CHAPTER V.

HOW BRITAIN BEGAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, AND HOW VIRGINIA NULLIFIED THE QUEBEC ACT.

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1774.

THE Congress of 1774 contained statesmen of the highest order of wisdom. For eloquence, Patrick Henry was unrivalled; next to him in debate stood the elder Rutledge, of South Carolina; "but, if you speak of solid information and sound judgment," said Patrick Henry, "Washington is unquestionably the greatest man of them all."

While the delegates of the twelve colonies were in session in Philadelphia, ninety of the members just elected to the Massachusetts assembly appeared on Wednesday, the fifth of October, at the court-house in Salem. After waiting two days for the governor, they passed judgment on his unconstitutional proclamation against their meeting; and, resolving themselves into a provincial congress, they adjourned to Concord. There, on the eleventh, the members, about two hundred and sixty in number, elected John Hancock their president. On the fourteenth, they sent a message to the governor, that for want of a general assembly they had convened in congress; and they remonstrated against his hostile preparations. A committee from Worcester county made to him similar representations.

To the provincial congress, which had again adjourned from Concord to Cambridge, Gage made answer by recriminations. They were surrounded by difficulties. A committee, appointed on the twenty-fourth of October to consider the proper time to provide a stock of powder, ordnance, and ordnance stores, reported on the same day that the proper time was come. Upon the debate for raising money to prepare

for the crisis, one member proposed to appropriate a thousand pounds, another two thousand; a committee reported a sum of less than ninety thousand dollars as a preparation against a most wealthy and warlike empire. They elected three general officers by ballot. A committee of safety, Hancock and Warren being of the number, was invested with power to alarm and muster the militia of the province, of whom one fourth were to hold themselves ready to march at a minute's notice.

In Connecticut, which, from its compactness, numbers, and wealth, was second only to Massachusetts in military resources, the legislature of 1774 provided for effectively organizing the militia, prohibited the importation of slaves, and ordered the several towns to provide double the usual quantity of powder, ball, and flints. They directed the issue of fifteen thousand pounds in bills of credit of the colony, and made a small increase of the taxes. This was the first issue of paper money in the colonies preparatory to war.

The congress of Massachusetts, in like manner, directed the people of the province to perfect themselves in military skill, and each town to provide a full stock of arms and ammunition. Having voted to pay no more money to the royal collector, they chose a receiver-general of their own, and instituted a system of provincial taxation. They appointed executive committees of safety, of correspondence, and of supplies. As the continental congress would not sanction their resuming the charter from Charles I., they adhered as nearly as possible to that granted by William and Mary; and summoned the councillors, duly elected under that charter, to give attendance on the fourth Wednesday of November, to which time they adjourned. To their next meeting they referred the consideration of the propriety of sending agents to Canada.

The troubles with the thirteen colonies led the court of Great Britain to its first step in the emancipation of Catholics; and, with no higher object in view than to strengthen the authority of the king in America, the Quebec act of 1774 began that series of concessions which at last opened the British parliament and the high offices of administration to "papists."

In the belief that the loyalty of its possessions had been promoted by a dread of the French settlements on their north

ern and western frontier, Britain sought to create under its own auspices a distinct empire, suited to restrain her original colonies from aspiring to independence. For this end, it annexed by act of parliament to the province which was called Quebec all the territory north-west of the Ohio, as far as the Mississippi river and thence to the head of Lake Superior; and consolidated all authority over this boundless region in the hands of the executive power of Great Britain. The Catholics were not displeased that the promise of a representative assembly was not kept. In 1763, they had all been disfranchised in a land where there were few Protestants, except attendants on the army and government officials. A representative assembly, to which none but Protestants could be chosen, would have subjected almost all the inhabitants to a resident oligarchy, hateful by their race and religion, their supremacy as conquerors, and their selfishness. The Quebec act authorized the crown to confer posts of honor and of business upon Catholics; and they chose rather to depend on the clemency of the king than to have an exclusively Protestant parliament, like that of Ireland. This limited political toleration left no room for the sentiment of patriotism. The French Canadians of that day could not persuade themselves that they had a country. They would have desired an assembly to which they should be eligible; but, since that was not to be obtained, they accepted their partial enfranchisement by the king, as a boon to a conquered people.

