effect of such a procedure was to injure its
own officials, and to deprive the people of the money which was expended
on roads and bridges.

{THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND}

Another feature of the system of government in New Brunswick was the
predominant influence it gave to the members of the Church of England.
Every member of the council of the province belonged to that
denomination, and it was not until the year 1817 that any person who was
not an adherent of the Church of England was appointed to the council.
This exception was William Pagan, a member of the Church of Scotland,
and his was a solitary instance because up to the year 1833, when the
old council was abolished, all its other members were adherents of the
Church of England. The same rule prevailed with respect to all the great
offices in the gift of the Crown. All the judges of the supreme court
for the first sixty-seven years of the existence of the province were
members of the Church of England. L. A. Wilmot, who became
attorney-general in 1848, was the first person not a member of the
Church of England who filled that office, and he was the first judge not
a member of that Church who sat on the bench of New Brunswick.

For some time after the foundation of the province, the salaries of the
Church of England clergymen were paid by the British government, and
large grants of land were made for the purpose of supporting the
churches. In addition to this, financial assistance was given to them
in erecting their places of worship. No dissenting minister was allowed
to perform the marriage ceremony, that privilege being confined to
clergymen of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Quakers
and the Church of Rome. This was felt to be a very serious grievance,
and, needless to say, produced a great deal of inconvenience.

Another grievance was the fact that the great offices were held by
members of certain favoured families. These families, from their social
position and in some cases from their wealth, had the ear of the
governor, or of the authorities in England, and were able to obtain and
hold all the valuable places. The two Odells, father and son, held the
office of provincial secretary for sixty years. The Chipmans were
another favoured family, both the father and son being successively
judges of the supreme court, and the former receiving large sums from
the British government as one of the commissioners who settled the
boundary between Maine