TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Arranged under the Names of the Works from which they are taken.

MUSEUM

OF

Foreign Literature, Science and art.

MAY, 1838.

From the Quarterly Review (Tory).

CANADA.

'Tis the sport to have the Engineer Hoist in his own petar

and if the gravest interests of the country were not 1. Remarks on the Proceedings as to Canada in the pre-perilled by their monstrous imbecility, it would really sent Session of Parliament. By one of the Commissioners. 10th April, 1837.

2. Plain Statement of the Quarrel with Canada, in
which is considered who first infringed the Constitu-
tion of the Colony. London, 1838.

3. Hints on the Case of Canada, for the Consideration of
Members of Parliament. London, 1838.
4. The Canadian Controversy; its Origin, Nature, and
Merits. London, 1838.

have been sport to see the at once contemptible and ridiculous figures made by Lord John Russell and his colleagues in the late short session of their new parlia

ment.

In the extreme verbal detail in which the debates are

its progress, and the woe-begone despair at its conclusion! Lord John-the chief performer-was like a schoolboy getting through Collins's Ode on the Passions, but reversing the order; for he began with Cheerfulness and Hope; then ran back the gamut to Anger and Despair; and at last, like the personification of Fear

reported, much of the spirit evaporates-and all the pantomime is lost. The last session-three weeks by the calendar-three hours by the measure of business -three ages by the feelings of the ministers-could The whigs have opened their new parliament in the only have been adequately reported not by the pen but same spirit, but under still darker auspices than they the pencil-not by shorthand but by sketches. The had closed the old. There is the same system of low smirking conservatism of the Treasury Bench on the and tricky expedients-the same shabby abandonment first night-the wry faces of its palinodes on the next of all public principle-the same pusillanimous dere--the hoity-toity triumph in the dawn of the debate on liction of all public duty, and the same disgraceful ob- the Spottiswoode fund; the sneaking confusion during livion of everything but the three great watchwords of the Whigs-place, power, and party. To keep placeto retain power-to favour party-are the main objects of every wily cabinet of the morning, and every manoeuvring debate of the evening. Greece and Spain, Russia and Turkey, Ireland and Canada-Trade, Agriculture, and Manufactures-the rights of the rich-the welfare of the poor-public Justice--the Prerogatives of the Crown-the existence of a national Church, and an Established Religion-nay, the very integrity of the British Empire itself—are all pondered and debated in this wretched make-shift Cabinet by no other Yesterday a petition was presented to the House of practical weights and measures than how to stay the Commons- but it missed fire and the villains made off :' stomach of Mr. O'Connell-how to parry the thrusts some of them (the ministers, we mean) escaped by one of Mr. Harvey-how to stifle the growls of Mr. Hume of the doors, but Lord John Russell was a moment too --and how to retain within the narrow pale of their late at the other, and with a couple of downcast colmajority the splendid names and talents of Mr. Pease leagues was sent back to the House to vote, and to and Mr. Potter, Mr. Pryme and Mr. Poulter; for at vote, infandum, against the motion to which he had the mercy of some half-dozen such people this mighty originally given his countenance-to which his folReform Ministry pants at this moment-in an atmos- lowers had pledged their support, and on which the phere of its own composition, for its asthmatic existence. best hopes of the ministerial majority rested. VOL. XXXIII.—MAY, 1838.

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'He started back, he knew not why-
Even at the sound himself had made!'

and absolutely ran out of the House, followed by the
whole Treasury Bench. The scene reminded us of
Papirius Cursor's droll cross-reading of the newspaper

Then me the Civil List, the ostensible motive of moving the committee, the Ministers gave to this the session. The Civil List had been settled, after a precedented inquiry the sanction of the Crown and ful msuteration, by these very men, on the accession the Government; the principle on which the Pens ff Lng Tan The only point of the Civil List on List had been placed by the constitution was virtua with my ma 1erence of opinion had existed in abandoned-abandoned by the very parties who we 1831 vs e Pension List, and that had been settled main the site of public economy-by diminishng the fiture amount by nearly one half-from 120, Mic to 75,000—and by the passing so recently as 1834 pela reactions of the House of Commons conuling ant batting the power of the Crown in grantng penslins at no expectation could be entertained tata arrangement so economical, not to say parsimouma, aut eo recently and so solemnly settled, was now likely to be disturbed. Accordingly, Lord John Kiesel, su the fret sight of the session, expressed the tenerniation of the government to abide by that settlement and to resist any attempt at a revision of the

