r informed the House of Assembly that His Excellency had given
orders to take possession of these estates as the property of George
the Third, than the House went into Committee and expressed a desire to
investigate the pretensions or claims which the province might have on
the college of Quebec. The Governor was quite willing to suffer the
Assembly to have copies of all documents, deeds, and titles having
reference to the estates, if insisted upon, but considered it scarcely
consistent with the respect which the Commons of Canada had ever
manifested towards their sovereign, to press the matter, as the Privy
Council had issued an order to take the whole property into the hands
of the Crown. The House considered His Excellency's reply, and
postponed the inquiry into the rights and pretensions alluded to. The
next thing which this slightly independently disposed Assembly
undertook, was the expulsion of one of its members, a Mr. Bouc, who had
been convicted of a conspiracy to defraud a person named Drouin, with
whom he had had some commercial transactions, of a considerable sum of
money. He was heard by Counsel at the Bar of the House, but was
believed to have been justly convicted, and was expelled. Again and
again he was re-elected, and as often was he expelled, and at last he
was, by special Act of Parliament, disqualified. Whether or not he was
the object of unjust persecution by the government, the moral effect
upon the country of the expulsion and disqualification of a person in
the position of Mr. Bouc, cannot be doubted. The number of bills passed
during a parliamentary session in those days, was not considerable.
Five, six, or eight appear to have been the average. The income of the
province was about L20,000, and the expenditure about L39,000. Under
such circumstances, corruption was nearly impossible.

In the next session of parliament an attempt was made to establish free
schools, and the Royal Institution, for the advancement of learning was
founded. Nor was this all, an Act was passed for the demolition of the
walls that encircled Montreal, on the plea that such demolition was
necessary to the salubrity, convenience and embellishment of the city.
They were thrown down, and in seventeen years after it was impossible
to have shown where they stood. The parliament did more. At the
dictation of the Governor, it assigned three townships for the benefit
of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, who h