with the advice of the council, to issue notes original elections were declared to be perin accordance with the provision just men- fectly legal. tioned.

Early in January, 1835, commenced the sixth session, and with great difficulty and inconvenient delay an act was passed, "fixing a general import duty of two and a half per cent., with certain modifications. From the date of this act (April 24) all pecuniary difficulty ceased, and at the beginning of the following year the governor was enabled to announce the extinction of the public debt, and the accumulation of a considerable surplus fund. During the session of 1836, an act was passed, with the previous consent of the home government, limiting the duration of future Houses of Assembly to four years, The prorogation took place on the 6th of May, and the assembly was dissolved on the 12th of September of that same year.

So novel a circumstance as that of a double election was allowed to pass neither unnoticed nor uncensured by the liberals. They affected to represent it as a trick for their overthrow, although nothing could be more palpable than the impossibility of the executive's influencing the returns, had it even been disposed to make the attempt. The Conservatives now abandoned the field altogether. Consequently no disturbance occurred in any district, and the session was opened on the third of July."

The composition of this House of Assembly was much inferior to that of the former; the new members being in general of a low, and some of them of the very lowest grade of society. Previously existing passions had been lately still further inflamed by a variety of prosecutions connected with the original election proceedings, and principally consequent upon presentments by the grand jury. The sentences upon those convicted of riot or assault were by the home government deemed severe, and, upon petition, in a great degree remitted.

I now come to an important epoch in the history of Newfoundland, and one fruitful of trouble. The chief justice had by this time become the idol of one party, and the abhorred of the other. By the wealthier merchants and gentry he was adored, and looked upon as their only stay; while by the Catholic, or liberal party, he was considered The first act of the House was to displace a tyrant and oppressor. He unfortunately the officers appointed to it by the crown, and promoted these opposite opinions by attend- their proceedings, generally, throughout the ing public meetings, and making party session, were of a corresponding character, speeches; and, instead of contenting him- being violent and personal, having for their self with firmly and temperately resisting object the gratification of the friends, and aggression, he seemed to court occasions of the injury of the opponents, of the dominant contention. He made abrupt alterations whenever he had the power to do so, and while his law was probably correct, his conduct in other respects was by no means worthy of admiration. Between the governor and him there was understood to be no similarity of sentiment, although there was no open quarrel.

Writs for a new election were immediately issued, and the legislature was appointed to meet in January. The Catholic portion of the population was openly excited, and indeed compelled by the priesthood, to vote for candidates of their nomination, and the Conservative party were very generally defeated. Serious riots took place in Harbour Grace, and similar excesses were prevented in St. John's, only by the presence of the military.

party. There was throughout a contest be. tween the council and the House of Assembly, maintained on both sides with much heat; and at length the prorogation took place, without any appropriation of money for the services of the year, the bill passed by the Assembly having been rejected by the council. A delegation of three members of the House of Assembly proceeded to England for the purpose of making a statement of supposed grievances, and of instituting charges against the chief justice. These last were submitted to a committee of the privy council, which exonerated Mr. Boulton, as regarded his judicial decisions, but recommended his removal from the colony.

On the 20th of June, 1838, commenced the yearly session, and the result of an appeal by the Council and Assembly respectively Respecting these riots, some magistrates to her Majesty on the rejection of the Aphaving made representations, the governor propriation Bill of the last year having been laid them before the council. These repre- previously transmitted to the governor, the sentations occasioned the production to the offer of her royal mediation was communiboard of a returned writ; and the chief just-cated to both Houses. The Queen recomice perceiving it to be unsealed, immediate-mended the adoption of that bill by the ly pronounced it to be invalid. The attor- Council, but suggested to the Assembly cerney-general, the only other legal member, tain rules of conduct for its future guidance coinciding with him in that opinion, the mat- in similar cases. With infinite difficulty the ter was referred to the secretary of state, and the meeting of the legislature was further prorogued. The secretary of state admitted the. objection, and directed a new election; a measure greatly to be regretted, as, on the question being submitted for the opinion of the law officers of the crown, the

bill was carried in council by the official members present, and the casting vote of one other; the remaining three members opposing it to the utmost, and ultimately protesting against it.