olony, but as between this country and the ministry, | amongst them, and particularly in Upper Canada, has hich, by its characteristic and systematic alternation given additional umbrage to the French population,

f advance and retreat, of bluster and sneaking, has een the main cause, beyond all other causes, of this eplorable rebellion. Lord John Russell made, on he 16th of January, a long speech (six columns of the Times') on the subject of Canada-one of the most instatesmanlike, narrow-minded, and inconsistent expositions and exposures we have ever read from a British minister; a speech which, affecting a certain istorical tone, details every possible cause of the diference between the parties-except the real one; and laborately examines every point of the case-except hat on which the whole turns. That real cause is either more nor less than the determination of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada to throw off the British authorRITY, and to erect the province into an ndependent RepUBLIC, after the manner and model of the UNITED States.

That such would probably have been the result of a successful rebellion, whatever were its cause, any one might guess; but in the present case 'the wish was father to the thought,' and the real grievance of the Canadians, and the real source of their dissatisfaction, may be told in one word-the monarchial sovereignity of England. To throw off this-the lightest yoke and the easiest burden that ever colony bore-is the sole principle of the Canadian revolt, and they are egregiously mistaken who attribute it to any minor causes.

and the intrigues of factious demagogues in London, who trade in disorganization, have afforded them encouragement and supplied them with excuses. These are the causes which have led to the extension of the republican principle in Lower Canada, and that principle has led to five or six years of paper war, and now to a revolt in the field.

Of this, the clear, certain, and almost avowed motive of the insurrection, Lord John Russell does not, according to the long report which we have read of his speech, take any notice. Instead of seizing the leading thread of the maze, he bewilders himself and his hearers (or at least his readers) with a detail of alleged grievances on minor subjects, and of a series of what he seems to consider as individual acts of perverseness and obstinacy on the part of the Canadians: I which is just as rational and as fair as if some historian of Lord John's last advent to office should, on the occasion of the opening of the new parliament in 1835, enter into a disquisition as to whether Mr. Abercrombie or Mr. Manners Sutton had the stronger claims to the chair of the House of Commons-or whether it was or was not wise to grant a charter to the London University-or whether it would have been a good bargain for the Protestant parsons of Ireland to receive 701. per cent. on their income; and should detail and comment upon the right and the wrong of all these topics, without saying a syllable of Sir Robert Peel's administration, or of the real and single design of all the aforesaid propositions, namely, the overthrow of that ministry.

It may be asked, what can have altered, within so comparatively short a period, the loyalty of one of the happiest and, we believe, best governed (as far as England is concerned) provinces in the world? The Canadian advocates have a theory that every colony Without having any great respect for the scope of must, as soon as it thinks itself strong enough to walk Lord John Russell's mind, we are convinced that he alone, throw off the trammels of the mother country: could not but have seen the imperfection, nay, the abthey allege that Canada has reached that point;-nor surdity, of this mode of treating the subject; but his evado we doubt that the great and growing prosperity of sion of the real question was another instance of the mithe colony, and the neighbouring example of the nisterial system of shift and subterfuge which characUnited States, afforded the revolutionists plausible terizes all their policy and constitutes their only talent: topics of seduction; but every thinking man in Canada by the elaborate enumeration of the successive and diswas aware that the country was not ripe for nationali-tinct features of the discussions, the ministers hoped ty, and that its prosperity was essentially dependent to account for their own vacillation and negligence. on its connexion with England. In point of political 'How,' Lord John Russell's speech seems to suggest, feeling also, there had been really the reverse of any could we foresee a civil war arising out of a judge's fondness for American institutions; and, in short, the salary-or an assertion of national independence on a real and immediate cause of the revulsion of public mere question of the law of tenures?' But a wise opinion in Canada was, the recent triumphs of the minister in considering, and an able statesman in exrevolutionary principle in Europe, the success of the plaining these matters, should and would have seen July barricades in France, and above all, the subver- that those were not insulated and accidental questions sive doctrines and practices of the English Whig but parts of one continuous system of encroachment and Ministry. These have concurred to remind the French aggression on British authority. Roman Catholic Canadians of their foreign origin and difference of religion, and given them at once the desire and the hope of making themselves an independent people; while the growth of the British interest |

"These things, indeed they have articulated,
Proclaimed at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour.'

