sters of those Courts had demanded their passports to retire from
the Court of St. James. Napoleon had done more than that. The disturber
of mankind had subverted the government of Portugal, but that
magnanimous Prince, Don Pedro, had emigrated with his Court to the
Brazils, rather than submit to the degrading chains of such a master.
His Majesty, the King of Great Britain, had offered the Americans
reparation, immediately and spontaneously, for the unauthorised attack
upon the _Chesapeake_, but the American government taking advantage of
the state of affairs in Europe, were endeavoring to complicate the
difficulty, to the injury of that power which alone stood between it
and an inevitable doom to the worst of tyranny. And in conclusion, he
begged the representatives of the people to instruct their
constituents, by the influence of their education and knowledge; to
point out to them a sense of their duties in due subordination to the
laws; to advise them to be faithfully attached to the Crown; to let
them into the knowledge of their true situation; to conceal not the
difficulties by which the empire was surrounded, but, at the same time,
to point out the miseries Britain was combatting to avoid; and to
assure them that while Britons were united among themselves, there was
no dread of the result of the present struggle between liberty and
despotism.

The war had had its effect upon the trade of the country. The revenue
had fallen off nearly L1,000, being only L35,943, while the civil
expenditure had increased to L47,231.

In May the general election took place. The contests were not marked by
much bitterness. As before, in the larger towns, the two origins were
equally represented. Even in the counties, several gentlemen of English
extraction, were returned to the Assembly. Mr. James Stuart, the
Solicitor General, now no friend to the Governor nor to his _sub rosa_
adviser, Mr. Ryland, was returned for the East Ward of Montreal. Mr.
Stuart, a lawyer of excellent acquirements, of great independence of
spirit, and of extraordinary mental capacity, instead of being raised
to the Attorney-Generalship, on the elevation of Mr. Sewell to the
Chief Justiceship, in the room of Mr. Chief Justice Alcock, who had
died in August, had been superseded by Mr. Edward Bowen, a barrister
of very limited acquirements, and, being then only a young man,
professionally, very inexperienced. Nay, he was soon afterwards
dismissed from the Solic