and New Brunswick. One of the greatest offices in
the province--that of the surveyor-general--was held by one person for
thirty-three years, and this individual was in no sense responsible to
any authority in New Brunswick except the governor. Those in power at
that day were very fond of expatiating on the glories of the British
constitution and the privileges the people enjoyed under it. But nothing
less like the British constitution can be imagined than the system
which then prevailed in the British North American colonies.

{THE OFFICIAL CLASSES}

One feature which is not to be lost sight of in considering the
political condition of the province at that time is the social element.
The distinctions between the upper classes and others was then far more
marked than it is at present. The officials and the professional men
formed a class by themselves, and looked with contempt upon those who
were engaged in business. The salaries of the government officials were
then three or four times as large as they are at present, and they kept
up a corresponding degree of state which others were not in a position
to imitate. This assumption of superiority was carried out in all the
relations of life, and the sons of those who occupied an inferior
station were made to feel their position keenly. This was the case with
Lemuel Allan Wilmot, for, although his family was as good as any in the
provinces, he was the son of a man who was engaged in business and who
was not only a Dissenter but was actually a preacher in the denomination
to which he belonged. No doubt the insults which the son received from
those who claimed to occupy a higher station had a good deal to do with
his zeal for the cause of Reform, and influenced his future career to a
considerable extent.

William Wilmot, although he afterwards failed in business, was in
prosperous circumstances when his son Lemuel was born. He was a Baptist
and was one of the original members of the Baptist Church at Canning,
in Queens County, which was founded in 1800. On Christmas Day, 1813,
William Wilmot and nine others received their dismissal from the Canning
Church for the purpose of founding a Baptist Church in Fredericton.
Wilmot was a local preacher and used his gift of eloquence in that way.
He also aspired to legislative distinction, and was elected a member of
the House of Assembly for the county of Sunbury in 1816. He was an
unsuccessful candidate for the same seat in 1819, a