LETTER IV.

As soon as the struggle had ended in the old colonies, by their successful assertion of independence, a vast emigration of the loyalists took place into Canada, comprising a great number of persons of character and property; and these people, who had been accustomed to the exercise of the electoral privilege, united with those of their countrymen who had previously settled there in demanding a modification of the Quebec Act, and the establishment of a local legislature. The petitions of these people gave rise to the Act of the 31st Geo. 3, c. 31, commonly called the Constitutional Act, to which and to the Quebec Act, of the 14th of the same reign, c. 83, alluded to in my former letter, is to be attributed all the trouble experienced in governing Canada. In the fatal concessions to the Canadians contained in these Acts, is to be found the origin of that antiBritish feeling which, engendered by the powers conferred by those Acts, has increased with every exercise of those powers, until it has assumed the shape of concentrated hatred and

open rebellion. By this Act Canada was divided into two provinces, respectively called Upper and Lower Canada. The latter, to which all my remarks will hereafter be confined, lies between the parallels of the 45° and 52° of North latitude, and the meridian of 57° 50' and 80° 6' West longitude from Greenwich. It is bounded on the north by the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, on the east by the Gulph of St. Lawrence, on the south by New Brunswick and part of the United States, and on the west by a line that separates it from Upper Canada, and contains more than 250,000 square miles.

To this country this celebrated Act gave a constitution, consisting of a Governor and Executive Council of eleven members, appointed by the Crown; a Legislative Council, forming the second estate, appointed in like manner by the Crown, consisting of fifteen members (but subsequently, as we shall see, increased to forty); and a Representative Assembly, or House of Commons, composed of fifty members (afterwards increased to eighty-eight), each having powers as nearly analogous to those of King, Lords, and Commons, as the varied circumstances of the two countries and the dependence of the colony would admit.

The enacting power they bestowed upon the colony, introduced from year to year another set of statutes, in addition to what they were subject to already, so that they now have a union of French, English, and provincial law. Such a confusion, you may easily imagine, imposed great difficulties, as well upon those who had to administer, as those who were bound to obey those laws; but of the extent of those difficulties, of the impediments they offered to the transfer of real estate, of the frauds to which they gave rise, and the obstacles they presented to the settlement and prosperity of the country, it is impossible for an Englishman to form any idea without first inquiring into the structure of this singular code. The subject, however, is too important to be disposed of in this cursory manner, and I shall, therefore, even at the hazard of being thought tedious, endeavour to give you some general account of the situation of the country in this particular. I am the more induced to do so, because, independent of the explanation which it will give of much that I have to say to you, it appears to be indispensible to the full understanding of the Tenures' Act, which is now one of the great complaints of the disaffected.

There exists in Lower Canada no regular

code in which the laws of the land are systematically incorporated, nor would it indeed be a task of ordinary difficulty to collect and condense them, so diverse are their elements, and so complex their character.* The jurisprudence of the country may be said to embrace the French, the English, and the Roman or civil laws, and these are all so blended in practice, that it is often doubtful whence the rule of decision will be drawn, although the line of distinction is better defined in theory. The statute law of the province may be stated under five heads-1st, The articles of capitulation, that form part of the guaranteed rights of the inhabitants; 2d, The 31st Geo. III. cap. 31, or the constitutional act, and all other British statutes expressly extending to the colonies; 3d, The edicts, declarations, and ordinances of the Kings of France officially registered in the province; 4th, The ordinances of the governor and council anterior to 1792; and 5th, The acts of the provincial legislature subsequent to 1792. The common law is the custom of Paris as modified by the customs of the country, and this law was co-extensive with the whole province until the passing of the Canada

*Sec Bouchette.

tenures' bill in 1825, which restricted the application of the French law to the feudal section of the colony, and introduced bodily the English laws to the remainder of the province. The criminal law of the province is the English code as it stood in 1774, and the statutes of a declaratory or modifying nature that have since passed the local legislature.

When the country was first settled by the French, the feudal tenure was in full vigour on the continent of Europe, and naturally transplanted by the colonizers to the new world. The King of France, as feudal lord, granted to nobles and respectable families, or to officers of the army, large tracts of land, termed seigniories, the proprietors of which were termed seigniors; and held immediately from the King, en fief, or en roture, on condition of rendering fealty and homage on accession to seigniorial property; and in the event of a transfer, by sale, or gift, or otherwise (except in hereditary succession), the seigniory was subject to the payment of a quint, or fifth part of the whole purchase-money; and which, if paid by the purchaser immediately, entitled him to the rabat, or a reduction of two-thirds of the quint. The custom still prevails, the King of Great