ired from it (during that time) equally
favourable to the object of my mission, and equally desirous of
promoting the best interests of the Colonies. In his report of the
negotiations for the Charter, Dr. Ryerson says:--

The Attorney-General assured me that not only Lord Glenelg, but
every member of His Majesty's Government was anxious to accede to
my application--that the difficulties were purely legal--that
though the doctrines and rules of the Methodist body in Canada were
doubtless very sacred, yet they were unknown in law, (in England.)
I, therefore, laid before the Crown officers[48] a copy of the
statutes of Upper Canada (which I had borrowed from the Colonial
office), and showed the grounds on which we professed to be
invested with the clerical character by the statutes of the
Province, as well as by the formularies of our connexion, and were
recognized as ministers by the Courts of Quarter Sessions; that we
might be defined as ministers (for the purposes of the Charter) as
in the Marriage Statute of U.C., which would be the same thing as
being defined according to the Rules of our Discipline. Placing the
question before the Crown officers in this simple light, their
scruples were at once removed, and they cordially acceded to my
proposition to recognize our ministerial character. As I was
required to name in the Charter the first trustees and visitors,
and as I had no list of those who had been appointed by the
Conference, I was obliged to furnish names myself. I was also
required to name in the Charter the time and place of the next
Annual Meeting (Conference) of Ministers. I inserted the second
Wednesday of June as the time of meeting; Cobourg, or Toronto, as
the place of meeting.

With the aid of a professional gentleman (whom I could only get for
a small portion of each day) the draft of Charter was prepared
after a delay of five weeks. This draft was approved, with the
exception of the words: Wesleyan Methodist _Church_, for which the
Solicitor-General had substituted the words: Wesleyan Methodist
_Connexion_, as the designation of the Body on whose behalf a
Charter was to be granted. In a letter to Sir George Grey I stated
my reasons why the word _Church_ should be retained, as the
Wesleyan ministers, under whose superintendence the Academy