in their opinions upon these subjects, they would have become the means of converting their parishioners to their new way of thinking upon them, as Wickliff, the great English Reformer, did in England, with astonishing fuccefs, in the reign of King Richard the II. And, that fuch changes of opinion in religious matters as should have been recommended by the parish-priests to their Parishioners, would have been readily adopted by the latter, and, more especially, that of the lawfulnefs of making use of the English Liturgy, tranflated into French, in their Churches inftead of the Latin Mass,—I have hardly any doubt, from all that I could collect of the fentiments and inclinations of the people of that province from a refidence in it during three years, from September, 1766, to September, 1769, and from converfing during that time with a great variety, of the French, or Canadian, inhabitants of it. And this was alfo the opinion of that wife and judicious Statesman as well as great and succefsful General, Sir Jeffery Amherst, who conquered that whole Province and granted the Marquis of Vaudreuil, the French Governour of it, the Capitulation of September, 1760. For, about the month of May, 1774, when the Bill for regulating the government of the Province of Quebeck, was brought into the Houfe of Lords by the late Earl of Dartmouth, Sir Jeffery called upon me at my chambers in the Temple, to converfe upon the provifions of that Bill, of which he expressed a strong disapprobation, and more particularly of the claufe that established the Popish Religion in Canada, by giving the Popish priests a legal right to their tythes, which he had expreffly refused to grant them by the Capitulation of September, 1760, and had referred to the future Declaration of the King's pleasure on that fubject; which Declaration 2 D 2 ration had never been made from the furrender of the Province in September, 1760, to the introduction of that Quebeck-bill into the house of Lords in May, 1774, and the right of the Priefts to fue their parishioners for their tythes in courts of Justice, had therefore been confidered as fufpended during the long interval of 14 years from September, 1760, to May, 1774. This clause he therefore highly difapproved-of, as being a wanton and unneceffary establishment of Popery in the Province, inftead of a mere toleration of it, or permiffion to attend the worship of it in their Churches and Chapels without any molestation, either to themfelves or their priests; which was all that was ftipulated by either the capitulation of September, 1760, or the Treaty of Paris in February, 1763. And it was certainly not neceffary for the fatisfaction of the bulk of the Inhabitants of Canada, because they were very well pleafed to be left at liberty either to pay their tythes, or to let it alone, as they thought fit; though, from an attachment to their religion, they, for the most part, thought fit to pay them. And I remember that Sir Jeffery told me at the fame time, that he thought it would have been sufficient for the fatisfaction of the Inhabitants of the Province, to have only per mitted the Curates, or Parifh-priefts, who were in the Province at the time of the Capitulation, to have continued in poffeffion of their benefices during their lives, and then to have fupplied their places by Protestant French minifters, who fhould have conformed to the Church of England and have read the Liturgy of it, tranflated into French, to their feveral Congregations. And I remember that a French merchant at Quebeck, who was a native of old France, and a man of uncom mon talents and great 'reading and knowledge, and was was a profeffed Roman-Catholick, (though he was reckoned by many persons of that city, to be what the French call a Philosopher, or an unbeliever in all revealed religion,) went further ftill than Sir Jeffery -Amherst in the opinion that the Proteftant religion of the Church of England might have eafily been introduced into the Province. For one day, when he dined with me at my houfe at Quebeck, he told me of his own accord, (I having faid nothing to lead to it,) that he was furprized that the English Government had not, immediately after the ceffion of the Province to the Crown of England, by the Treaty of Peace in Febru ary, 1763, introduced into it at once the Protestant religion as settled in the Church of England; adding, that he was perfuaded that it would have been readily fubmitted-to and acquiesed-in by the inhabitants of the Province, who, as the Clergy of the Church of England have retained fome of the Ecclefiaftical vestments of the Romish Clergy, fuch as the gown, and band, and furplice, would have hardly perceived the change from one religion to the other. In this, however, I could not agree with the Philofopher, but was always defirous, from motives both of Juftice and Prudence, that they should enjoy a compleat toleration of their religion to the full extent of the Capitulation and the Treaty of Peace, but without an establishment of it, which the body of the People in the Province did by no means with-for, and which was afterwards unneceffarily re-impofed upon them, rather than granted to them, by the Quebeck-act of the year 1774. But, whatever might have been the probability of fuccefs in a plan of gradually converting the Canadians to the Protestant religion, by encouraging, or, at leaft, permitting, their own priefts to become the inftruments of 2 D 3 fuch such converfions, in confequence of their own free exanimation of the grounds of the differences between the doctrines of the two religions and their fubfequent conviction of the errors of the Romish doctrines ;—all hopes of that kind were counter-acted, and almost deftroyed, by the unfortunate measure, adopted in the year 1766, of permitting Mr. John Oliver Briand to return to Quebeck in the character of Bishop of the Province. For, by the power of suspending priests from the exercise of their clerical functions, and depriving them of their benefices, and interdicting the performance of divine worship in whole parishes, which he claimed and exercised on various occafions, he kept the clergy in such a state of terror and subjection to him, that no priest would ever venture to express any doubts concerning the doctrines of the Church of Rome, or take the smallest step towards an adoption of the doctrines of the Church of England. Two remarkable instances of his exercise of these dangerous epifcopal powers in the Province of Quebeck, exhibit fo clearly the imprudence of the measure of permitting him to return into the Province in the character of its Bishop, that, though they have already been published in the year 1776, in the fecond volume of my Quebeck-papers, I will here reprint them. They are a tranflation from an extract from a letter written in French by a Roman-Catholick gentleman in the Province of Quebeck to a friend in London in September, 1775. A Tranflation A Translation of two anecdotes concerning the conduct of JOHN OLIVER BRIAND, the Popish Bishop of Quebeck; extracted from a Letter written by a person of credit in the Province of Quebeck to his friend at London about the end of September, 1775. SEVEN years ago Monfieur Vincelot, the Seignior of Iflette, at the requifition of the bishop of Quebeck in his vifitation of the parishes of his diocefe, gave a piece of ground, eight French arpents square, for the inhabitants of that parifh to build a church upon. And he himself built upon it, at his own expence, an uncommonly spacious parfonage-house, in which the people of the parish might meet to hear mafs during the time the church would take-up in building. And in this house the priest of the parish lived. At the end of two years Monfieur Briand, the bishop, at the request of the inhabitants of the higher part of the parith, appointed another place for the fituation of the church which the inhabitants of it were to build and the inhabitants accordingly begun to build the church in this latter place; and in the course of three years (they proceeding but flowly in the work) made it fit for the performance of divine fervice. When the building of the church was compleated, Mr. Vincelot refumed the poffeffion of the former fpot of ground and of the parfonage-house which he had built upon it; grounding his right to make this refumption upon the non-performance of the condition upon which alone he had given this ground 2 D 4 |