COUNTY OF PERTH HERALD 5 1807, he appealed to the country with his Ministry, as a whole. Lord Grey, in 31, went to the country on his policy, with his Cabinet as a whole. In 35, Sir Robert Peel got a dissolution and went to the country with his colleagues as a whole, and on their joint and united policy. In '41 the Melbourne Ministry went to the country as a whole; in 52 the Derby Ministry went to the country as a whole; so, in '57, Lord Palmerston, and in 58 Lord Derby went to the country with full ranks upon their whole policy. Whenever these disso- lutions took place they were announced be- forehand to the Parliament, if it were then in session, or by some other authoritative exposition of the Ministerial policy, like the celebrated " Tamworth Manifesto" of Sir Robert Peel. But before making any such explanations to Parliament and the country, the Premier, in every instance on record, explained to his colleagues the course he intended to take in the conduct of the crisis. [Hear, hear.] _ I have looked through a long series of Ministerial explanations, given both in England and in this country; in every one I have yet seen, in every material sentence, every one, the Premier, or 'ex- Premier is careful to say, " having consulted my colleagues," or "my colleagues and I were agreed ;" 'or words to that effect. I dare affirm as beyond contradiction, that no case to the contrary can be found. The Premier's pretension that the want of con- fidence in the Administration as. " consti- tuted;" could yot have included him, gives the finishing hand to the utterly unprece- dented conduct of his crisis. Why, how could it be constituted without him? Was he not the constitutor, the very bond of the existence of the Cabinet ? Upon what pre- text of reason, or experience, or example, could his Administration be condemned as a whole, and he himself confirmed in his Premiership? This is what the House ought to know. "This is what every lover of our system of Ministerial responsibility will insist on having cleared up to his satis- faction, before he sets his seal and signature to the conduct of the late crisis, at and sub- sequent to the dissolution. [Hear, hear.] We have, I believe, but two precedents in this country. of Ministers that dissolved Parliament to appeal to the country--the precedent of 1843 and the precedent of 1851. The former arose out of the resig- nation of Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine, in consequence of their conflict with Lord Metcalf. Now that is an exceptional period of our political history, from which neither side of this house are anxious to draw pre- cedents--yet, whatever else the Draper- Viger Administration may have done, they at all events formed their Administration before they asked their dissolution, and then went to the country with the Administra- tion which adyised the dissolution. (Hear, hear.) Upon the resignation of Mr. Baldwin, in 1851, the Hincks-Morin Government was formed during the recess, but though a dis- solution followed, in December of that year, it is to be obsérved the previous Parliament had held all its four sessions, and that the dissolution was of a prorogued House, in its 4th session. Moreover, by whatever cir- cumstances the dissolution was attended-- the Government, formed two months before, went to the country as a whole, with. their then well understood policy. In both cases, on the new Parliament re-assembling, the new leader of this House, Mr. Draper in the first instance, and Mr. Hincks in the second, was enabled to speak to this House, in the plural number. Both of them could look the House in the face and utter the word "we ;" but, now, at last, in the third decade of Ministerial responsibility, we arrive at the sinister singular--" I." (Hear, hear.) A word or two, Mr. Speaker, on the politi- cal exigencies which have been pleaded as a poor defence of these unprecedented pro- ceedings. The hon. Premier abandoned his coadjutor and tried friend (M. Sicotte) to 'strengthen himself in Lower Canada, and with what effect? .Two of his rejected col- leagues in this section were in the Upper House, two others were returned by accla- mation; my hon. friend near me, (M. Evanturel) by 350 majority, and myself-- unworthy as I am, by 750--against the most popular candidate that they could bring against me. This was our fortune--while what was the fate of his strong men? Two of them were ignominiously defeated' in Montreal; two others have been elected by representing themselyes as our successors, while another--a veteran statesman,--has been driven from public life for the present, for having identified himself with this strong Lower Canada combination! We had, ina - Lower Canadian votes--the hon. member for Hochelaga, after a general election, made under his own auspices, has 23 or 24 follow- ers at the outside! (Hear, hear.) It was for this wonderfully wise project of political strengthening, that old ties were sundered, old friends estranged, and old principles hastily and indecently abandoned. (Hear, hear.) But the hon. Premier's electioneer- ing tactics triumphed in all other parts of the Province? Did they indeed ? Of the Ottawa members, on the Speakership, he secured a single vote, the member for Ren- frew, (Mr. McIntyre,) and yet he was es- pecially active and urgent himself in the can- vass of those constituencies. I admit that West of Kingston--in a section of a section the Ministerial majority was increased. But are the members from that region his ma- jority ? Were they elected as his followers? Yes! he has got an exclusively sectional support, but, in the language of the great novelist, "what will he do with it?" Will he find it possible to govern this country, with this majority, unless on their principles? Is he prepared to contest the sectional lea- dership with his Lord Protector? (Mr. Brown.) -- We shall see if he is so prepared ; and it is enough to foretell who, in 'such a contest, must go to the wall. