ated in the
Report of that body, which contains the most unanswerable justification
of the course which it pursued. By that it appears, that the whole
superintendence and patronage of these schools had, by the expired law,
been vested in the hands of the county members; and they had been
allowed to manage the funds, without even the semblance of sufficient
accountability. The Members of the Assembly had thus a patronage, in
this single department, of about 25,000 pounds per annum, an amount
equal to half of the whole ordinary civil expenditure of the Province.
They were not slow in profiting by the occasion thus placed in their
hands; and as there existed in the Province no sufficient supply of
competent schoolmasters and mistresses, they nevertheless immediately
filled up the appointments with persons who were _utterly and obviously
incompetent. A great proportion of the teachers could neither read
nor write_. The gentleman whom I directed to inquire into the state of
education in the Province, showed me a petition from certain
schoolmasters, which had come into his hands; and the majority of the
signatures were those of _marks-men_. These ignorant teachers could
convey no useful instruction to their pupils; the utmost amount which
they taught them was to say the Catechism by rote. Even within seven
miles of Montreal, there was a schoolmistress thus unqualified. These
appointments were, as might have been expected, jobbed by the members
among the political partisans; nor were the funds _very honestly_
managed. In many cases the members were suspected, or accused, of
misapplying them to their own use; and in the case of Beauharnois, where
the seigneur, Mr Ellice, has, in the same spirit of judicious
liberality by which his whole management of that extensive property has
been marked, contributed most largely towards the education of his
tenants, the school funds were proved to have been misappropriated by
the county member. The whole system was a gross political abuse; and,
however laudable we must hold the exertions of those who really laboured
to relieve their country from the reproach of being the least furnished
with the means of education of any on the North American continent, the
more severely must we condemn those who sacrificed this noble end, and
perverted ample means to serve the purposes of party."

We will now claim the support of his lordship upon another question,
which is, how far is it likely th