From the commencement to the close of its existence BY ROBERT CHRISTIE. IN SIX VOLUMES. VOL. V. MONTREAL: RICHARD WORTHINGTON, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER. 1866. Entered, according to act of the Provincial Legislature, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixtyfive, for the protection of copy rights in this Province, by RICHARD WORTHINGTON, in the office of the Registrar of the Province of Canada. AUGUST, 1865. Hist-amer 8.27-41 43684 NOTICE. THIS volume terminates an undertaking which, whatever critics and the fastidious in literature may think. of it, has cost considerable labour and time, without any expectation,nor indeed desire, of a pecuniary return. It is, and from the commencement was, intended as a votive offering by a native colonist of a neighbouring province to that of his adoption, and will be found a faithful record of the principal political matters in LOWER CANADA, during the FIFTY YEARS of its existence as a separate province and government. The whole, or nearly so, has been gathered from official or authentic documents, and where these were not to be had, from such other sources as seemed fully entitled to credit. The reader, it is hoped, will find the various subjects brought under his notice, detailed in a clear and intelligible order, sans fard, and as the writer can conscientiously vouch they have been, sans fiel, fear,favor, affection, or resentment towards any political party, partisan, or person whomsoever, living or dead. Some of the details given in this, as in the preceding volumes, will no doubt be deemed prolix and perhaps unnecessary. We who have witnessed the more recent events of stirring interest in our career, and in which, indeed, many of us have been actors, may indeed well so opine, for surfeited by them, it must be to ourselves more agreeble, nay profitable, to forget than commemorate much of what has taken place; but time, notwithstanding this, will give to all those details, however minute or tedious they now may be deemed, an interest and the future historian in conning them over will, it is hoped, find no fault with the redundancies. I must not, however, while proclaiming my own disinterestedness in a pecuniary sense, in this publication, forget to acknowledge the obligations under which I am towards my friends and publishers; in the first place, Mr. Thomas Cary, for the impression of the three first volumes, and in the next, to Mr. John Lovell, for this and the preceding volume. It is entirely to the public spirit and liberality of these gentle. men that I owe the impression of the work, which I should not, indeed could not, have undertaken at my own expense, and which at no inconsiderable risk to themselves, they generously assumed, and which I beg them to be assured I am very sensible of and justly appreciate. It is therefore but natural I should entertain a desire that they should be indemnified for, at least, their outlay, in its impression and publication. On his head, I have also to acknowledge my obligations to the members of the Library Committee of the last and previous Legislative Assemblies, for their sense of the work, as signified by their recommendation for the purchase, (and complied with by the Assembly), of a considerable number of copies, contributing, by so much always, towards reimbursing my esteemed friends in the outlay they have incurred. For myself, I desire nothing beyond the approval of a reading public. I have previously announced my intention to publish in a separate volume a collection of interesting papers, hitherto unpublished, relating to public mat ters in Lower Canada. Not knowing how long it may be before those papers will appear, I have thought it advisable to insert a few of them at the end of this |