Assembly consisting of 30, as the representatives of 100,000, might be an excellent Assembly, a wise Assembly, a virtuous Assembly, or an enterprising Assembly, but it could not be called a popular Assembly.

Mr. Martin wondered that Mr. Dundas should argue that the constitution would be ruined by a more equal representation. Did he wish the Assembly in Canada, Mr. Martin asked, to resemble some representative bodies in other countries, where there were sham elections, and footmen dressed up in their masters' clothes, and sent to parliament?

Colonel Simcoe read an extract from an American paper, to prove that the Congress thought a very small number sufficient for the members forming the House of Assembly for a western province, and that two or four would be enough to represent Montreal and Quebec.

The qualifications of electors were moved and agreed to at forty shillings for freeholders, in whom the choice of members for districts, counties, or circles lay.

Electors of members of towns or townships to possess a dwelling-house, or lot of ground, of the value of five pounds yearly, or, if resident within the said town or township, for the six months before the date of writ of summons for the election, to have paid ten pounds rent.

The duration of the House of Assembly was fixed for four years, instead of seven, as originally proposed; and the right of appeal, instead of being first to the Privy Council, and then to the House of Lords, was restricted to the Privy Council only.

When they came to the clauses respecting the clergy, Mr. Fox begged an explanation of both the clauses, page 13, 14, 15.

Mr. Chancellor Pitt said that he first gave the Governor and Council a power, under the instructions of his Majesty, to distribute out of a sum arising from the tithes for lands or possessions, and set apart for the maintenance and support of Protestant Clergy, in order to give them a competent income, and the second clause, he said, provided for the permanent support of the Protestant clergy, a seventh proportion of the lands to be granted in future. He declared that the meaning of the act was to enable the Governor to endow, and present the Protestant clergy of the established church to such parsonage or rectory as might be constituted or erected within every township or parish, which now was or might be formed, and to give to such Protestant clergyman of the established church a part, or the whole, as the Governor thought proper, of the lands appropriated by the act. He further explained, that this was done to encourage the established church, and that possibly hereafter it might be proposed to send a bishop of the established church to sit in the Legislative Council.

Mr. Fox disagreed with the whole of this plan. He said he thought the Roman Catholic religion ought to be the established church of the colony, or the Presbyterian

(that of the kirk of Scotland). He conceived setting aside a seventh part of the lands granted for the maintenance of the Protestant clergy, was too great an allotment, and that the idea of sending a bishop of the established church of England to sit in the Legislative Council, was in every point of view unjustifiable.

Mr. Duncombe was of opinion that setting aside a seventh of the lands granted for the maintenance of the clergy, was too much.

Mr. Ryder, by way of explanation, said, that the meaning was, when his Majesty granted six acres in any of the new townships, an acre was to be set aside for the clergyman presented by the Governor to the parsonage or rectory; for the first year or two, as the clergyman would have the ground to clear and cultivate, he probably would be greatly underpaid.

Mr. Fox still censured the whole plan, and reminded the House that Mr. Dundas had two evenings since boasted that the security of the kirk of Scotland was its being erected on the rock of poverty: according to the professions of the bill, Mr. Fox said, even the clergy of the kirk would have larger incomes in Canada than in Scotland.

Mr. Dundas gave an historical detail of the mode of proceeding, by which the clergy in Scotland were supported. The fund out of which they were paid, he said, was created in the last century; when the whole tithes of Scotland, as they then stood, were sold, and the money they produced vested for the purpose. There were, he said, about 900 parishes in Scotland, and their clergy had, he believed, one with another, between eighty and ninety pounds a year; and when their income, from circumstances, was too small, it was made up to a certain amount to such individuals whose pittance was too scanty, by the Assembly of the Kirk, who managed the fund. He lamented, that in consequence of an error in the original

proceeding, viz.: the vesting the sum which the sale of the tithes had produced in a fund, instead of laying it out in the purchase of land, and dividing that land so purchased into allotments for the clergy, the latter was not sufficiently provided for. Had the plan he had stated been adopted, the land would have risen in value in proportion to its improvement as other land had, and the incumbents would consequently have had the benefit of its increased production.

Mr. Pulteney, Lord Carysfort, and other gentlemen, took part in the conversation; and at length, the blanks being all filled up, the House adjourned at twelve o'clock.

Monday, 16th May.

Mr. Hobart having brought up the Report of the Quebec Bill,

Mr. Fox said, that after the discussion which the clauses had received, he did not again mean to trouble the House: there were only two points on which he intended to divide the House, and they were those which related to heredi-. tary nobility, and the number of the Assembly in Lower Canada.

Mr. Powys remarked, that with regard to hereditary nobility, he had only one objection: it was at present customary in Canada to give only one moiety of property to the eldest son. This certainly would much tend to scatter the property. But as we were now to make a constitution not for the present moment, but for posterity, he thought it desirable that there should be something similar to our House of Peers, and therefore he would vote with the right honourable gentleman who brought in the bill.

Colonel Simcoe spoke in favour of the bill, and having pronounced a panegyric on the British constitution, wished it to be adopted in the present instance, as far as circumstances would admit.