Thus ceased an embarrassment which had been sensibly felt by the public; but a

island, in which not only property, but life itself, is represented to be endangered by their further continuance. These statements are extremely exaggerated, and the prayer of the petitions appears to be very unreasonable. The local legislature was granted to the general request, and should not be rescinded at the desire of a party smarting under a recent defeat. A moderate qualification for representatives would undoubtedly be a great improvement, and with this, perhaps, an extension of members and division of districts, so that Catholic and Protestant influence might be fairly balanced. Such an extension without the qualification would increase present evils, tor, as the remuneration to members exceeds the yearly gains of a fisherman, it is probable that a large proportion of candidates from that uneducated class, excited by the examples already before them, would come forward and be returned.

new subject of discord quickly arose. An of its existing institutions, and of their proaltercation took place in the streets of bable future operation; more especially as St. John's between Mr. Kent, a member of I have observed in the London and provinthe House of Assembly, and Mr. Kielly, a cial papers, petitions to government on the medical practitioner. Upon complaint made part of merchants connected with this by Mr. Kent, Mr. Kielly was taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms, and brought to the bar of the House on the following day, the 7th of August. Being called upon for explanation, he used, in the heat of passion, very opprobrious language towards Mr. Kent. Upon this he was remanded till the 9th, when he was required to apologise, and, upon his refusal to do so, was committed to jail by the speaker's warrant to the sheriff. The next day he was, by writ of habeas corpus, brought before a judge of the supreme court, by whose order he was released, and upon this being stated to the House by the sheriff, when directed to produce his prisoner at the bar on the 11th, both the judge and the sheriff were immediately arrested by the speaker's warrant, the former with indecent violence. Upon this being officially made known to the governor, he signified his intention of proroguing the Assembly, and on Monday, the 13th, it was prorogued accordingly for seven days. By this measure the prisoners were at once liberated, and the members were allowed time to cool. When the legislature was re-assembled, business proceeded, though not, of course, harmoniously; and on the 25th of October the session was closed, provision having been made for the yearly routine of government. In the previous month, Mr. Browne, Mr. Boulton's successor in the office of chief justice, arrived; but, by a wise provision, he has not, nor will any judge in future have, a seat in the council. A session of the supreme court was held in the following December, when Mr. Kielly brought an action against the speaker, other members, and officers of the House, for false imprisonment; but privilege being pleaded in demurrer, the chief justice and Judge Desbarres decided in favour of the plea, while the remaining judge, Mr. Lilly, retained his former opinion. An appeal to her Majesty in Council was entered, and a colonial barrister proceeded to London to take the necessary steps for its prosecution. Since his departure, an elaborate opinion of her Majesty's attorney and solicitor-general was forwarded officially to the governor, and has since been made known to the public through the medium of the Island Gazette. This opinion denies the power of commitment assumed by the House, and consequently tends to allay the apprehension which could not but be entertained by the most dispassionate and impartial mind, of the evils likely to arise from an arbitrary power of imprisonment being possessed by such a body.

After this little sketch of the history of Newfoundland from the year 1818 to the present day, I proceed to take a short view

Any undue assumption of authority on the part of the House of Assembly, as at present constituted, must be promptly checked; but it will be time enough to apply for the interposition of parliament when its misconduct shall be of such a nature as to make apparent its utter incapacity and unfitness for its designed purpose, and the impossibility of good government and commercial prosperity existing in conjunction with it.

Notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which the colony has hitherto laboured, the lighthouses, roads, bridges, hospitals, charities, and schools, bear witness to the benefit of local legislation.

The application of spiritual authority by the Roman Catholic priesthood for temporal purposes, their interdiction of trade with certain individuals,-their denounce. ment of all readers of particular newspapers, their unjustifiable interferences, for a time in full operation here, have happily ceased, and the Roman Catholic bishop now seems well disposed to peace. The governor, who, through much more of evil than of good report, has hitherto steered an impartial course, will, we may presume, not be found wanting in his endeavours to establish harmony and tran. quillity; and the cause of much former dissension being now removed, a reasonable expectation may be entertained that he will find assistance in the prosecution of so laudable an object.

