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Priefts and hold benefices in the Province. And from England they might have been fent to Munfter in Germany, or to the Popish canton of Lucerne in Switzerland, (attended by fome proper and trufty companion, who should have taken care that they should not have fet their foot in Old France) with recommendations, if they had gone to Switzerland, from the Secretary of State for America to his Majesty's Refident, or other Minifter, to the Swifs Cantons; and there they they might have been ordained to the Pricft-hood of the Church of Rome by the Bishop of Munster, or of Lucerne, or fuch other Roman-Catholick district, (not in Old France,) as his Majefty, in his Royal Wisdom, fhould have thought fit to fend them to. And, when thus ordained Priests of the Church of Rome by fuch foreign Popish Bishop, they fhould have returned to England, and from thence to Quebeck by the first convenient opportunities, at the King's expence. Such a voyage to Europe would probably have been confidered, by the young Candidates for the Prieft-hood who fhould have had occafion to take it, as a party of pleafure rather than a hardship. And the expence of it to the Publick would have been trifling; perhaps 300l. or 400l. once in three or four years. For, as the whole number of parishes in the Province is but 128, (at least it was no greater in the year 1767; I know not how many new parishes may have been created fince :) a fupply of two new Priests a year, or fix or feven every three years, would have been fufficient to keep the benefices always full. By this obvious and eafy method of procuring new Pricfts for the fupport of the Roman-Catholick Religion agreeably to the toleration promifed by the Capitulation and Treaty of Peace, the fuppofed neceflity of permit

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ting a Popish Bishop to refide in the Province might have been avoided.

If the young French, or Canadian, scholars, educated at the Popish Seminary at Quebeck, for the prieft-hood in Canada, had been ordained priests in this manner by the Bishop of Munfter, or fome other Roman-Catholick bishop in Germany, or Switzerland, and been immediately fent-back to Quebeck in a King's fhip, to be appointed to officiate in the vacant Churches of the Province, it would, I prefume, have been expedient to dirc& that they should be appointed, or collated, to thofe Churches by the Governour of the Province, to hold the fame during his Majefty's pleafure and thus the whole body of them would have been dependant on the Crown, and would, probably, have used their influence over the Inhabitants of their feveral parishes, to promote their attachment to the English Government, and to induce them to relinquish their former prejudices in favour of that of France. And, in this ftate of things, it is highly probable that feveral of these Roman-Catholick parishpriests, or Curates, (as they were there called,) being free from the controul, or authority, of any Popish bishop, or other Ecclefiaftical Superiour in the Province, would have ventured to read with attention the books of the New Testament, and to inquire into the grounds of the differences of the doctrines of the Church of Rome from thofe of the Church of England, and, in confequence of fuch examination, would often have been inclined to adopt fome of the doctrines, if not all, of the Church of England, and particularly to think it lawful to ufe the Liturgy of the Church of England, tranflated into French, in their Churches, inftead of the Latin Mafs; and that, upon thefe changes

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in their opinions upon these fubjects, they would have become the means of converting their parishioners to their new way of thinking upon them, as Wickliff, the great English Reformer, did in England, with astonishing fuccefs, in the reign of King Richard the II. And, that fuch changes of opinion in religious matters as should have been recommended by the parish-priests to their Parishioners, would have been readily adopted by the latter, and, more efpecially, that of the lawfulnefs of making ufe of the English Liturgy, tranflated into French, in their Churches inftead of the Latin Mafs, I have hardly any doubt, from all that I could collect of the fentiments and inclinations of the people of that province from a refidence in it during three years, from September, 1766, to September, 1769, and from converfing during that time with a great variety of the French, or Canadian, inhabitants of it. And this was alfo the opinion of that wife and judicious Statesman as well as great and successful General, Sir Jeffery Amherst, who conquered that whole Province and granted the Marquis of Vaudreuil, the French Governour of it, the Capitulation of September, 1760. For, about the month of May, 1774, when the Bill for regulating the government of the Province of Quebeck, was brought into the Houfe of Lords by the late Earl of Dartmouth, Sir Jeffery called upon me at my chambers in the Temple, to converfe upon the provifions of that Bill, of which he expressed a strong disapprobation, and more particularly of the claufe that established the Popish Religion in Canada, by giving the Popish priests a legal right to their tythes, which he had expreffly refufed to grant them by the Capitulation of September, 1760, and had referred to the future Declaration of the King's pleasure on that fubject; which Decla

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ration had never been made from the furrender of the Province in September, 1760, to the introduction of that Quebeck-bill into the houfe of Lords in May, 1774, and the right of the Priefts to fue their parishioners for their tythes in courts of Justice, had therefore been confidered as fufpended during the long interval of 14 years from September, 1760, to May, 1774. This claufe he therefore highly difapproved-of, as being a wanton and unneceffary establishment of Popery in the Province, inftead of a mere toleration of it, or permiffion to attend the worfbip of it in their Churches and Chapels without any molestation, either to themfelves or their priests; which was all that was ftipulated by either the capitulation of September, 1760, or the Treaty of Paris in February, 1763. And it was certainly not neceffary for the fatisfaction of the bulk of the Inhabitants of Canada, because they were very well pleafed to be left at liberty either to pay their tythes, or to let it alone, as they thought fit; though, from an attachment to their religion, they, for the moft part, thought fit to pay them. And I remember that Sir Jeffery told me at the fame time, that he thought it would have been fufficient for the fatisfaction of the Inhabitants of the Province, to have only permitted the Curates, or Parifh-prietis, who were in the Province at the time of the Capitulation, to have continued in poffeffion of their bencfices during their lives, and then to have fupplied their places by Protestant French minifters, who fhould have conformed to the Church of England and have read the Liturgy of it, tranflated into French, to their feveral Congregations. And I remember that a French merchant at Quebeck, who was a native of old France, and a man of uncom mon talents and great reading and knowledge, and

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was a profeffed Roman-Catholick, (though he was reckoned by many perfons of that city, to be what the French call a Philosopher, or an unbeliever in all revealed religion,) went further ftill than Sir Jeffery Amherst in the opinion that the Proteftant religion of the Church of England might have easily been introduced into the Province. For one day, when he dined with me at my house at Quebeck, he told me of his own accord, (I having faid nothing to lead to it,) that. he was furprized that the English Government had not, immediately after the ceffion of the Province to the Crown of England, by the Treaty of Peace in February, 1763, introduced into it at once the Proteftant religion as settled in the Church of England; adding, that he was perfuaded that it would have been readily fubmitted-to and acquiesed-in by the inhabitants of the Province, who, as the Clergy of the Church of England have retained fome of the Ecclefiaftical veftments of the Romish Clergy, fuch as the gown, and band, and furplice, would have hardly perceived the change from one religion to the other. In this, however, I could not agree with the Philofopher, but was always defirous, from motives both of Justice and Prudence, that they should enjoy a compleat toleration of their religion to the full extent of the Capitulation and the Treaty of Peace, but without an establishment of it, which the body of the People in the Province did by no means wish-for, and which was afterwards unneceffarily re-impofed upon them, rather than granted to them, by the Quebeck-act of the year 1774.

But, whatever might have been the probability of fuccefs in a plan of gradually converting the Canadians to the Protestant religion, by encouraging, or, at least, permitting, their own priests to become the inftruments of

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