MOTTO:

"The collection of original documents, like any other collection, is a matter of slow, careful, and systematic labour. In no place is there a greater division of positive work. The accumulation of a mass of any material, say money, and then theorize upwards or downwards as you will, is an art of itself requiring special capacity.

"When the effort is a collection of National Archives you have to establish what is required, what is indispensably necessary, to know where to seek for it and to take the means to obtain it, and to be careful not to pay twice over for the same commodity. The second stage is to assort all this matter, to classify it, to place it in such a form, and to give it such reference that on necessity immediately it can be found. The third condition is to draw up a calendar of it, describe it, and in short make it available to the ordinary inquirer."

-KINGSFORD.

[viii]

EX REBUS ANTIQUIS ERUDITIS ORIATUR

Report

of the

Ontario Bureau of Archives

PREFATORY

These journals are complementary to those of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, issued as the Sixth Report of the Ontario Archives (1909) and with them complete the record of Parliament for the years covered.

Since the appearance of the Sixth Report it has been suggested that the Journals ought to be accompanied by a more or less extensive commentary. It should be borne in mind, however, that the object in view is not to furnish an annotated copy, and having regard to the strictly official character of these records, the Provincial Archivist does not feel he would be justified in departing from the rule generally observed in such cases. The text will be found to be fairly free from obscure passages requiring explanations. spellings of the same personal name-an age honoured practice-a text, as a rule, Eeve in the case of different should be reproduced in its original form.

The relations to each other of the two branches of the Parliament, the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council, as disclosed in the Journals, will be found of special interest at the present time of constitutional changes within the British Empire.

For the greater convenience of reference the following highly interesting documents bearing on the constitution of the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council and the Executive Council, are here reproduced:

DOCUMENT 1

(24th Aug. 1791)

UPPER AND LOWER CANADA FORMED.

ORDER IN COUNCIL BY WHICH THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC WAS DIVIDED INTO TWO SEPARATE GOVERNMENTS OF UPPER AND LOWER CANADA, TWENTYFOURTH AUGUST, 1791.

AT THE COURT OF ST. JAMES'S THE 24TH OF AUGUST, 1791.

Present, the King's most Excellent Majesty in Council:

WHEREAS there was this day read at the Board a report from the Right Honorable the Lords of the Committee of Council dated the 19th of this instant in the words following, (viz.) :

Your Majesty having been pleased by your order in Council, bearing date the 17th of this instant to refer unto this Committee a letter from the Right Honorable Henry Dundas, one of your Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State

to the Lord President of the Council, transmitting a printed copy of an act passed in the last session of Parliament entitled "An act to repeal certain parts of an act passed in the fourteenth year of His Majesty's reign entitled an act for making more effectual provision for the government of the Province of Quebec, in North America, and to make further provision for the government of the said province, and also copy of a paper presented to Parliament previous to the passing of the said act describing the line proposed to be drawn for dividing the Province of Quebec into two separate Provinces agreeable to your Majesty's Royal intention signified by message to both Houses of Parliament to be called the Province of Upper Canada, and the Province of Lower Canada, and stating that by section forty-eight of the said act It is provided that by reason of the distance of the said Provinces from this country, and of the change to be made by the said act in the government thereof it may be necessary that there should be some interval of time between the notification of the said act to the said Provinces respectively, and that it should be lawful for your Majesty with the advice of your Privy Council to fix and declare or to authorize the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, or the person administering the government there to fix and declare the day of the commencement of the said act within the said Provinces respectively; Provided That such day shall not be later than the 31st of December, 1791. The Lords of the Committee in obedience to your Majesty's said order of reference this day took the said letter into their consideration together with the act of Parliament therein referred to and likewise copy of the said paper describing the line proposed to be drawn for separating the Province of Upper Canada and the Province of Lower Canada and their Lordships do thereupon agree humbly to report as their opinion to your Majesty that it may be advisable for your Majesty by your order in Council to divide the Province of Quebec into two distinct provinces by separating the Province of Upper Canada. and the Province of Lower Canada according to the said line of division described in the said paper (copy of which is hereunto annexed). And the Lords of the Committee are further of opinion that it may be advisable for your Majesty by warrant under your sign manual to authorize the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec or the person administering the government there to fix and declare such day for the commencement of the said before mentioned act within the said two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada respectively, as the said Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec or the person administering the government there shall judge most advisable provided that such day shall not be later than the 31st day of December in the present year, 1791.

The proposed line of division. To commence at a stone boundary of the north bank of the Lake St. Francis at the Cove west of Pointe au Bodêt, in the limit between the township of Lancaster and the Seigneurie of New Longueuil, running along the said limit in the direction of north thirty-four degrees west to the westermost angle of the said Seigneurie of New Longueuil thence along the north-western boundary of the Seigneurie of Vaudreuil running north twenty-five degrees east until it strikes the Ottawa river to ascend the said river into the Lake Tomis Canning, and from the head of the said Lake by a line drawn due north until it strikes the boundary line of Hudson's Bay including all the territory to the westward and southward of the said line to the utmost extent of the country commonly called or known by the name of Canada.

His Majesty this day took the said report into his royal consideration and approving of what is therein proposed is pleased by and with the advice of his

Privy Council to order as it is hereby ordered that the Province of Upper Canada and the Province of Lower Canada be divided by separating the said two Provinces according to the following line of division, viz.: To commence at a stone boundary on the north bank of the Lake St. Francis at the Cove west of Pointe au Bodêt in the limit between the township of Lancaster and the Seigneurie of New Longueuil running along the said limit in the direction of north thirty-four degrees west to the westermost angle of the said Seigneurie of New Longueuil thence along the north-western boundary of the Seigneurie of Vaudreuil running north twentytive degrees east until it strikes the Ottawa river to ascend the said river into Lake Tomis Canning, and from the head of the said Lake by a line drawn due north until it strikes the boundary line of Hudson's Bay including all the territory to the westward and southward of the said line to the utmost extent of the country commonly called or known by the name of Canada. Whereof the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor or Commander in Chief of the Province of Quebec and all other His Majesty's officers in the said Provinces and all whom it may concern are to take notice and yield due obedience to His Majesty's pleasure hereby signified. Whereas there was this day read at the Board a report from the Right Honorable the Lords of the Committee of Council dated the 19th of this instant in the words following, viz.:

Memorandum. [Here the Committee report for dividing the Province of Quebec into two distinct Provinces to be called Upper Canada and Lower Canada and a paper proposing the line of division for separating the said Provinces was inserted at length as in the preceding order.]

His Majesty this day took the said report into his royal consideration and approving of what is proposed was pleased by and with the advice of his Privy Council to order that the Province of Quebec be divided into distinct Provinces to be called the Province of Upper Canada and the Province of Lower Canada by separating the said two Provinces according to the line of division inserted in the said orders.

And His Majesty is hereby further pleased to order that the Right Honorable Henry Dundas one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State do prepare a warrant to be passed under His Majesty's Royal Sign Manual to authorize the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec or the person adminstering the government there to fix and declare such day as they shall judge most advisable for the commencement within the Province of Upper Canada and the Province of Lower Canada respectively of the said act passed in the last session of Parliament entitled, "An Act to repeal certain parts of an act passed in the fourteenth year of His Majesty's reign, entitled 'An Act for making more effectual provision for the government of the Province of Quebec in North America, and to make further provision for the government of the said Province."" Provided that such day so to be fixed and declared for the commencement of the said act within the said two Provinces respectively shall not be later than the thirty-first day of December, 1791.