the Assembly.
To this end, a committee was appointed to inquire into the
inconvenience resulting from the elections of judges to the Assembly,
with orders to report to the House. The committee inquired and
reported, and of course, reported unfavourably to the judges. A bill to
disqualify the judges was re-introduced and read a first time. Mr. Hart
again appeared at the Bar to take his seat for Three Rivers. He had
been re-elected. He was still a Jew, and showed no disposition to
recant his error. Nor would the House recant their error. The
resolution which had been adopted against Mr. Hart's taking his seat in
the previous Parliament was repeated in this. The House of Assembly
went still farther. A bill to disqualify all Jews from being eligible
to seats in the Assembly, was introduced and read twice. Five weeks had
elapsed and the public business had not begun. The Governor was very
much annoyed. The refractory spirit of the House, as regarded the
judges, was most distasteful to him. Suddenly, on the 15th of May, he
went down to the Legislative Council, assented to five bills, and
summoned the attendance of the Commons. "When I met you, said the now
irate Sir James, at the commencement of the present session, I had no
reason to doubt your moderation or your prudence, and I therefore
willingly relied upon both. I expected from you a manly sacrifice of
all personal animosities. I hoped for a zealous dispatch of your public
duty. I looked for earnest endeavours to promote the general harmony. I
looked for due and indispensable attention to the other branches of the
Legislature. It was your constitutional duty. It was due to the
critical juncture of the times. I have been disappointed in every hope
on which I relied. You have wasted in frivolous debates, or by
frivolous contests on matters of form, that time and those talents to
which the public have an exclusive title. You have abused your
functions. In five weeks, you have only passed five bills. You have
been so intemperate in debate that moderation and forbearance is
scarcely to be looked for without a new Assembly. Gentlemen, Parliament
is dissolved. A new Parliament will be convened as soon as convenience
will permit. My object in thus acting, _is to preserve the true
principles of the free and happy constitution of the Province_." He
turned with peculiar satisfaction from lecturing to the Assembly, to
offer his acknowledgements to the gentlemen of the Legislative Cou