But the dullest eye might have detected the ‘rogue's

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Then came the Civil List, the ostensible motive of moving the committee, the Ministers gave to this u the session. The Civil List had been settled, after a precedented inquiry the sanction of the Crown and full consideration, by these very men, on the accession the Government; the principle on which the Pensi of King William. The only point of the Civil List on List had been placed by the constitution was virtua which any real difference of opinion had existed in abandoned-abandoned by the very parties who w 1830 was the Pension List, and that had been settled most bound to defend it; and the royal authority w so much on the side of public economy-by diminish-in this additional instance, employed against the r ing the future amount by nearly one half-from 120, prerogative. We have heard it rumoured that all 000l. to 75,000l.—and by the passing so recently as arose from some juggle behind the scenes betwee 1834 certain resolutions of the House of Commons con- Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Harvey. trolling and limiting the power of the Crown in grant-know not how that may be, but this we know, ing pensions-that no expectation could be entertained with our best attention, we could not discover any that an arrangement so economical, not to say parsimonious, and so recently and so solemnly settled, was now likely to be disturbed. Accordingly, Lord John Russell, on the first night of the session, expressed the determination of the government to abide by that settlement, and to resist any attempt at a revision of the list.

But Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey gave notice of a motion for a committee to inquire into the individual grounds of each of these pensions, and the weathercock ministry suddenly shifted right round. As long as they are fixed on the pivot of place, they care not which way they point, nor with what breeze they veer about. They now resolved to take the matter out of Mr. Harvey's hands, by proposing the committee themselves. This ridiculous change of purpose was as mischievous as ridiculous. An inquiry into the grounds and motives of the pensions, and of the individual services of particular pensioners, was a complete solecism. The pension fund was granted to the monarch for the exercise of royal grace and favour. Public services were always considered as belonging to another class, and were rewarded from time to time by public grants; but the Civil List pension fund was professedly placed at the disposal of the Crown, not merely for the reward of public claims, but also for its own irresponsible charity and bounty: to inquire, by a committee of the House of Commons, into the disposal of such a fund, with any view to the public merits of the recipients, is a positive contravention of the compact on which the fund was granted by Parliament to the monarch on the surrender of the hereditary revenue, and is, in fact, neither more nor less than an absolute and direct surrender of the principle of the grant.

Much better would it be, as we have seen remarked an able journal, to have no pension list at all, than to ve one which should bring the Crown into direct pate and constant collision with the House of Comons on every item of an expenditure nominally incusted to the sole discretion of the sovereign. The monarchy could not survive a series of such litigation. It might be very well for a member professing radical opinions to moot such a question: but by taking the matter out of Mr. Harvey's hands, and themselves

ference, either theoretical or practical, between
speeches in which Mr. Harvey supported his m
and that in which Mr. Rice opposed it. Mr. Rice
we have no doubt, anxious to do his duty to the Cr
and he professed his strong opinion to be against t
vision of the list. Why, then, did he not adhere.
first resolution of the Cabinet, which, besides its int
propriety, rested on the recent settlement of the qu
by the first reform ministry, and by the resolutions
House of Commons in 1834? No two opinions
we suppose, be more opposite to each other tha
of Mr. Rice and Mr. Harvey, but judging b
speeches, they seemed to us to travel by the sar
and to have arrived at the same end.

This would seem to exhaust inconsistency:-
contrary to all precedent, the member who p
the Committee was, on some pretence, exclud
it, and by this ill-judged and invidious distinc
ministers have contrived to lose even the smal1
tage they might have promised themselves f
Committee; because, assuredly, Mr. Harvey
be propitiated by such an inquiry, and those-
number, but loud in clamour-who participate
Harvey's opinions on the subject, will be add
vociferous when they see, or fancy they see,
We hesita
government was too timid to refuse an inquiry.
conscious to grant a bona fide one.
say that in the whole of this miserable juggle
isters have betrayed their duty to the cons
rights of the sovereign; and when we recollec
treme youth and inexperience of the Queen.
extent of restriction and sacrifice to which t
demain seems likely to expose the probably
of her Majesty, we feel something higher t
political indignation at such, as it seems to us
sation and treachery.

But a more urgent and important instance incapacity and cowardice has burst upon the a public in the case of Canada. We shall n to go through the long series of facts and reas this subject which are to be found in the vari the titles of which we have placed at the he article. We are not now about to discuss the the Canadian question as between this coun

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