The population of the colony, by an accurate census taken in 1837, amounts to 75,094. Of these 37,376 are Roman Catholics, 26,748 of the Established Church, and 10,636 Dissenters. The population is spread over a line of coast extending from Cape St. John southward to Cape Ray, a

direct distance of about 600 miles, to which extensive distress every winter, must, at all may be added 300 or 400 more for bays events till some remote and uncertain and sinuosities. There are in the island period, prevent this island from being reabout forty families of Micmac Indians, commended as a desirable point for emiamounting to 200, men, women, and child-gration. ren. They subsist principally on venison, So much for the general state of the colowhich they kill in the neighbourhood of the ny of Newfoundland. There, as in Ireland, lakes to the north-east of St. George's party feeling and religious rancour are in Harbour. They employ themselves in strong and much-to-be-deprecated operahunting the martin, otter, and beaver, and tion. I believe that few men could have been sell the skins, sometimes to the establish- found at once more willing and more able ment of Messrs. Newman in the Bay of to act upon an enlightened policy, and to Despair, and sometimes to the traders who administer justice with strict impartiality, occasionally touch at St. George's Bay and than the present governor, Captain PresBay of Islands. They are all of the Roman cott; but if he, or an angel from heaven, Catholic persuasion, and are a timid and were to drop down, in order precisely to adinoffensive people. They generally pass just party feuds, to still the storm of relithe winter near the south coast, in the vicinity of Bay Despair; and, in their hunting excursions in the summer, traverse the island between the southern and western shores and the Bay of Exploits on the northern coast. They thus continually There remains, in such cases, no refuge pass over the tract of country which was almost from public obloquy; whereas, if a formerly inhabited by the Red Indians, and, man will go all lengths, (and he must go all,) as they have not for years seen any trace of either with a bigoted party, or a liberal one, them, it seems certain that those unhappy he will be sure to be extolled by the party aborigines are extinct. There are about before which he prostrates himself. But no12,000 acres of land in cultivation, princi- thing short of prostration will do; and Cappally producing potatoes, turnips, hay, and oats; barley is grown, and occasionally ripens, but is frequently cut down for fodder, in consequence of the early departure of summer,

About 3,000 children are educated by means of "the North American Society," and half that number of Roman Catholic No wonder, then, that it should be the children in schools supported by local sub-governor's fate to be sometimes condemned scription. One for girls, under the super. by one party, sometimes by another,―occaintendence of nuns of the order of Presen- sionally by both. tation, was established, and is mainly supported by the bishop. There are also several well-attended Sunday schools. The sum of 2,100%. has been voted by the legislature in aid of education, but religious jealousies and apprehensions have hitherto very much impeded the benefits expected from such liberality. Of this sum 6007. is specifically allotted to the schools above mentioned.

I shall conclude this communication by the insertion of two documents relative to the latest state of the colony, of which we are publicly informed in this country. the ar

Document No. I. is extracted from the "Royal Gazette" of Newfoundland, 21st May, and contains the speech of his excellency on opening the last legislative session.

The gross annual revenue from imperial and colonial duties, quit rents, &c., varies in 64 OPENING OF THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION. amount from 35,000l. to 40,000l. Of this sum about 5000l. are spent in collection; "Friday last, being the day appointed for 6,550l. are reserved for salaries to the prin- the meeting of the legislature, his excellencipal officers of the government, and the cy the governor, attended by the usual suite, quit rents, &c.; and about 9001. are appro- proceeded at two o'clock from the Governpriated to particular purposes by the crown. ment House to the Court House, in front of All the rest is placed at the disposal of the which a guard of honour from the Royal legislature. Veteran Companies was drawn up to reI shall conclude these few statistical no-ceive him-and having arrived in the countices by remarking, that the ungenial cli- cil chamber, and taken his seat on the throne, mate, rocky soil, and constant recurrence of his excellency directed the Gentleman