THE distress which existed in the Province in 1810, in consequence of the failure of the crops, was felt to a still larger extent in the United Kingdom, where a considerable percentage of the population had been thrown out of employment, as a result of the stagnation hi trade which followed the close of the war. It was at that time that emigration began to be looked upon by many, as the only cure for the evils from which they were suffering and a great movement began towards America. This brought a large number of people to New Brunswick in 1817 and the following years, and among these emigrants were many who were in a condition of such dire poverty that they became a public charge. All the communities in New Brunswick found themselves involved in this responsibility, but the people of St. Andrews complained that they had more cases of distress on their hands than any other part of the Province. They complained that while the strong and able-bodied emigrants who landed there took the first opportunity of going off to the United States, the feeble and infirm were left behind for the town to take care of. There is at present no means of ascertaining the extent of this emigration, for there are no official figures, but it must have been large and its effects were on the whole beneficial. Most of the immigrants indeed had the United States in view and only made New Brunswick a stepping stone to their goal, but many remained in the province and became good settlers. The Governor and his Council found it necessary to make provision for these immigrations and some of the most important settlements in the province date from this period. In August, 1817, a large number of emigrants arrived and many of them were settled oil the portage between the Nashwaak and the Miramichi Rivers, receiving from the Government lots of 100 acres. The arrival of more emigrants in the spring of 1818, made it necessary to provide more land for them and In addition to the still unsettled lauds on the Miramichi portage, surveys for settlement were ordered of the land lying in the county of St. .John on each side of the proposed road from Loch Lomond to Quaco, and of the land lying between the head of Hammond River and Hopewell. In May, 1810, it became necessary to appropriate more land to the use of the emigrants and one hundred and twenty additional lots of one hundred acres, were ordered to be surveyed. Forty of these were on the route from St. John to Fredericton, commencing at the granted lands near the Nerepis, forty were on the great road from St. John to St. Andrews, and forty in the rear of Prince William, about five miles from the River St. John.

In July, 181!), twenty-five Welsh emigrants petitioned for land, and were provided with lots in the rear of the Nashwaak Stream, now known as the Cardigan settlement. In September of the same year it became necessary to survey and lay out one hundred additional lots for emigrants on the Shepody Road. In April, 1820, further surveys for settlers were ordered, all the ungranted land in the Cardigan settlement fit for tillage was laid out in farms, one hundred additional lots were laid out in the County of St. John on the Shepody Road, and the land between the mouth of the Oromocto River and the Nerepis was explored wdh a view to future settlement. In May, of the same year, an order was given to survey one hundred lots for emigrants on the road between the Gaspereaux River and Cape Tormentine. In June sixty allotments for emigrants were laid out in the New Galloway settlement, in what is now the County of Kent. Other surveys were ordered about this time and many industrious people from Great Britain were thus enabled to make homes for themselves in the forest, and lay the foundations of future prosperity. These new settlements and those made on the road from Fredericton to Canada, by the disbanded soldiers of the 104th and 08th Regiments, and the New Brunswick Fencibles, added very materially to the industrial development of the Province. A good crop in the year 1818 greatly improved the situation, and caused the settlers to forget the scanty harvests of former years.

