"If the evils are confessedly great which arise from this want of a community of language, it should seem expedient to endeavour to provide an immediate remedy for the defect, and it should also seem that this can only be done by facilitating as much as possible the means of acquiring the English language to the children of the Canadians. "The plan which I would beg leave to submit for this purpose is simple and I trust practicable. Its aim may appear to be humble, but its effects, I am persuaded, would be in a high degree beneficial and important. "It is briefly this:--that a certain number of English School Masters, to be hereafter determined, should be employed and paid by the Government; that one of these should be placed in each of the cities and towns, and in the most considerable villages for the purposes and under the express obligation of teaching the English language _gratis_ to a certain number of the Canadian children, and writing and arithmetic when required, at an easy rate; that Trustees or Commissioners should be appointed to manage the fund which the Government in its bounty may see fit to appropriate to the end, to determine the number of Masters that may be required, their respective salaries, and the number of children they shall respectively teach _gratis_, to fix the rate at which Writing and Arithmetic shall be taught on, and to have the power of removing the Masters for incapacity or neglect of duty, and of promoting them successively to the more lucrative situations for able and meritorious conduct. "I would barely hint, by way of a leading idea upon this subject, that the salaries might perhaps extend from £20 to £60 per annum according to the number of inhabitants in the Village, Town, or City in which the Teacher should be placed, and that it might perhaps not improperly be a condition that he who received a payment of £20, should be obliged to teach English _gratis_ to _ten_ Canadian children, he who received £30 to fifteen children, and so on in proportion. "The importance and extent of this subject demand, I am well aware, more local information and better judgment than I have been able to apply to it;--I presume only to suggest it as an object not unworthy of immediate consideration to your Excellency's superior wisdom." This appeal was submitted by the Governor-General to the Executive Council of Lower Canada and was approved by that body. It was then forwarded to the Colonial Office for further consideration. As a result, on July 12th, 1800, the Duke of Portland, sent to the Lieutenant-Governor a long despatch from which the following extracts indicate that the Home Government sympathised with the Lord Bishop's suggestion:--