tions of the two
races, the practical effect of this law was to give the French an entire
preponderance in the juries. This Act was one of the temporary Acts of
the Assembly, and, having expired in 1836, the Legislative Council
refused to renew it. Since that period, there has been no jury law
whatever. The composition of the juries has been altogether in the
hands of the Government: private instructions, however, have been given
to the sheriff to act in conformity with Sir James Kempt's ordinance;
but though he has always done so, the public have had no security for
any fairness in the selection of the juries. There was no visible check
on the sheriff; the public knew that he could pack a jury whenever he
pleased, and supposed, as a matter of course, that an officer, holding a
lucrative appointment at the pleasure of Government, would be ready to
carry into effect those unfair designs which they were always ready to
attribute to the Government. When I arrived in the Province, the public
were expecting the trials of the persons accused of participation in the
late insurrection. I was, on the one hand, informed by the law officers
of the Crown, and the highest judicial authorities, that not the
slightest chance existed, under any fair system of getting a jury, that
would convict any of these men, however clear the evidence of their
guilt might be; and, on the other side, I was given to understand, that
the prisoners and their friends supposed that, as a matter of course,
they would be tried by packed juries, and that even the most clearly
innocent of them would be convicted.

"It is, indeed, a lamentable fact which must not be concealed, that
there does not exist in the minds of the people of this Province the
slightest confidence in the administration of criminal justice; nor were
the complaints, or the apparent grounds for them, confined to one party.

"The trial by jury is, therefore, at the present moment, not only
productive in Lower Canada of no confidence in the honest administration
of the laws, but also provides impunity for every political offence."

I have made these long quotations from Lord Durham's Report as his
lordship's authority, he having been sent out as Lord High Commissioner
to the Province, to make the necessary inquiries, must carry more weight
with the public than any observations of mine. All I can do is to
assert that his lordship is very accurate; and, having made this
assertion, I as