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Speaker, Ihave shown, I think con- clusively, that for all the intrigues of last May, known and unknown, avowed and de- nied, there is not even the poor plea left, of political necessity. I return now, I gladly return, to the high constitutional question, involyed in the amendment. (Hear, hear.) The constitutionalists of this House, since the very first day of the session, have been obliged step by step, to defend against the supporters of this most unconstitutional Administration, the usages of Parliament, the letter and the spirit of our system of government. On the Speakership, we were forced to take that ground, on the essex election case we were forced to take that ground, and now again on this Address we fined ourselyes holding the same position. (Hear, hear.) Three times within the first fortnight of the session the constitution has been assailed from the Ministerial benches, and three times we have risen in its defence (Hear, hear.) Have the Government, as at present existing, a settled design to sub- vert the constitution ? Is it by accident that every movement they have yet made this session has been an unconstitutional one ? Have they really at heart, from bias, or con- viction, a secret, settled contempt for our system of government? Do they, with the member for West Brant, disbelieve in the existence of any such thing as a British or Canadian Constitution? Their whole con- duct since we met within these walls has certainly been-such as to rfige a reasonable presumption that: they govern this country by our ¢ ish precedents. We cannot uninformed as to what those precedthts de- scribe ; and if we admit their information to be good, then we must necessarily hold their conduct to be inexcusable. sadly that conduct contrasts with examples set within our own memory in England! to one or two of which I may refer the House, as illustrations of the conduct of leading British statesmen in times of crisis. Of these cases, I would especially refer hon. members to the conduct of Sir Robert Peel towards his colleagues in 1835. Lest there should be any misunderstanding of his intentions, Sir Robert Peel submitted to his colleagues in 1825, his views in writing in the well-known " Cabinet Memorandum," and afterwards he elaborated those views and gave them to the country before the election, in the' celebrated " Tamworth Manifesto." This was the conduct of the statesman who proudly declared' in 1841, "If I accept office it shall be by walking in the open light and in the direct paths of the Constitution." (Cheers.) How strikingly does not this constitutional language contrast with the garrulous looseness of the head of the present Administration, who seems to have told of His Excellency's intentions, while he concealed them only from those who had a right to know them, his own col- leagues. (Hear, hear.) I cite this prece- dent of the conduct of Sir Robert Peel to show the importance attached in England to the responsibility of a Minister to his col- leagues and to the Crown, at a time of crisis. Is it safe and wise for us to dispense with that responsibility, to allow such precedents to be scouted and scorned? Or is there, I ask again, a fixed design on the part of the present Government, to disregard as obso- lete all such precedents ? Hon. gentlemen are indignant at the imputation of such a House elected under adverse influences, 28 | How Served ; "keep these gentlemen on the Treasury Ben- design. Will they tell us, then, Sir, how it happened that the knowledge of the disso- lution being granted by His Excellency was never communicated in the Council, who had advised it; will they tell us how it hap- pened that it was immediately made known to those not of the Council; will they tell us how it happened that notice of resigna- tion given by his Lower Canada colleagues on Monday, and the formal resignation in his possesSion on Tuesday, were never com- municated to this House; will they tell us how it happened that the first intimation the hon. Postmaster General had of the inten- tions of the Premier was froma clerk in one of the public offices, and the first knowledge the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe had of his resignation being accepted was a call from his successor in office, to enlist him in the new combination? (Hear, hear.) | If there has been no settled design to set aside all precedent, and all Parliamentary law, will hon. gentlemen tell us how it came to pass, that the Government which got the dissolution did not make the elections, while the Government that made the elections ap- pealed from a verdict passed, not upon them- selves and their policy, but on other men, and another policy? And when they haye explained all this, all that is irregular, and indefensible in the conduct of the crisis, will they tell us how they make it out that any Administration may be censured by Parliament as a whole, and the head and three of the members escape all the conse quences of such censure? Surely, if these things happened by accident--neyer did such a series of unconstitutional accidents befall before our days, our own or any other. Government. (Hear, hear.) No! Mr. Speaker, we must reject the theory of acci- dent; we must take the only other ground which as rational beings we can take, that, from a desire to cling to, and preserye power, there was a settled détermination on the part of the Premier and his irresponsible advisers to let no precedent, no usage, and no honorable