, Newfoundland, and
Hudson's Bay. And now, how changed! The reign of law has succeeded to
that of violence. Religious toleration; trial by jury; the Habeas
Corpus; and the right to obey no other laws than those of our own
making, have taken the place of perpetual warfare and perpetual
insecurity. Such was the news received by Lord Dalhousie, on his
arrival, and that too immediately preceding a deplorable period of
agricultural distress in both of the Canadas; when the absence of all
demand for wheat had compelled several farmers in the district of
Montreal to send hay, oats, and vegetables, in boats, down the river,
for the chance of a market at Quebec; when in some of the parishes of
Montreal, which formerly sold great quantities of wheat for
exportation, farms partly cleared, with a log house and barn, had been
sold at sheriff's sales, for less than the usual law expenses incurred
to effect the sale; and when one immediate consequence of this distress
was expected to be on the part of the farmers a compulsory resort to
family manufactures for their supply of clothing, as they must soon
otherwise have been without the means of protecting their bodies
against the inclemency of the seasons. Commercial operations had,
however, been tolerably brisk. 585 vessels of 147,754 tons had arrived
from sea, in 1820, and 7 new vessels had been built at Quebec. L674,556
worth of merchandise had been imported.

Lord Dalhousie met the legislature of Lower Canada on the 14th of
December. Mr. Papineau was re-elected Speaker and approved of when the
Governor-in-Chief opened the business of the session. His Lordship made
a semi-theatrical allusion to the death of the late king; mixing it up
with the death of the Duke of Richmond, whom he had known and honored
during thirty years, when he immediately descended to pounds, shillings
and pence. He called attention to the accounts of the general
expenditure for the past two years; he would lay before the Assembly
the accounts of the expense annually incurred in the administration of
the government, and he would add a statement of the annual product of
the permanent taxes, and hereditary territorial revenues of the Crown.
By these documents the Assembly would perceive that the annual
permanent revenue of the province was not equal to the amount of annual
permanent charges upon the provincial civil list, but was deficient in
about L22,000. The king had commanded him to say that having, from past