government and that of America. He hoped that the differences
would be so accommodated as to avert the calamities of war between two
nations of the same blood. He intended that no means should be
neglected to prepare for the worst. Though the militia had been
selected, he did not think it necessary to call them together, no
immediate circumstance seeming to require it. He had appointed
commissioners for the erection of new gaols in Quebec and Montreal. And
he expected perfect harmony and co-operation between the legislative
bodies and himself, as the representative of the sovereign. All that
Sir James wished to be done the Assembly promised to do.

In those days not only was the Chief Justice a member of the Upper
House, but the Judges of the King's Bench were not ineligible for
election to the Lower House, and some, or all of them, contrived to get
seats there. It does not appear that the Chief Justice was in the Upper
House a mere government tool, for Sir Robert Milnes most bitterly
complained to the Duke of Portland, of the opposition to certain
measures, which he had met with, from Chief Justice Osgoode, who, even
in public, treated him contemptuously. But it is yet probable that some
of the judges in the Assembly, were less the representatives of the
people who had elected them, than the mouth-pieces of the government,
to whom they were indebted for their appointments to the Bench, and on
whose good pleasure, their continuance on the judgment seat, depended.
Be that as it may, the Assembly were jealous of their presence in the
House, and accordingly, this session of Parliament, a motion was
introduced into the Assembly, declaring it to be expedient that the
Judges of the Court of King's Bench, the Provincial Judges of the
Districts of Three Rivers and Gaspe, and all Commissioned Judges of any
Courts that might afterwards be established, should be incapable of
being elected, or of sitting, or of voting in the House of Assembly.
The motion was adopted, and a bill framed upon the resolution, passed
the Assembly. Unfortunately, heedless of the pressure of public
opinion, the Legislative Council threw out the bill! The Assembly were
greatly incensed, and the idea of expelling the judges was entertained;
but for a while relinquished.

Mr. Ezekiel Hart appeared at the Bar of the House to take his seat for
Three Rivers, Mr. Lee, the previous representative of that town, had
died in the course of the previous session, and