A history of Canada, 1763-1812

Name: A history of Canada, 1763-1812
Author: Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir

Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir

Canada -- History -- 1763-1867

prosperity, that themselves were the substance, and the governor
and Board of Council were shadows in their political frame. All
America was thus, at the very outset of the plantations, abandoned
to democracy. And it belonged to the administrations of the days
of our fathers to have found the cure, in the erection of a power
upon the continent itself, to control all its own little republics,
and create a partner in the legislation of the Empire, capable of
consulting their own safety and the common welfare.’

Such a power the Chief Justice outlined in ‘Proposed Additions to
the New Canada Bill for a General Government’, which he enclosed
in this noteworthy letter, prefacing them as clauses ‘to provide
still more effectually for the government, safety, and prosperity
of all His Majesty’s dominions in North America, and firmly to
unite the several branches of the Empire’. Provision was made in
them for a Legislative Council and General Assembly, which, with
the Governor-General, were to legislate for all or any of ‘His
Majesty’s dominions and the provinces whereof the same do now or
may hereafter consist in the parts of America to the southward
of Hudson’s Bay and in those seas to the Northward of the Bermuda
or Somers Islands’. So many Legislative Councillors were to be
appointed for each province by the Crown for life, subject to the
conditions attached to membership of the Legislative Council in
either of the two Canadas by the proposed Act; while the members
of the General Assembly were to be elected by the provincial
Assemblies. The Crown might appoint an Executive Council, and was
to be confirmed in full Executive authority over all and any of the
provinces, while the acts of the General Legislature were to be
subject to disallowance by the Crown, ‘and the said dominions and
all the provinces into which they may be hereafter divided shall
continue and remain to be governed by the Crown and Parliament
of Great Britain as the supreme Legislature of the whole British
Empire’.

[Sidenote: Chief Justice Smith’s views supported by Lord
Dorchester.]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

A history of Canada, 1763-1812Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir

History

A history of Canada, 1763-1812

Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir

Canada -- History -- 1763-1867

prosperity, that themselves were the substance, and the governor
and Board of Council were shadows in their political frame. All
America was thus, at the very outset of the plantations, abandoned
to democracy. And it belonged to the administrations of the days
of our fathers to have found the cure, in the erection of a power
upon the continent itself, to control all its own little republics,
and create a partner in the legislation of the Empire, capable of
consulting their own safety and the common welfare.’

Such a power the Chief Justice outlined in ‘Proposed Additions to
the New Canada Bill for a General Government’, which he enclosed
in this noteworthy letter, prefacing them as clauses ‘to provide
still more effectually for the government, safety, and prosperity
of all His Majesty’s dominions in North America, and firmly to
unite the several branches of the Empire’. Provision was made in
them for a Legislative Council and General Assembly, which, with
the Governor-General, were to legislate for all or any of ‘His
Majesty’s dominions and the provinces whereof the same do now or
may hereafter consist in the parts of America to the southward
of Hudson’s Bay and in those seas to the Northward of the Bermuda
or Somers Islands’. So many Legislative Councillors were to be
appointed for each province by the Crown for life, subject to the
conditions attached to membership of the Legislative Council in
either of the two Canadas by the proposed Act; while the members
of the General Assembly were to be elected by the provincial
Assemblies. The Crown might appoint an Executive Council, and was
to be confirmed in full Executive authority over all and any of the
provinces, while the acts of the General Legislature were to be
subject to disallowance by the Crown, ‘and the said dominions and
all the provinces into which they may be hereafter divided shall
continue and remain to be governed by the Crown and Parliament
of Great Britain as the supreme Legislature of the whole British
Empire’.

[Sidenote: Chief Justice Smith’s views supported by Lord
Dorchester.]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

A history of Canada, 1763-1812

A history of Canada, 1763-1812

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