lowed that fuch ameasure ought not to have been adopted without the authority of an A&t of Parliament, to take it out of the operation of the important and fundamental Statute above-mentioned of the 1ft of Queen-Elizabeth, which prohibits the exercife of any power derived from the Pope, not only in the Kingdom of England itself, and the dominions thereunto belonging at that time, but in all the dominions that fhall belong to it at any future time. And therefore, for want of fuch an Act of Parliament to authorize it, the faid measure was illegal.

But, if it had been legal, it would not have been a prudent measure, notwitstanding the plaufibility of the foregoing argument in it's favour. For it was almost certain, that any Roman-Catholick Priest who fhould be permitted to refide in the Province of Quebeck after having been confecrated Bishop of it, would (notwithstanding any declarations that he might have made to the English Government, in order to obtain fuch permiffion, "that he should confider himself only as an Ordainer of New Priests when they should be wanted to fupply the vacant benefices, and would never exert any of the other powers belonging to his Epifcopal Office,)-I fay, it was almost certain that he would (notwithstanding fuch declarations) exert many other powers of his office over the Roman-Catholick inhabitants of the Province, which might have very important effects both on the Roman-Catholick Priests and the laiety of the fame religion, and would probably greatly check and difcourage both those descriptions of his Majesty's new, or Canadian, fubjects from converfing freely and affociating with the British inhabitants of the Province, and from reading the books of the New Testament, and inquiring into the nature

of

of the Proteftant Religion and it's difference from that of the Church of Rome; of which inquiries the natural confequence would have been that many of them would have become converts to the Doctrine of the Church of England. And accordingly it was found that, when Mr. Oliver Briand returned into the Province of Quebeck, he took upon himself the title of Olivier Briand, par la Grace de Dieu et du Saint Siége, Evesque de Québec, and, after having, upon his arrival in the Province in June, 1766, declined the compliments usually paid to his predeceffors in that high office, and declared to his friends, "that he did not "come into the Province to be a Bishop upon the "fame high footing as his predeceffors in the time of "the French Government, and was not therefore "intitled, and did not defire, to be treated with the "fame ceremony and respect as had been used towards "them, but that he was only un fimple faiseur de prêtres, "a mere Ordainer of New Priefts," and having, for a month or two, worn only a common black gown, the other Roman-Catholick Priests, he grew tired of this humble way of proceeding, and dreffed himself in a purple robe, with a golden crofs at his breaft, which are the ufual enfigns of the Epifcopal dignity among the Roman-Catholicks; and afterwards he very freely exercised the tremendous powers of fufpending priests from the exercise of their clerical functions and depriving them of their benefices, and excommunicating and depriving perfons of the Sacraments, and interdicting divine worship in Churches and Chapels. Amongst other exercifes of thefe high powers belonging to him as Bishop of Quebeck, he published & circular Letter to the Roman-Catholick inhabitants to. exhort them to take arms for the Crown against the

like

other

other Americans in the beginning of the American war, in which he promised indulgencies to thofe who fhould comply with his exhortations, and threatened those who fhould refufe to do fo, with excommunication. And by this Letter as well as by feveral acts of haughtiness and violence, he very much difgufted the Canadians, as my readers may fee by confulting the fecond volume of my Quebeck papers, in pages 111, 112, 113, 144. So different did his conduct in the Province, when in actual poffeffiou of the office appear to be from that of the mere occafional ordainer of new priests, le fimple faiseur de prêtres, which he had promised to be when he follicited the permiffion to return to the Province after having been made it's Bishop.

As for the advantages that, it was pretended, would refult to the Province of Quebeck, from the permiffion given to a Popish Bishop to refide there, by furnishing a means of fupplying the vacant benefices with fresh Priests without admitting any to come there from Old France, they might eafily have been obtained without this dangerous and illegal measure, by pursuing the following plan. The Seminary, or College, of Quebeck, might have been preferved, with all its members and teachers of Popish divinity, and its revenues, (which are faid to amount to fix or feven hundred pounds fterling a year,) for the education of young Canadians to the profeffion of the Prieft-hood: and, when they had attained the proper age for taking orders in that Church, these young men might have been fent-over to England at the King's expence with the Governour's recommendation to his Majefty's Secretary of State for America, as young men of good behaviour and principles, that were fit to be made

Priefts

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 Priest-hood of the Church of Rome by the Bishop of Munfter, or of Lucerne, or fuch other Roman-Catholick diftrict, (not in Old France,) as his Majefty, in his Royal Wisdom, should have thought fit to fend them to. And, when thus ordained Priefts 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 Priest-hood who should have had occafion to take it, as a party of pleasure rather than a hardship. And the expence of it to the Publick would have been trifling; perhaps gool. or 450l. 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 seven every three years, would have been fufficient to keep the benefices always full. By this obvious and eafy method of procuring new Priests for the fupport of the Roman-Catholick Religion agreeably to the toleration promised by the Capitulation and Treaty of Peace, the fuppofed neceffity of permit

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 direct that they should be appointed, or collated, to thofe Churches by the Governour of the Province, to hold the fame during his Majesty's pleasure 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 parishpriefts, 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 use the Liturgy of the Church of England, tranflated into French, in their Churches, inftead of the Latin Mafs; and that, upon thefe changes