obligation stand in the way. It is for this House to say whether such a line of conduct deserves its sanction and ap- plause. A great political authority--Mon- tesquieu--has said that institutions like ours must be built upon and sustained by honor--under the term honor, including, of course, courage, courtesy, fidelity, order, reverence, truthfulness--the mother and nurse of all the virtues. It is for this House to decide, in this first essential case, whether we can permit the very foundations of our system to be undermined before our eyes and with our own consent. For more than twenty years that system has been worked in Canada, and, on the whole, it has worked well, Under its guidance we have doubled our population, quadrupled our resources, expanded villages into cities, and covered deserts with cultivation. "When responsible Government was first established, Western Canada had not ad- vanced beyond Guelph, Central Canada had not stretched its dimensions up to Bytown, and the Eastern Townships were, as yet, unsuryeyed and unpeopled ; now, His Ex- celleney, Lord Monck, governs a territory, such as in wealth, in numbers, and in pro- mise, His Excellency, Lord Sydenham, could neyer have dreamed of seeing, had he lived till our day. Shall we succeed in everything but a good Government? Shall we advance in every sort of knowledge, ex- cept knowledge of the Constitution? One thing is certain; if we underrate that de- scription of knowledge, all our. other ac- quisitions will avail us. nothing against the abuses of power, the perversion of patronage, and the shipwreck of our common Cana- dian character. This momentous case be- fore us calls on us all to exercise a weighty public judgment on a most serious public question ; it calls on us all to raise a land- mark for the guidance of all future Cana- dian Ministries in times of crisis. How- ever individuals may suffer or may profit by our decision, our first duty is to have a care that we do not justify any dangerous. departure from the plain path of Constitu- tional rectitude. That people who resolute- ly resist the first innovation on their liber- ties will never have to mourn over the last ; and the first, and only innovation of this description, known to our own or to British history, is now before you, awaiting your decision. It may be said, if you decide against the Premier, you ae to bring back the old Cdalitite : that is the scare- crow employed to frighten you into voting an approval which you do not feel to be de- that is the only argument left to ches; but the old Coalition can never re- turn to power, unless by the default of those now in power. (Hear. hear.) The Chancellor of Upper Canada cannot return from the Bench, nor the Knight of Dun- durn from the grave ; neither can the rest of the Coalition come back, unless you fetch them by sanctioning such acts as were done in the late crisis--acts far beyond anything with which they were charged or chargeable. (Hear, hear.) Fiat justitia ! let justice be done. If you plant yourselves on safé ground, and stand together, you are quite strong enough in numbers, to give another Government, untainted with the leprosy of the late crisis, to the country. [Hear, hear.] If, on the other hand, you sanction wholesale, all that has been done, you place your party at the mercy of your oppenents . you volunteer to depend what is, in fact and in precedent, indefensible ; you sanction in- trigues to which their blackest deeds were whiteness itself; you endorse falsehood ; you uphold deception ; you reward treachery, and you establish this lamentable example, --that all a man has to do to be and to continue Prime Minister of Canada, is to divest himself of every particle of feeling for his colleagues ; to set aside, if it suits him, every official custom ; to ce council, like a chapman, of red in the street, as to the confidence reposed in him by the representative of the Sovereign ; to be cun- ning. where he should' be candid, and false where he should be fair. [Cheers.] This is the example you propose to set up before your juniors and your own sons, many of whom may come in time to sit in this House, and to all of whom, according as you decide one way or another, there must be a salutary or a degrading lesson taught, by the verdict of the Eighth Parliament of United Canada, on the principles at stake, in the late constitutional crisis ----[Chcers. ] Che Family Circle. SLDDADALLOP PDP DPA : The Squares at Waterloo. PADI During the battle our squares presented a shocking sight. Inside we were nearly suffocated by the smoke and smell from burnt cartridges. It was impossible to move a yard without treading upon a wounded comrade, or upon the bodies of the dead; and the loud groans of the wounded ana dying were most appalling. At four o'clock our square was a perfect hospital, being full of dead, dying, and mutilated soldiers. he charges of cavalry were in appearance very formidable, but in reality a great relief, as the artillery could no longer fire on us ; the very earth shook under the enormous mass of men and horses. I never shall forget the strange noise our bullets made against the breast-plates of Keller- mann's and Milhaud's cuirassiers, six or seven thousand in number, who attacked us with great fury. I can only compare it, with a somewhat homely similie, to the noise of a violent hailstorm beating upon panes of glass. The artillery did great ex- ecution, but our musketry did not at first seem to kill many men ; though it brought down a large number of 'horses, and created indescribable confusion. The horses of the first rank of cuirassiers, in spite of all the efforts of their riders, came to a stand-still, shaking and covered with foam, at about twenty yards distance from our squares and generally resisted all attempts to force them to charge the line of serried steel. On one oceasion 'two gallant French officers forced their. way into a gap momentarily created by the discharge of artillery ; one was kill- ed by Staples, the other by Adair. Noth- 'ing could be 'more gallant than the be- haviour of those veterans, many of whom had distinguished Ehietiibelves on half of the battle fields of Europe. In the midst of our terrible fire, their officers were seen as if on parade, keeping order in their ranks, and encouraging them. Unable to renew their charge, but unwilling to retreat, they brandished their swords with loud cries of Vive 1 Empereur ! and allowed themselves to be mowed down by hundreds rather than yield. Our men who shot them down, could not help admiring the gallant aad heroic resignation of their enemies.