The owners of estates were gratified by the restoration of the French system of law. The English emigrants might complain of the want of jury trials in civil processes; but the French Canadians were grateful for relief from statutes which they did not comprehend, and from the chicanery of unfamiliar courts. The nobility of New France, who had ever been accustomed to arms, were still further conciliated by the proposal to enroll Canadian battalions, in which they could hold commissions on equal terms with English officers.

The capitulation of New France had guaranteed to the clergy freedom of public worship; by the Quebec act they were confirmed in the possession of their ancient churches and their revenues; so that the Roman Catholic worship was as

effectually established in Canada as the Presbyterian church in Scotland. When Carleton returned to his government, bearing this great measure of conciliation of which he was known to have been the adviser, he was welcomed by the Catholic bishop and priests of Quebec with professions of loyalty; and the memory of Thurlow and Wedderburn, who carried the act through parliament, is gratefully embalmed in Canadian history. Yet the clergy were conscious that the concession of these privileges was but an act of worldly policy, mainly due to the disturbed state of the Protestant colonies. For the cause of Great Britain, Catholic Canada could not uplift the banner of the King of heaven or seek the perils of martyrdom.

Such was the frame of mind of the French Canadians when the American congress sent among them its appeal. The time was come for applying the new principle of the power of the people to the old divisions in Christendom between the Catholic and the Protestant world. The Catholic church asserts the unity, the universality, and the unchangeableness of truth; and this principle rather demands than opposes universal emancipation and brotherhood. Yet Protestantism, in the sphere of politics, had hitherto been the representative of that increase of popular liberty which had grown out of free inquiry, while the Catholic church, under the early influence of Roman law and the temporal sovereignty of the Roman pontiff, had inclined to monarchical power. These relations were now to be modified.

The thirteen colonies were all Protestant; even in Maryland the Catholics formed scarcely an eighth, perhaps not more than a twelfth part of the population; their presence in other provinces, except Pennsylvania, was hardly perceptible. The members of congress had not wholly purged themselves of Protestant bigotry. In their address to the people of Great Britain, it was even said that the Roman Catholic religion had "dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world." But the desire of including Canada in the confederacy compelled the Protestants of America to extend the principle of religious equality and freedom to Catholics. In the masterly address to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec, drawn by Dickinson, all old religious jealousies were condemned as low-minded infirmities;

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and the Swiss cantons were cited as examples of a union composed of Catholic and Protestant states.

After a clear analysis of the Quebec act, and the contrast of its provisions with English liberties, the shade of Montesquieu was evoked as saying to the Canadians: "The happiness of a people inevitably depends on their liberty, and their spirit to assert it. The value and extent of the advantages tendered to you are immense. This work is not of man; you have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought. Seize the opportunity presented to you by Providence itself. You are a small people, compared to those who with open arms invite you into a fellowship. The injuries of Boston have roused and associated every colony from Nova Scotia to Georgia. Your province is the only link wanting to complete the bright and strong chain of union. Nature has joined your country to theirs; do you join your political interests; for their own sakes, they never will desert or betray you."

Whether the unanimous invitation of congress to the Canadians to "accede to their confederation" should be accepted or repelled, the old feud between members of the Roman Catholic church and the free governments which had sprung from Protestantism was coming to an end.

The attempt to extend the jurisdiction of Quebec to the Ohio river was resisted by the older colonies, especially by Virginia; and the interest of the crown officers in the adjacent provinces was at variance with the policy of parliament.

Lord Dunmore had reluctantly left New York, where, during his short career, he had acquired fifty thousand acres of land, and, as chancellor, was preparing to decide in his own court, in his own favor, a large and unfounded claim which he had preferred against the lieutenant-governor. Upon entering on the government of Virginia, his passion for land and fees outweighing the proclamation of the king and reiterated and most positive instructions from the secretary of state, he supported the claims of the colony to the West, and was a partner in two immense purchases of land from the Indians in southern Illinois. In 1773, his agents, the Bullets, made surveys at the falls of the Ohio; and parts of Louisville and of the towns opposite Cincinnati are now held under his warrant.