of the clergy reserve bill,
Dr. Ryerson felt that he could not accept any social courtesy at his
hands. In reply, therefore, to an invitation from Sir George, for Her
Majesty's birthday, he felt constrained to decline it. In his letter to
the A.D.C., he said:--

After the most mature deliberation up to the last moment in which
it is proper to reply, I feel it my duty respectfully to decline
the honour of His Excellency's invitation. I most firmly believe
that the office of impartial sovereignty has been employed by His
Excellency for partial purposes; that an undue and an
unconstitutional exercise of the office of royalty has been
employed by His Excellency to influence the public mind, and the
decisions of our constitutional tribunals on pending and debatable
questions between equally loyal and deserving classes of Her
Majesty's subjects in this Province; that His Excellency has also
employed the influence of the high office of the Queen's
representative to procure and afterwards express his cordial
satisfaction at the passing of a Bill, in a thin House, on the very
last night of the session, the provisions of which had been
repeatedly negatived by a considerable majority of the people's
representatives, and which deprive the faithful but embarrassed
inhabitants of this Province of the control of a revenue and lands
sufficient in value to pay off the whole public debt--a proceeding
at complete variance with the fair and constitutional
administration of a free monarchical government, and the imperial
usages since the accession of the present Royal Family to the
throne of Great Britain; and, finally, that His Excellency has
employed the influence of his high office to the disparagement of
the large section of the religious community whose views, rights,
and interests, I have been elected to my present offices to
advocate and promote.

I beg that my declining the honour proposed by His Excellency may
not be construed into any disrespect to His Excellency personally,
or to the high office His Excellency holds--for the inviolableness
and dignity of which I feel the jealous veneration of a loyal
subject--but I beg that it may be attributed solely to a fixed
determination not to do anything that may in the slightest degree
tend to weaken, but on the contrary, to