h it an appearance of checking the
manifestation of sentiments under which the House had acted. A
committee of seven members were, on the receipt of His Excellency's
answer, appointed to search for the precedents and parliamentary usages
alluded to by the Governor-in-Chief, with instructions to report
speedily. And, that there might be no excuse, with regard to the
improper introduction of a money matter, for a refusal to sanction any
bill that the Assembly might think proper to pass, a resolution was
adopted by the Assembly to the effect that the House had resolved to
vote, in the then session, the sums necessary for paying all the civil
expenses of the government of the province, and to beseech that His
Excellency would be pleased to order the proper officer to lay before
the House an estimate of the said civil expenses. The practice of these
_avocats_, shopkeepers, apothecaries, doctors, and notaries, was
tolerably sharp. The House went again to work upon the expediency of
appointing a Colonial Agent in England, and introduced a bill with that
object, which was read. A bill to render the judges ineligible to sit
in the Assembly passed the Assembly; but the Council amended the bill,
by postponing the period at which the ineligibility was to have effect,
to the expiration of the parliament then in being, and sent it back to
the Assembly for concurrence. Indignant at this amendment, the Assembly
adopted a resolution to the effect that P. A. DeBonne, being one of the
Judges of the King's Bench, could neither sit nor vote in the House,
and his seat for Quebec was declared to be vacant. The vote was
decisive. There were eighteen votes in favor of the resolution and only
six against it, the six being all English names. McCord, Ross,
Cuthbert, Gugy, and such like. If the practice of the _avocats_ was
sharp, the practice of the Governor was yet sharper. Down came the
Governor-in-Chief in two days after the search for precedents had begun
in the Assembly, in not the best of humour, to the Legislative Council
Chamber. On the 26th of February, the uncontrollable Assembly were
summoned before the representative of royalty. He informed the two
Houses that he had come to prorogue the legislature, having again
determined to appeal to the people by an immediate dissolution. It had
been rendered impossible for him to act otherwise. Without the
participation of the other branches of the Legislature the Assembly had
taken upon themselves