r the promotion of education, and in
aid of erecting places of worship for various denominations of
Christians: it is extremely desirable that the said land reserved
should be sold, and the proceeds arising from the sale of the same
placed at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature, to be applied
exclusively for those purposes.

This address was replied to the January following, 1832, by a formal
message from the King, from which I extract the following sentences:--

The representations which have at different times been made to His
Majesty and his Royal predecessors of the prejudice sustained by
his faithful subjects in Upper Canada, from the appropriation of
the clergy reserves, have engaged His Majesty's most attentive
consideration.... It has, therefore, been with peculiar
satisfaction that, in his inquiries into this subject, His Majesty
has found that the changes sought for by so large a portion of the
inhabitants of Upper Canada, may be carried into effect without
sacrificing the just claims of the established Churches of England
and Scotland.... His Majesty, therefore, invites the House of
Assembly of Upper Canada to consider how the powers given the
Provincial Legislature by the Constitutional Act to vary or repeal
this part of its provisions, can be called into exercise most
advantageously, for the spiritual and temporal interests of His
Majesty's faithful subjects in the Province.

It will be seen that the Address to the Crown and reply, above quoted,
contemplated the application of no part of the proceeds of the clergy
lands for the support of the clergy of any religious persuasion, but the
application of the whole to the promotion of education, and in aid of
erecting places of worship. I do not make these references to advocate
this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since
assented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves
from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian
Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in
Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great
majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation
of said reserves. The same parties cannot now object on constitutional
and moral grounds to what they heretofore advocated on those same
grounds.

9. It has, however