ce Monk discharged her March 8,
1798 without deciding the question of slavery. The Chief Justice
declared that he would set free every Negro, articled apprentice, or
domestic servant who should be committed to prison in this way by the
magistrates. But this was because the statute in force at that
time[8] gave power to the magistrates to cause such due correction and
punishment to be ministered to an apprentice as they thought fit and
this empowered them to commit apprentices to the house of correction
as a punishment, but it gave no authority to commit to a common gaol
or other prison.

These decisions alarmed the owners of slaves: and a petition from many
inhabitants of Montreal was presented to the House of Assembly April
19, 1799, by Joseph Papineau. This petition set forth the ordinance of
the Intendant Raudot in 1709[9] the Act of 1732,[10] that of 1790,[11]
the facts concerning Charlotte, Jude and the other Negroes, the
judgments of Chief Justice Monk, and the absence of any house of
correction. It prayed that an Act should be passed that until a house
of correction should be established every slave, Panis or Negro who
should desert the service of his master, might be proceeded against in
the same way as apprentices in England, and be committed to the common
gaol of the District; and further that no one should aid or receive a
deserting slave or that there should be passed a law declaring that
there was no slavery in the Province or such other provision
concerning slaves should be made as the House should deem
convenient.[12] The petition was laid on the table.

In 1799 there was passed an Act providing houses of correction for
several districts, but no provision was made concerning slavery.
Perhaps the wisdom of this house proved insufficient to devise any
"provision convenable."

The next year another petition was brought in by Papineau from certain
inhabitants of the District of Montreal saying that doubts had been
entertained how far property in Negroes and Panis was sustainable
under the laws of the province. They cited Raudot's ordinance, the
recognition of slavery for years, and stated that in a recent case the
Court of King's Bench at Montreal in discharging a slave of Mr.
Fraser's who had been committed to the house of correction by three
justices of the peace, had expressed the opinion that the Act of
1797[13] had repealed all the laws concerning slavery. They asked that
the House should pass an act