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