pared, and they will in due time be laid before you.

I will take care that they shall be formed with the strictest attention to economy, and I trust to your wisdom and patriotism to make such provisions as may be required for the public service.

My Lords and Gentlemen:

The scenes of violence and outrage which have occurred in the city of Bristol, and in some other places, have caused me the deepest affliction. The authority of the laws must be vindicated by the punishment of offences which have produced so extensive a destruction of property and so melancholy a loss of life. I think it right to direct your attention to the best means of preserving the Municipal Police of the kingdom in the more effectual protection of the public peace against the occurrence of similar

commotions.

Sincerely attached to our free constitution, I never can sanction any interference with the legitimate exercise of these rights which secure to my people the privileges of discussing and naking known their grievances; but in respecting these rights, it is also my duty to prevent combinations, under whatever pretence, which in their form and character are incompatible with all regular Government, and are equally opposed to the spirit and to the provisions of the law; and I know that I shall not appeal in vain to my faithful subjects to second my determined resolution to repress all illegal proceedings by which the

Proclamation for the Suppression of Political Unions.

From the London Gazette, Nov. 22.

WILLIAM R. Whereas certain of our subjects, in different parts of our kingdom have recently promulgated plans for voluntary associations, under the denomination of Political Unions, to be composed of separate bodies, with various divisions and subdivisions, under leaders, with a gradation of ranks and authority, and distinguished by certain badges, and subject to the general control and direction of a superior committee or council, for which associations no warrant has been given by us, or by any appointed by us, on that behalf. And whereas according to the plans so promulgated as aforesaid, a power appears to us to be assumed of acting independently of the civil magistrates, to whose requisitions, calling upon them to be enrolled as constables, the individuals composing such associations are bound in common with the rest of our subjects, to yield obedience. And whereas such associations, constituted and appointed, under such separate direction and command, are obviously incompatible with the faithful performance of this duty, at variance with the acknowledged principles of the constitution, and subversive of the authority with, which we are invested, as the Supreme Head of the State, for the protection of the public peace. And whereas, we are determined to maintain,

3. It is right that I should explain to you that, (the colonial law being disallowed), excepting you prepare another act to which I can give my assent, we must necessarily have recourse to the common law of England to reg ulate our proceedings with respect to our juries. The common law,

which obtains in all cases not specially provided for by statute, acknowledges no difference in the color of a man's skin as a

reason for debarring him from the free exercise of his civil rights. The free people of color in these Islands are consequently, (cæteris paribus) as eligible by law, at this moment, to sit both on grand and petty juries, as any other inhabitant. With a view to the exclusion of ignorant or incapable people, you may regulate the amount of the qualification by a colonial act for either jury; the law, however, must be impartial, and equally affect all jurors, without any reference to color, to none other can I give my assent.

Mr Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly:

With a view of preventing you from the trouble of preparing, and myself from the pain of refusing my assent to any act, after it may have passed your House, I think it right to inform you that I am expressly prohibited by my

orders and instructions under the

Royal sign Manual, from permitting any law to be re-enacted which has been once disallowed, while it contains the objectionable clause or enactment, on account of which the Royal assent was withheld. It rests therefore entirely with you, Gentlemen, to consider and to determine whether you will prepare and pass such a bill, for the regulation of your juries, as I have described, governed in the matter of your grand and petty juries by the common law of England.

J. CARMICHAEL SMYTH.
Council Chamber, 31st May, 1831.'

Your Lordship's assurance of the favorable change in the general disposition of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada towards the close of their last session, and your Report of the warm attachment borne by the people at large to his Majesty's person and Government, and to the constitution under which they live, have been received by his Majesty with lively satisfaction.

The King has been also gra

ciously pleased to express his approbation of the efforts made by your Lordship to ascertain with precision the full extent of the grievances of which the Assembly consider themselves entitled to complain; and assuming, in concurrence with your Lordship, that the address of the Assembly contains a full development of those grievances, the exposition which is to be there found to the views of that body, justifies the satisfactory inference that there remains scarcely any question upon which the wishes of that branch of the Legislature are at variance with the policy which his Majesty has been advised to pursue, and I therefore gladly anticipate the speedy and effectual termination of those differences which have heretofore so much embarrassed the operations of the local government.