G overrun Smyth opened the legislature on the 5th February, 1819, in a highly optimistic speech, in which he congratulated the members on the prosperity of the province, the great increase in the revenue and the improvement in the roads. He asked them to take measures for the prompt payment of grants at the treasury, the improvement of agriculture and the extension of the Madras School system to the province. Governor Smyth had become greatly impressed with the advantages of this system of teaching children, in consequence of its cheapness, which was no small recommendation in a poor province like New Brunswick. The system derived its name from the schools which were established by Dr. Andrew Bell at Madras, and similar schools were organized in England by Joseph Lancaster. Under this system the more advanced pupils were utilized to teach tlie younger children, so that the salaries of assistant teachers were saved. But the system was not applicable to New Brunswick because the population was too much scattered and large schools could not be obtained except in the towns. Already a beginning had been made in St. John by the appointment, at a public meeting, of a committee for the establishment of what was called a National School under the Madras system, and the legislature at this session gave a grant of two hundred and fifty pounds to this committee to assist in the building of a school house. In August, 1819, Governor Smyth granted a charter to the Madras School, and this was confirmed by the legislature in 1820. The Central school was in St. John, but Madras Schools were also established in other towns such as Fredericton and St. Andrews, and even in country districts. In 1827 there were 31 Madras Schools in operation, attended by 1246 pupils, of whom 422 were attending the school in Si. John and 53 the school in Fredericton. There was a school for negro children in St. John, and another in Fredericton. The St. Andrews School had 66 pupils and that at St. George 55, but most ol the other schools were small. The Madras schools, although originally Intended lor all denominations, in the course of time became virtually Church of England schools, the catechism of that denomination being taught in them. Most of the rural schools were finally abandoned, and in 1870, the year before the Common School act was passed, there were only eleven Madras schools in the province, of which three were in St. John. These had 881 pupils, and the school in Fredericton 254, a total of 1,135 for these two cities. The total number of pupils attending all the Madras schools n the province was only 1,424, so that they had grown very little in halt a century. Their income, however, was considerable for they had received valuable grants of land from the province in addition to private benefactions, one of them being a bequest of $20,000 by the late Chief Justice Chipman. The introduction of the free school system took away most of the pupils from the Madras schools, and closed many of them, they being much inferior to the common schools with respect to educational advantages. Still they continued to exist under the old charter, without any responsibility to the Province by which they had been founded and endowed, until 1000 when an arrangement was made by which upwards of $ 10,000 of the securities held by them were transferred to the University of New Brunswick, for the support of that institution, and the balance of their property handed over to the Diocesan Synod of Fredericton for the maintenance of schools to be under their control This arrangement was ratified by legislative enactment and thus the remaining Madras schools became Church of England Schools by authority of law.

As the principal object of the House of Assembly in seeking to have a change made in the system by which grants were issued was to reduce the amounts that had to be paid in fees, it was quite natural that they should seek to ascertain to what extent the fees had been reduced by Lord Bathurst's order, permitting a number of grantees to be included in one grant. Accordingly an address was passed to the Lieutenant Governor asking for a copy of the table of fees charged on grants. When this was brought down, it was seen that the fees had not been materially reduced by Lord Bathurst's concession to the demand of the Assembly. Where a number of grantees were included hi one giant the cost to each grantee receiving one hundred acres of land was about twenty-six dollars. These fees were divided between the Governor, the Secretary, the Attorney General, the Surveyor General and the Auditor General. All these officials were therefore interested in keeping the table of fees unaltered. They were much less concerned in the welfare of the Province than that their own perquisites should not be reduced, and the lack of any authority in New Brunswick that could check them aided their exactions. The same spirit prevailed among all the officials in the Province who were under the direct control of the British Government.

hi 1818 the Council had to deal with a matter of the highest importance to the commercial interests of the province, the fees charged at the Custom House 011 shipping. At that time the whole of New Brunswick was considered as one port; the port of St. John, and all the other ports in the province such as Miramichi, St. Andrews and Shediac, were merely out-bays of the port of St. John. This establishment, as already explained, was under the control of the Imperial government, aud the Customs revenue went into the Imperial Treasury. At St. John there was au officer styled a collector, who was the head of the Customs establishment, and a Comptroller whose jurisdiction extended over the shipping that entered and cleared. Both officials were paid by fees, and these fees, although based on a scale that had been established when the province was a part of Nova Scotia, seem to have been changed occasionally to suit the views of the collector. The collector of St. John in 1818, was Henry Wright, who, on the death of the former collector, Mr. Wanton in 181H had been transferred from Shelburne, N. S., to this province; the comptroller was Robert Parker who had filled that position from the founding of the province. Wright seems to have made up his mind that it was proper for him to increase the fees, which were already very oppressive, for the purpose of enriching himself. The merchants and shipowners speedily began to complain, but their complaints would have gone unheeded had he not had the misfortune to fall feral of the redoubtable General Coffin. The latter was a member of the Council, and, what was important, he had the ear of Lora Bathurst. He wrote a letter to that nobleman relating the enormous exactions of Collector Wright, and which also involved the character of Robert Parker, the comptroller, who aided Wright in his conspiracy against the public, and shared his unlawful gains. Lord Bathurst sent General Coffin's letter to the Governor and directed him to make an immediate investigation. The matter was entrusted to a committee of the Council consisting of William Pagan, John Robinson and the Attorney General. Pagan, who had long been a merchant of St. John, was admirably qualified for this work, and the same may be said of Mr Robinson, who was the Treasurer of the province. Wright and Parker sought in every way to evade an investigation, but sufficient evidence was available to convict them of the charges General Coffin had made against them. It was shown that in 1817, Wright hail received a net income from fees on shipping of upwards of £2,5)00 sterling, while Parker had got about half that sum. The collector's income was therefore nearly one thousand pounds larger than that of the Governor who had a salary of £1,500 and about £500 from fees. Wright had succeeded iu obtaining upwards of one thousand pounds more from fees in 1817 than his predecesor had received during the last year he held office. The report of the Committee, which was adopted by the Council, recommended an entire change In the existing system, a reduction in the scale of fees, the payment of the collector and comptroller by fixed salaries and tlie erection of Miramichi and St. Andrews into separate ports. These recommendations were forwarded to Karl Bathurst, and in the course oi time they were adopted, although not until several years had elapsed. A curious outcome oi this matter was a challenge to fight a duel from Neville Parker, a son of the Comptroller, to General Coffin. The General who was then sixty-seven years of age, declined the challenge, hut offered to fight the father, whose age was about the same as his own. No hostile meeting arose out of this affair, and the young challenger afterwards became master of the rolls, and a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.

