3. It is right that I should explain to you that, (the colonial law being disallowed), excepting you prepare another act to which I can give my assent, we must necessarily have recourse to the common law of England to regulate our proceedings with respect to our juries. The common law,

which obtains in all cases not

specially provided for by statute, acknowledges no difference in the color of a man's skin as a reason for debarring him from the free exercise of his civil rights. The free people of color in these Islands are consequently, (cæteris paribus) as eligible by law, at this moment, to sit both on grand and petty juries, as any other inhabitant. With a view to the exclusion of ignorant or incapable people, you may regulate the amount of the qualification by a colonial act for either jury; the law, however, must be impartial, and equally affect all jurors, without any reference to color, to none other can I give my assent.

Mr Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly:

With a view of preventing you from the trouble of preparing, and myself from the pain of reit may have passed your House, fusing my assent to any act, after I think it right to inform you that I am expressly prohibited by my

orders and instructions under the

Royal sign Manual, from permitting any law to be re-enacted which has been once disallowed, clause or enactment, on account while it contains the objectionable of which the Royal assent was withheld. It rests therefore entirely with you, Gentlemen, to consider and to determine whether you will prepare and pass such a bill, for the regulation of your juries, as I have described, gov erned in the matter of your grand and petty juries by the common law of England.

J. CARMICHAEL SMYTH. Council Chamber, 31st May, 1831.'

Copy of a despatch received from Viscount Goderich, his Majesty's Secretary for the Colonies, by Lord Aylmer, and by him communicated to the House of Assembly of Lower Canada, on the 16th ult.

Downing-street, 7th July, 1831. My Lord, I have received, and have laid before the King, your Lordship's despatches of the 5th, 6th and 7th April last, Nos 24, 25 and 26.

Your Lordship's assurance of the favorable change in the general disposition of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada towards the close of their last ses sion, and your Report of the warm attachment borne by the people at large to his Majesty's person and Government, and to the constitution under which they live, have been received by his Majesty with lively satisfaction.

The King has been also gra

ciously pleased to express his approbation of the efforts made by your Lordship to ascertain with precision the full extent of the grievances of which the Assembly consider themselves entitled to complain; and assuming, in concurrence with your Lordship, that the address of the Assembly contains a full development of those grievances, the exposition which is to be there found to the views of that body, justifies the satisfactory inference that there remains scarcely any question upon which the wishes of that branch of the Legislature are at variance with the policy which his Majesty has been advised to pursue, and I therefore gladly anticipate the speedy and effectual termination of those differences which have heretofore so much embarrassed the operations of the local government.

No office can be more grateful to the King than that of yielding to the reasonable desires of the Representative body of Lower Canada, and while his Majesty's servants have the satisfaction of feeling, that upon some of the most important topics referred to in the address of the Assembly, its wishes have been anticipated, and they trust that the instructions which I am now about to convey to you will still further evince their earnest desire to combine with the due and lawful exercises of the constitutional authority of the crown, an anxious solicitude for the well being of all classes of his faithful subjects in the province.

I proceed to notice the various topics embraced in the address of the Assembly to the King

I shall observe the order which they have followed, and with a view to perspicuity, 1 shall preface each successive instruction which I have his Majesty's commands to convey to your Lordship, by the quotation of the statements made upon the same topic by the Assembly themselves..

Firstly - It is represented that the progress which has been made in the education of the people of this province, under the encouragement afforded by the recent acts of the Legislature, has been greatly impeded by the diversion of the revenues of the Jesuits' estates originally destined for this purpose.

His Majesty's Government do not deny that the Jesuits' estates were on the dissolution of that order, appropriated to the education of the people, and I readily admit that the revenue which may result from the property should be regarded as inviolably and exclusively applicable to that subject.

It is to be regretted undoubtedly that any part of those funds were ever applied to any other purpose, but although in former times your Lordship's predecessors may have had to contend with difficulties, which caused, and excused, that mode of appropriation, I do not feel myself now called upon to enter into any consideration of that part of the subject.

If, however, I may rely on the returns which have been made to this department, the rents of the Jesuits' estates have, during the last few years, been devoted exclusively to the purpose of education, and my despatch dated the

24th December last, marked' separate,' sufficiently indicates that his Majesty's Ministers had resolved upon a strict adherence to that principle several months before the present address was adopted. The only practical question which remains for consideration is, whether the appropriation of these funds for the purpose of education should be directed by his Majesty, or by the Provincial Legislature.

The King cheerfully, and without reserve, confides that duty to the Legislature in the full persuasion that they will make such a selection among the different plans for this purpose, which may be presented to their notice, as may most effectually advance the interests of religion and sound learning among his subjects; and I cannot doubt that the Assembly will see the justice of continuing to maintain, under the new distribution of these funds, those scholastic establishments to which they are now applied.

I understand that certain buildings in the Jesuits' estates, which were formerly used for collegiate purposes, have since been uniformly employed as a barrack for the King's troops. It would obviously be highly inconvenient to attempt any immediate change in this respect, and I am convinced that the Assembly would equally regret any measure which might diminish the comfort or endanger the health of the King's forces. If, however, the Assembly should be disposed to provide adequate barracks, so as perinanently to secure those important objects, his Majesty will be prepared (upon the completion of such an

arrangement in a manner satisfactory to your Lordship) to acquiesce in the appropriation of the buildings in the question to the same purposes as those to which the general funds of the Jesuits' estates are now about to be restored.

