ntment of such an
agent, accredited to the Court of St. James by the province. Such an
agent would have all the weight of a foreign ambassador, and his
representations could not fail to meet with attention. But the agent to
have such weight could not merely have been the representative of one
branch of the legislature, but of the three branches. He must have been
the authorised governmental agent of the province, the government of
the province being in the confidence of the country. Unfortunately such
a state of things did not prevail. The colonists had neither voice nor
shared in the government of the country. The Legislative Assembly
nearly compensated for the lack of newspapers. It poured into the ear
of the governing party the complaints of the people, suggested reforms,
and insisted upon the obtainment of them. And the Assembly might have
better obtained a hearing for themselves in England, by the
establishment and maintenance of a single newspaper in London, than by
the nomination either of a Hume or a Roebuck, to represent Canadian
grievances to the representatives of a people who were ignorant of the
exact nature of such grievances, and could not, therefore, press them
upon parliamentary attention. The pertinacity with which the House of
Assembly of Lower Canada adhered to the idea of an agent for the people
of Lower Canada, is not matter of surprise, for, it is beyond all
dispute that the government of the province stood between the people of
Canada and the people and government of England, to the great prejudice
and injury of the country. In this case, an address, founded on the
Assembly's report, was drawn up to be transmitted by the
Governor-in-Chief to the Prince Regent, praying that His Royal Highness
might give instructions to his Governor of Canada to recommend the
appointment of a provincial agent to the imperial legislature. The
Assembly persisted in the heads of impeachment exhibited by the Commons
of Canada against the Chief Justices Sewell and Monk, and persisted in
nominating James Stuart, Esquire, one of the members of the House, to
be the agent of the House, in conducting and managing the prosecutions
to be instituted against them, if His Royal Highness the Prince Regent
permitted these impeachments to be submitted to a tribunal, competent
to adjudge upon them, after hearing the matter on the part of the
impeachments, and on the part of the accused. It was while these things
were being done in the