The question of timber reserves again came up for discussion during the session of 1819. The British government at that time administered the affairs of the province, not for the benefit of its people but for the supposed benefit of the mother country. It claimed not only all the ungranted lands in the Province, but also the revenue derived from them, and it exercised the right of closing large areas against settlement, under the belief or pretext, that the areas so closed were preserves of large pine trees from which the Navy could be supplied with masts. The people oi Charlotte and Northumberland Comities complained that these timber reserves, as they were called, impeded settlement and also hindered the timber trade which was the principal industry of the Country. The matter had been brought under the notice of the legislature in 1817, and at the instance of the Council, Mr. George Morehouse, a deputy

Surveyor, bad been appointed to report on the state of the timber reserves. This had been done with respect to the Northumberland reserves, and he found, that of the land so locked up but a small portion contained any pine timber fit for masts. The Charlotte reserves had not been reported upon, yet it was from that county that the complaints with regard to the reserves had first come. The House of Assembly now asked the Council to join in an address to the Prince Regent, praying that the restrictions might be removed from the reserves in Charlotte and Northumberland, Counties in order that they might be opened to His Majesty's subjects. The Council, acting no doubt under the inspiration of the Lieutenant Governor, refused this request and the matter went over until the next session, a committee being appointed to prepare an address on the subject during the recess.

In 1818, after the prorogation of the legislature, Governor Smyth laid before the Council a plan he had in view to recommend to the Colonial Minister for the payment of a specific sum of money per ton on all licenses issued for the cutting of pine timber. He asked the advice of the Council as to the sum that should be demanded, and they recommended one shilling per ton. This matter was brought to the notice of the House by Colin Campbell, one of the members for Charlotte, and it was resolved that " the House of Assembly have learnt, with surprise and regret, that bonds are taken at the office of the Deputy Surveyor of Woods, for one shilling per ton on ail licenses to cut and manufacture pine timber in this Province." The resolution then went on to state that this measure if persisted in would he ruinous to the timber trade of the province, and it requested the Governor to inform the House if any recent instructions had been received from His Majesty's Ministers requiring such bonds to be taken, and also to what purpose the money so collected was to be appropriated.

The Governor's reply to this memorial of the House, was curt and not very satisfactory. He said that owing to representations made to the Government in England, in regard to the great and unwarrantable destruction committed in His Majesty's woods in the province, positive orders were issued by the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury forbidding any licenses to be issued for cutting timber, except by the sanction of the Lieutenant Governor. These orders, he stated, had been communicated to the Council who, after deliberate consideration, arranged and recommended a system which, in their opinion, might effectually prevent the recurrence of similar mischiefs in the future. The shilling a ton formed part of that system, and the money realized from it, as well as all other sums of money which might accrue from the sale or other disposition of property belonging to the Crown, would be appropriated to such uses as His Majesty might be pleased to direct. A reference to the minutes of the Council shows that this statement of the Governor was only true in part. Governor Smyth was himself the originator of the system to which he refers, and he had already decided, without any authority from the King or the Prince Regent, that the shilling a ton duty was to be appropriated to the protection of the King's timber from waste, and paying the requisite fees.

This reply did not satisfy the House of Assembly, and it resolved that the system which required bonds to be taken for the payment of one shilling a ton on all pine timber manufactured in the province, was a measure highly injurious to its trade, and in the opinion of the House was not contemplated by the instructions of His Majesty's ministers. These instructions, the House of Assembly thought, were only intended to prevent the destruction of pine trees fit for naval purposes, which object might have been carried into effect without injury to those employed in the manufacturing and shipping of timber.

