LIEUT. COL. THE HONOURABLE ARTHUR JAMES MATHESON, K.C., M.P.P., etc., Treasurer of Ontario. SIR, I have honour to submit to you the following Report in connection with the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, ALEXANDER FRASER, Toronto, 31st December, 1910. 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. 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. Eeve in the case of different spellings of the same personal name-an age honoured practice-a text, as a rule, 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 |