§ Mr. Humerose to present a petition from Quebec, in Lower Canada, in support of the resolutions of the Assembly of the province, which set forth ninety-two distinct grounds of complaint, with reference to the government of that colony, and was signed by 13,083 individuals. The hon. Member supported the prayer of the petition, and observed, that as the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies had given the delegates who had been sent over with the petition an assurance that the complaints of the petitioners should receive his most serious attention, he would not trouble the House further, than by assuring them, that so long as the present system of misrule was suffered to continue in the colonies, the inhabitants would continue to desire that the management of their affairs should be intrusted to their own hands.
Mr. Secretary Ricesaid, it must be admitted, that much irritation and excitement had prevailed in certain parts of Lower Canada, and there was no question he had more sincerely at heart than to reconcile contending parties, and to remove any just ground of complaint. It was of the greatest importance that the mother country should entertain a good feeling toward the colonies, and equally important to the latter, to maintain a friendly understanding with Great Britain, and he considered that man the worst enemy to Canada who should promote a separation from the mother country, as the means of obtaining the redress of grievances, whether real or imaginary. Entertaining such opinions, he could not help feeling the deepest regret that the sentiments contained in a letter which had appeared in the public papers, purporting to have been written by the hon. member for Middlesex, should have emanated from any Member of the British Senate. In that letter, he found the following passage:—"A crisis is fast approaching in the affairs of the Canadas, which will terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother country, and the tyrannical conduct of a small and despicable faction in the colony." If an hon. member of the British Parliament took upon himself to address such language to an individual in the station that Mr. M'Kenzie held in the colony, and denounced the Government of Great Britain as a "baneful domination," so far from reconciling the party animosities, and 921 allaying the discontent that might exist against the mother country, he was ministering to the angry passions of the malcontents, and made himself responsible for the consequences that might ensue. He was not prepared to say whether, if such language had been made use of by a subject of the colony, he would not be liable to a prosecution for high treason. He felt it to be his duty to deprecate the language which had been made use of by the hon. Member in the strongest terms; but he did so more in sorrow than in anger, and he should not have alluded to the subject at all, had not the letter appeared in the public papers.
§ Mr. Humesaid, it was necessary he should state to the House the nature of the letter, and its origin, as he was quite prepared to defend the sentiments it contained. Although he had been the subject of the vilest abuse of the Press; although all manner of lies had been circulated against him on this subject, and particularly by The Times newspaper, garbling the real facts of the case, and not giving one-half of the truth, still he was perfectly prepared to defend every sentence of the letter, it being his custom not to write a letter, public or private, that he was ashamed to avow. The fact was, that a gentleman by the name of Mr. Ryerson, being unable to obtain redress of a grievance arising out of the colonial government, applied to him for his assistance; that he immediately went with Mr. Ryerson to Lord Goderich, and obtained for him a fair hearing of his case and the redress he sought. That individual, however, turned round upon him most ungratefully, and did him all the injury in his power. With regard to that part of the letter to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, it applied entirely to the measures of Mr. Stanley, and not to the dominion of Great Britain over the colonies. He said, (and he was still of the same opinion), that if the pernicious measures of Mr. Stanley were persevered in, it would be very likely to produce the same effect in the Canadas, as had been produced in the colonies that were now the United States of America, between 1772 and 1782. The liberal government of the colonies, under the direction of Lord Goderich, had insured for that nobleman the gratitude of both Canadas; but no sooner did Mr. Stanley come into office, than he began to undo all that had 922 been so judiciously and beneficially begun by Lord Goderich. When he witnessed glaring instances of misrule, he must call it an arbitrary system that would drive men to desperation, and make them endeavour to take the government into their own hands. Why did he say, "a crisis is fast approaching in the affairs of the Canadas," but because meetings were taking place in every district of each province to reprobate the measures of Mr. Stanley? He did say, that the misrule of so many years was growing too oppressive to be supported, and that "the tyranny of a despicable faction," could not much longer be borne; and had he not reason to say so when the House had been informed, that a gentleman had been five times elected for one of the districts in Canada, by the almost unanimous will of the people, and had been five times rejected by the House of Assembly, through the influence of bribery and corruption. He thought when such circumstances as these came under his knowledge, he gave very wholesome advice to Mr. M'Kenzie, in the letter he had written. He would say to Canada, what he had said to Ireland, "If you cannot obtain the redress of great and acknowledged grievances, then resistance becomes a virtue, though the difficulty is where to draw the line." He was as much interested in the peace and welfare of the Canadas as any man in that House; but he could not sacrifice his principles, and his public character, on any private consideration.
Mr. Secretary Riceobserved, that a Member of Parliament enjoying his perfect security in Bryanston-square, was not in a fair situation to recommend the inhabitants of a distant colony to adopt measures of resistance of the description to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. Why did he not take the field and expose himself to the consequences, instead of playing the part of the trumpeter in safety at home Let the hon. Member, if he incited resistance contrary to law, meet the consequences, and he hoped the law would lay hold of him. The right hon. Gentleman read an address, numerously signed, from some of the most respectable inhabitants of Upper Canada, deprecating the sentiments contained in the petition, and expressing the most perfect satisfaction with the British Government.
§ Mr. Humeread a letter from a similar body in one of the provinces, and said the 923 resolution it contained had been come to by a majority of thirteen out of twenty-four, in opposition to the direct object for which the meeting was assembled. The meeting was held to pass a vote of censure on the sentiments of his letter, but an Amendment, adopting the very language, was agreed to by the majority. He declared again, that it was the "baneful domination" of Downing-street, and not the domination of this country, against which he so strongly protested. He was always ready to avow the sentiments he entertained, whatever might be the result. The right. hon. Gentleman had accused him of fearing to encounter the danger to which his advice might expose his person, but he had never shrunk, nor ever would shrink, from the performance of his duty. He would ask his right hon. friend who took the lead, at a time of some danger, when his right hon. friend, and his friends stood quietly by? He had taken the same part in the proceedings of May, 1832, and expressed the same opinions at that crisis that he spoke at this. Then his right hon. friend did not complain, because those proceedings were all in his favour, but now it suited his purpose to denounce them.
§ Petition laid on the Table.