Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PARLIAMENTARY REGIME rilHE new constitution, which created only a legis- J- lative council appointed by the Crown, was welcomed with enthusiasm by England's new subjects, but it contained no provision enabling them to take part in public affairs. That it should, despite this shortcoming, have satisfied the aspirations of our ancestors need not surprise us in the least. Men do not always feel the privation of advantages which they have never enjoyed. Now, in 1774, the separation from France had existed but fourteen years, and the recollection of the absolute French re"gime, imparted to the English rule an appearance of comparative freedom. The principles of self-government did not form part of the mental outfit of the Canadian of that day, habituated as he was by monarchical tradition to look to the king for everything, and to await his commands as the child awaits his father's. Hence when the question was first mooted of creating a House of Assembly composed of representatives of the people, to act side by side with the legislative council and the governor, the project met with anything but a cordial reception on their part, for it was to them fraught with all the terrors of the unknown. We havebefore us the text of the protest forwarded to London on the subject. Embodied in their petition is the following:— " What we cling to most closely is our religion and the laws regulating our property and our personal freedom, and the Quebec Act of 1774 secured us all that. We dread the establishment of an assembly, in view of the possible consequences of the creation of such a body. Can we as Catholics hope to preserve in an assembly the same privileges as the Protestants ? And must not the time come when the influence of the latter will preponderate over that of o...