I should fear that ill founded expectations may have been indulged respecting the value and productiveness of the Jesuits' estates. In this, as in most other cases, concealment appears to have been followed by exaggerations as its natural consequence. Had the application of the Assembly, for an account of the proceeds of these estates been granted, much misapprehension would probably have been dispelled. My regret from the ef fect of your decision to withhold these accounts, does not, howev er, render me insensible to the propriety and apparent weight of the motives by which your judg ment was guided; disavowing, however, every wish for concealment, I am to instruct your lordship to lay these accounts before the Assembly in the most complete detail at the commencement of their next session, and to supply the House with any further explanatory statements which they require respecting them.

It appearing that the sum of £2,154 15s. 4 d. has been recov ered from the late Mr Caldwell's property in respect of the claims of the crown against him on account of the Jesuits' estates, your lordship will cause that sum to be placed at the disposal of the Legislature for general purposes. poses. The sum of £1,280 3s.

Secondly - The House of Assembly represent that the progress of education has been impeded by the withholding the grants of land promised for schools in the year 1804.

On referring to the speech delivered in that year by the Governor to the Houses as the provincial legislature, I find that such an engagement as the address refers to was actually made. It of course, therefore, is binding on the Crown and must now be carried into effect, unless there be any circumstances of which I am not apprized, which may have cancelled the obligation contracted in 1801, which may have rendered the fulfilment of it at the present time impracticable. If any such circumstances really exist, your lordship will report them to me immediately, in order that the fit course to be taken may be further considered.

Thirdly-The objection by the Legislative Council of various Bills in favor of education, is noticed as the last of the impediments to the progress of education.

Upon this subject it is obvious that his Majesty's Government have no power of exercising any control, and that they could not interfere with the free exercise of the discretion of the Legislative Council, without the violation of the most undoubted maxims of

body may have actually counteracted the wishes of the Assembly on this subject, I am not very exactly informed, nor would it become me to express an opinion on the wisdom or propriety of any decision which they may have formed of that nature. The assembly, however, may be assured that whatever legitimate influence his Majesty's Government can exercise will always be employed to promote in every direction all measures which may have for their object, the religious, moral, or literary instruction of the people of Lower Canada.

Fourthly The address proceeds to state that the management of the waste lands of the crown has been vicious and improvident, and still impedes the settlement of those lands.

This subject has engaged and still occupies my most anxious attention, and I propose to address 1 your lordship upon it, at length, in a separate despatch. The considerations connected with the settlement of waste lands are too numerous and extensive to be conveniently embodied in a despatch embracing so many other objects of discussion.

Fifthly The exercise of Parliament in its power of regulating the trade of the Province is said to have occasioned injurious uncertainty in mercantile speculations and prejudicial fluctuations in the value of real estate, and of the different branches of industry connected with trade.

It is gratifying to find that this complaint is connected with a frank acknowledgment that the

power in question has been beneficially exercised on several occasions, for the prosperity of Lower Canada. It is, I fear, an unavoidable consequence of the connection which happily subsists between the two countries, that Parliament should occasionally require of the commercial body of Lower Canada some mutual sacrifices for the general good of the empire at large. I therefore shall not attempt to deny that the changes in the commercial policy of this kingdom during the last few years may have been productive of occasional inconvenience and loss to that body, since scarcely any particular interest can be mentioned in Great Britain of which some sacrifice has not been required during the same period. The most which can be effected by legislation, on such a subject as this, is a steady, though gradual advance, towards those great objects which an enlightened system of commercial regulations contemplates. The relaxation of restrictions on the trade of the British Colonies, and the development of their resources have been kept steadfastly in view amidst all the alterations to which the address refers, and I confidently rely on the candor of the House of Assembly to admit that, upon the whole, no inconsiderable advance towards those great ends has been made. They may rest assured that the same principles will be steadily borne in mind by his Majesty's Government in every modification of the existing law which they may at any future time have occasion to recommend to Parliament.

Sixthly-The Assembly in their address proceed to state that the inhabitants of the different towns, parishes, townships, extra parochial places and counties of the Province, suffer from the want of sufficient legal power for regulating and managing their local concerns.

I am happy in the opportunity which at present presents itself of demonstrating the desire of his Majesty's Government to co-operate with the local Legislature in the redress of every griev ance of this nature. The three Bills which your Lordship reserved for the signification of his Majesty's pleasure in the last session of the assembly, for establishing the parochial divisions of the Province, and for the incorporation of the cities of Quebec and Montreal, will be confirmed, and finally enacted by his Majes ty in council with the least possible delay, and I expect to be able very shortly to transmit to your Lordship the necessary orders, in council for that purpose.

Seventhly-I proceed to the next subject of complaint, which is, that uncertainty and confusion have been introduced into the law for the security and regula tion of property, by the intermix ture of different codes of Laws and rules of proceeding in the courts of justice.

The intermixture to which the address refers, so far as I am aware, arises from the English criminal code having been maintained by the British Statute of 1774, and from the various acts of Parliament which have introduced into the Province the soc