islature was convoked
"for the despatch of business" on the 17th December, in the same year,
in an old stone building known as the Bishop's Palace, which stood on a
rocky eminence in the upper town of the old capital.

Chief Justice Smith took the chair of the legislative council under
appointment by the crown, and the assembly elected as its speaker Mr.
Joseph Antome Panet, an eminent advocate, who was able to speak the two
languages. In the house there were only sixteen members of British
origin--and in later parliaments there was even a still smaller
representation--while the council was nearly divided between the two
nationalities. When the house proceeded to business, one of its first
acts was to order that all motions, bills and other proceedings should
be put in the two languages. We find in the list of French Canadian
members of the two houses representatives of the most ancient and
distinguished families of the province. A descendant of Pierre Boucher,
governor of Three Rivers in 1653, and the author of a rare history of
Canada, sat in the council of 1792 just as a Boucherville sits
now-a-days in the senate of the Dominion. A Lotbiniere had been king's
councillor in 1680. A Chaussegros de Lery had been an engineer in the
royal colonial corps; a Lanaudiere had been an officer in the Carignan
regiment in 1652; a Salaberry was a captain in the royal navy, and his
family won further honours on the field of Chateauguay in the war of
1812-15, when the soil of Lower Canada was invaded. A Taschereau had
been a royal councillor in 1732. The names of Belestre, Valtric, Bonne,
Rouville, St. Ours, and Duchesnay, are often met in the annals of the
French regime, and show the high character of the representation in the
first parliament of Lower Canada.

The village of Newark was chosen as the capital of Upper Canada by
Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor
of the province. He had served with much distinction during the
revolution as the commander of the Queen's Rangers, some of whom had
settled in the Niagara district. He was remarkable for his decision of
character and for his ardent desire to establish the principles of
British government in the new province. He was a sincere friend of the
Loyalists, whose attachment to the crown he had had many opportunities
of appreciating during his career in the rebellious colonies, and,
consequently, was an uncompromising opponent of the new republi