No office can be more grateful to the King than that of yielding to the reasonable desires of the Representative body of Lower Canada, and while his Majesty's servants have the satisfaction of feeling, that upon some of the most important topics referred to in the address of the Assembly, its wishes have been anticipated, and they trust that the instructions which I am now about to convey to you will still further evince their earnest desire to combine with the due and lawful exercises of the constitutional authority of the crown, an anxious solicitude for the well being of all classes of his faithful subjects in the province.

I proceed to notice the various topics embraced in the address of the Assembly to the King

I shall observe the order which they have followed, and with a view to perspicuity, 1 shall preface each successive instruction which I have his Majesty's commands to convey to your Lordship, by the quotation of the statements made upon the same topic by the Assembly themselves.

Firstly It is represented that the progress which has been made in the education of the people of this province, under the encouragement afforded by the recent acts of the Legislature, has been greatly impeded by the diversion of the revenues of the Jesuits' estates originally destined for this purpose.

His Majesty's Government do not deny that the Jesuits' estates were on the dissolution of that order, appropriated to the education of the people, and I readily admit that the revenue which may result from the property should be regarded as inviolably and exclusively applicable to that subject.

It is to be regretted undoubtedly that any part of those funds were ever applied to any other purpose, but although in former times your Lordship's predecessors may have had to contend with difficulties, which caused, and excused, that mode of appropriation, I do not feel myself now called upon to enter into any consideration of that part of the subject..

If, however, I may rely on the returns which have been made to this department, the rents of the Jesuits' estates have, during the last few years, been devoted exclusively to the purpose of education, and my despatch dated the.

24th December last, marked' separate,' sufficiently indicates that his Majesty's Ministers had resolved upon a strict adherence to that principle several months before the present address was adopted. The only practical question which remains for consideration is, whether the appropriation of these funds for the purpose of education should be directed by his Majesty, or by the Provincial Legislature.

The King cheerfully, and without reserve, confides that duty to the Legislature in the full persuasion that they will make such a selection among the different plans for this purpose, which may be presented to their notice, as may most effectually advance the interests of religion and sound learning among his subjects; and I cannot doubt that the Assembly will see the justice of continuing to maintain, under the new distribution of these funds, those scholastic establishments to which they are now applied.

I understand that certain buildings in the Jesuits' estates, which were formerly used for collegiate purposes, have since been uniformly employed as a barrack for the King's troops. It would obviously be highly inconvenient to attempt any immediate change in this respect, and I am convinced that the Assembly would equally regret any measure which might diminish the comfort or endanger the health of the King's forces. If, however, the Assembly should be disposed to provide adequate barracks, so as permanently to secure those important objects, his Majesty will be prepared (upon the completion of such an

arrangement in a manner satisfactory to your Lordship) to acquiesce in the appropriation of the buildings in the question to the same purposes as those to which the general funds of the Jesuits' estates are now about to be restored.

I should fear that ill founded expectations may have been indulged respecting the value and productiveness of the Jesuits' estates. In this, as in most other cases, concealment appears to have been followed by exaggerations as its natural consequence. Had the application of the Assembly, for an account of the proceeds of these estates been granted, much misapprehension would probably have been dispelled. My regret from the effect of your decision to withhold these accounts, does not, however, render me insensible to the propriety and apparent weight of the motives by which your judgment was guided; disavowing, however, every wish for concealment, I am to instruct your lordship to lay these accounts before the Assembly in the most complete detail at the commencement of their next session, and to supply the House with any further explanatory statements which they require respecting them.

It appearing that the sum of £2,154 15s. 43d. has been recovered from the late Mr Caldwell's property in respect of the claims of the crown against him on account of the Jesuits' estates, your lordship will cause that sum to be placed at the disposal of the Legislature for general purposes. The sum of £1,280 3s.