--Re- collections and Anecdotes by Gronow. The last Shilling. In. the winter of 1816--17, I resided in. the city of Quebec, or rather in Wolfe's Coye, about one mile above the city, on the ground where Gen. Wolfe landed his army to ascend the heights the night before the memorable battle upon the plains of- Abra- ham, on the 13th of September, 1759, the result of which was the entire defeat and rout of the French armies, and, to the French, the loss of the city and their North American provinces, and their transfer to the British Government. > Tn passing to and from the city, I some- times followed the St. Lawrence, under Cape Diamond and the bluff, and sometimes crossed the plains, passing the rock on which that noble General, Wolfe, after hav- ing received a mortal wound in the battle, breathed his last ; not, howeyer, until te was told the enemy were Adcing and his army had gained the victory, One day, when I was spending my time in the city, passing leisurely from place to place, looking at all I could see in the market, around the walls, fortifications and places of note, my attention was partially attracted by an aged man, with sorrowful but pleasent and meek countenance, who, with a voice ex- pressive of humility and modesty, asked alms of those who' passed him, with ap- parently very little success. In the evening there came up a violent storm of wind and snow. I remained in the city until nearly sunset, and then made for home, on foot, across "tu plains. The wind was hkite and the snow drifting terribly. As I was making my way, fast as I could run through the snow, at a short distance from the city T saw a man before me who appeared to get along with great difficulty. When I came up to him, and was passing, I recognised him as the man I had that day seen in the city, appearing so sorrowful and asking alms. After I had passed him a few feet I halted a moment to look athim. 'The tears were streaming from his eyes ; his shoes were so much worn that one of his feet were laid bare to the cold and snow. As I stopped he reached out his hand toward me, without a word, apparently with grief unable to speak. His tears, and sobs, and tattered garment, told his wants. I had in my pocket an English shilling : it was all the money I possessed in the world--I was a wild and wicked young man; but as he came up to me with his outstretched hand, my heart swelled in my bosom, my eyes filled with tears ; I hastily placed my only shilling in his hand, and turned to run. But, O! the blessing which he called upon God to bestow upon me fell upon my ears like an enchantment, and filled my heart with sympathy that I can never forget. I have ever since felt assured, if the amount of money I had had been a hundred dollars, I should, under the impulse I felt, have given it all, and would never haye re- gretted it. I am assured I have never in my life done an act of charity that has afforded me so much pleasure as the gift of that shilling, the gift of all Thad, to that poor old man, whose blessing, it seems, has followed me all the days of my life, I have often thought of it. Is it so? Did I, in that poor old man, make to myself a friend of the mammon of unrighteousness ? Young man, think of this. Ifyou would like to do something to cause pleasant re- flections for many years, when you see any one suffering in want, help even if it -takes your last shilling, remembering the promise, "he that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again." The security is good, can%never be repudiated, and is here ayouched by one who knows. Submarine Navigation. The first machine for navigating below the surface of the water, was invented by one David Bushnel, a native of Saybrook, in Connecticut, dang the war with Eng- land, and was designed to be employed in the dépieation of the 'Bniglish ships of war then lying in the American ports. In the month of August, 1776, when Admiral Howe, with a considerable fleet, was in the bay of New York, and the English troops encamped in Staten's Island, threatened the annihilation of Washington's forces, Bushnell applied to the American general Parsons, for two or three men to whom' he might teach the management of the machine, in order to de- stroy some of the English vessels. | Ezra Lee, a serjeant of infantry, who had previ- ously asked permission to serve on board a fireship, was chosen, with two others, to be sent on this hazardous expedition, | They went together to Long Island Sound, where the machine was, and having made several - trials along the coast, and perfected them- selves in the management of it, repaired to New York, whence they conveyed the ma- chine to the English fleet, but failed in. the operation, It was afterwards offered by Fulton as a new invention, to destroy the English navy in 1805, The garment which was worn to shreds on Adam's back, will never make a com- plete covering for mine. a