extension of the province was prodigious, requiring more than ever that
the superintending bishop should retain all the rights and dignities
which His Majesty had found it convenient to suffer the bishops to have
at the conquest; and that in the Courts of Justice there should be no
room to doubt their powers. It was indeed no wonder that the
superintendent of the Church of Rome was alarmed at the aspect of
affairs. The Attorney-General Sewell reported with regard to the
nomination of Laurent Bertrand to be cure of Saint Leon-le-Grand, by
the titular Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, in the case of one
Lavergne, who having refused to furnish the _pain beni_, was prosecuted
in the Court of King's Bench, that it was a usurpation in the bishop to
erect parishes and appoint cures. He went farther and said that there
was no such person as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. The title,
rights, and powers of that office had been destroyed by the conquest.
Nay, there could not, legally, be any such character, as, if he
existed, the King's supremacy would be interfered with, contrary to the
Statutes of Henry the Eighth and of Elizabeth. Not only was there a
quiet but arbitrary denial of the right of the Roman Catholic Bishop to
manage the affairs of his diocese, the possibility of negotiating the
Reverend Coadjutor Plessis out of his influence was entertained. Mr.
Attorney-General ultimately waited upon that ecclesiastic to explain
his own private sentiments to him. The bishop was studiously guarded
and significantly polite. The Attorney-General thought that a good
understanding ought to exist between the government and the ministers
of religion. Mr. Plessis was quite of that opinion. Mr.
Attorney-General thought the free exercise of the Roman Catholic
religion having been permitted the government ought to avow its
officers, but not at the expense of the Established Church. Mr.
Coadjutor Plessis said that position might be correct. Mr.
Attorney-General thought that the government could not allow to Mr.
Plessis that which it denied to the Church of England. Mr. Plessis saw
that the government thought that the bishop should act under the King's
commission, and could see no objection to it. The Attorney-General was
strongly of opinion that the right of appointing to cures, which no
bishop of the Church of England had, must be abandoned. Mr. Plessis
thought that even Buonaparte and the Pope had effected a compromise on
that matter. M