Sir, I do not think there are any other topics connected with the present state of Canada, which would justify me in detaining the House longer, as I trust I have said sufficient to support me in the motion with which I shall conclude. There are two grounds on which I principally rest. The first, is the state of the representative system in Lower Canada, and the situation of the revenue in respect to the administration of justice; the second, is the controversy which has grown up respecting the powers of the executive and legislative bodies. The case I have made out on those two points is sufficient, I trust, to entitle me to the committee for which I am about to move.

Sir, I should now have concluded all that I feel it necessary to state to the House on the present occasion, if I had not witnessed in some quarters, and I may say in some degree in this House, a disposition to think that all enquiry and concern about Canada are unnecessary, and that the public interest of this country would be best consulted by our at once relinquishing all controul and dominion over these possessions. Sir, it is very easy, but I must say it is the proof of a very shallow mind, to lay down a rule of this sort. In British America there are nearly a million of our fellow-subjects, born like ourselves in allegiance to the Crown of this country, anxious to remain in that allegiance, fulfilling all the duties of it, and having as good a right as ourselves to claim for their persons and property the protection which is the consequence of that allegiance. Is this country, without necessity, without that right being challenged by any one, to incur the indelible disgrace of withdrawing that protection? In contemplating such a question, I will not allow myself to say one word of the advantages, naval, commercial, and political, which we derive from our connexion with our colonies. But I But I may be allowed to speak of the political character of the countryof the moral impression throughout the world of such an

abandonment as is here proposed. I may be allowed to say, that England cannot afford to be little. She must be what she is, or nothing. It is not Canada estimated in pounds, shillings, and pence-but the proudest trophies of British valour, but the character of British faith, but the honour of the British name, which we shall cast off, if upon such considerations as I have heard, we cast off Canada from our protection. We cannot part with our dominions there, without doing an injustice to their fidelity and tried attachment, and tarnishing the national honour. We are not, Sir, at liberty to forego the high and important duties imposed on us by our relative situation towards those colonies. It is a country where no distinctions prevail, such as disturb some of our other territorial possessions abroad. There are no distinctions of castes, no slavery, which tend to engender dissention and disaffection. We have every where displayed marks of a paternal government, and planted improvement, not only on our colonies there, but wherever our empire is acknowledged.

Sir, England is the parent of many flourishing coloniesone of them is become an empire among the most powerful in the world. In every quarter of the globe we have planted the seeds of freedom, civilization, and Christianity. To every quarter of the globe we have carried the language, the free institutions, the system of laws, which prevail in this country;-in every quarter they are fructifying and making progress; and if it be said by some selfish calculator, that we have done all this at the expense of sacrifices which we ought not to have made, my answer is,—in spite of these sacrifices, we are still the first and happiest people in the old world; and, whilst this is our lot, let us rejoice rather in that rich harvest of glory, which must belong to a nation that has laid the foundation of similar happiness and prosperity to other nations, kindred. in blood, in habits, and in feelings to ourselves.

But, Sir, whether Canada be to remain for ever dependent on England, or to become an independent state-not, I trust, by hostile separation, but by amicable arrangement -it is nevertheless the duty, as it is the interest, of this country, to imbue it with English feeling, and to benefit it by English laws and English institutions. I move, Sir, “That a Select Committee be appointed, to inquire into the state of the Civil Government of Canada, as established by the Act 31 Geo. III., c. 31, and to report their observations and opinions thereupon to the House."

The motion was agreed to, and a committee appointed.

SIR FRANCIS BURDETT'S MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE ON THE STATE OF THE LAWS AFFECTING THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.

May 12.

On the 8th of May, Sir Francis Burdett moved, "That this House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the State of the Laws affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, in Great Britain and Ireland, with a view to such final and conciliatory adjustment, as may be conducive to the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant Establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes of his Majesty's subjects." The debate was adjourned to the 9th, and again to the 12th; when

Mr. Secretary HUSKISSON rose and said :— *

I was so exhausted when I offered myself to your notice at a late hour on Friday night, and the House manifested, by such unequivocal indications, that it was much in the same state, that I confess, Sir, I was not sorry that an adjournment was proposed; and if I was not sorry then, I am much less so now, when the postponement of the question has had the effect of preventing the able and eloquent From Mr. Huskisson's MS. notes.

speech of my right honourable friend who spoke first this evening* from being either lost, or from being that with which the debate would have closed. For although I was then ready to give a silent vote, it was, I own, my wish to accompany that vote with some explanation and record of the feelings by which it would have been guided and directed.

Having been enabled, by the indulgence of the House on former occasions, to state my general sentiments on this great question, and having been present, I may say, at all the many and protracted debates which have taken place upon it, since the period of the Union, with the exception of that of last year, when I was kept away by illness-and not being therefore one of those "buds of genius," one of those "young germs" just coming forth, whom my learned. friend, the Attorney General, invites to retire from the debate, and improve their minds by reading all the journals of the House-I feel that I should abuse the patience of the House, if I were to enter into a laboured examination of a question so completely exhausted, that I believe no man can expect, either in the way of argument or illustration—either by drawing upon the stores of history, or by referring to contemporaneous proceedings in other countries -to infuse any thing like new life into the enquiry.

I do not except from this remark the great use which has been made, on the present occasion, of the treaty of Limerick, and of the transactions which took place at the time of the Irish Union. In respect to the treaty of Limerick, I fairly own that I differ very little, if at all, from the view taken of it by the Solicitor-General, and by my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. As a friend to Catholic concession, on clearer and stronger grounds, I regret that this treaty has been pressed into the service of the Petitioners, and by a

strained construction put so forward in the argument upon their claims. I further regret it, in common with my right honourable friend, because it cannot be so construed without casting a doubt upon the character of this country, and without imputing to one of its most justly honoured monarchs, and to some of its most patriotic statesmen, conduct the most odious and detestable-that of having grossly violated their plighted word, and of having wantonly oppressed the weak and the fallen, at the expense of sacrificing the public faith and honour of their country. This, Sir, is all that I shall say on this part of the subject, except that I would venture to suggest to those who have brought it forward to imitate the example of my right honourable friend, and to promise never again to mention the treaty of Limerick, in connection with this question. Sure, I am, for one, and I believe I speak the feelings of many in this House, that if it was pressed upon me solely by the consideration of the treaty of Limerick, I should be very indifferent about the issue.

Then, Sir, in respect to the pledges or assurances said to have been given by Mr. Pitt, immediately before the Union; I am quite confident, with my right honourable friend, that there were no such pledges entered into. The right honourable gentleman, the knight of Kerry, was at that time in office in Ireland. I, Sir, was in office in this country, in an inferior situation certainly; but one which, independent of private habits of friendship, placed me in confidential relations both with Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas. And here allow me just to say, in passing, that although taking a different line from that adopted by the right honourable gentleman in Ireland, I relinquished my office, because Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas relinquished their situations in the cabinet, I can nevertheless most fully confirm what was stated by the right honourable the knight of Kerry, in