General Smyth was exceedingly annoyed at this resolution, and he gave vent to his indignation in a message to the House, in which he expressed his surprise and concern that it should have been passed. He viewed it as "animadverting in terms of strong reprobation upon the conduct of His Majesty's executive government in this province," and indeed it seemed to bear that construction. But he was willing to regard it as having been passed without mature consideration, and he expressed the hope that the House would cause the resolution to be rescinded as it related to "a business belonging exclusively to the executive department, of which the House cannot be in possession of evidence to establish the facts necessary to found any correct judgment or opinion."

Governor Smyth may have thought that he had enough friends m the House to bring about the rescinding of the obnoxious resolution,, and on the same day that his message was received it was considered, with the speaker in the chair. Then the Governor had an opportunity of learning how many friends he had in the House. Among the members for St. John was Stephen Humbert, whose chief claim to distinction is that in 1818 he was expelled from the House for publishing an article in the City Gazette which was resolved by the Assembly to be "highly indecorous and unbecoming and a breach of the privileges of this House." Mr. Humbert's conduct in this affair did not show him to be a man of high spirit; but having been re-elected he now came forward as a supporter of the Governor. He asked this House to adopt a resolution to the effect that the payment of one shilling duty on pine timber, was not necessarily within the consideration of the House of Assembly, and that any resolve of the House on the said system, may be deemed an improper interference with His Majesty's prerogative. This extraordinary resolution had just four supporters, Mr. Allen of York, the two Sunbury members Messrs. Miles and Wilmot, and the mover, while nineteen voted against it. After voting down Mr. Humbert's motion, the House adjourned without dealing further with the Governor's message. General Smyth was very angry at his failure to induce the House to stultify itself, and he was determined that he would be subjected to no further criticism from that quarter. On the following morning immediately alter prayers a message was received from the Governor requiring the attendance of the Assembly immediately, at Government House. There His Excellency, after giving his assent to a number of bills, brought the session and the existence of the House to a close in an angry speech, telling the members that he had noticed with great' concern their persistence in a measure, to which their attention had been very recently called, winch conduct he could not suffer to pass unnoticed consistent with the duty he owed to his Sovereign. He concluded by saying that the only mode which was now left him was to dissolve the General Assembly. Thus General Smyth resorted to the same tactics which have been followed by every tyrannical governor, against the Assembly that would not obey his orders. Before resorting to this expedient he took the advice of his Council who unanimously advised a dissolution. He gained no advantage whatever by this childish act, for the new House was quite as hostile to his timber tax as the old one, no less than fifteen of the nineteen who voted against Humbert's resolution being returned. In this case the opposition was the stronger because it was not founded upon any principle, but on individual interest. Many members might not be able to fully appreciate the strength of the principle involved that a tax should not be imposed on the people of the province without the consent of their representatives, but all could realize the injury that was sustained by the taking of so much money out of the pockets of those engaged in the timber trade and giving it to a few wealthy and arrogant officials, in tlie shape of fees. Governor Smyth was engaged in a contest in which he was bound to fail in the end, for in a matter which touched their own pockets the stoutest upholders of the royal prerogative were not to he relied on to vote against their own interests.

The House of Assembly that was elected during the summer of 1819, differed very little from its predecessor, there not being more than four or five changes in the representatives, none of which were due to differences which had arisen between the-Governor and the members of the former House. The only man of prominence who was missing when the House met was Robert Pagan, who had been one of the representatives of Charlotte continuously for thirty-three years, ever since the foundation of the Province. Mr. Pagan's age and growing infirmities prevented him from again offering and he died two years later, universally regretted. The county of Charlotte has never had a more honest and useful representative. The Legislature met on the 3rd February, 1820, and Governor Smyth treated the members to a very long speech full of loyalty, in which he dealt not only with the affairs of the province, but with matters on the other side of the Atlantic with which the people of New Brunswick had little concern. He expressed his anxiety and regret that "a spirit utterly hostile to our excellent constitution, and subversive of all order in society, has so fully manifested itself in various parts of Great Britain," and he intimated his desire that the Legislature would send a loyal address to the

Prince Regent on the subject. Here we have a means of measuring the character of General Smyth and the fact that he was able to induce the House of Assembly to join in such an address may help us to an understanding of the difficulties which reformers in New Brunswick had to face. The spirit of which General Smyth complained, was the first wave of that reform movement which has since utterly changed the representative system of Great Britain and swept away for ever a thousand ancient abuses. The whole country was agitated by the recollection of the Peterioo Massacre at which peaceable citizens, assembled for a lawful purpose had been ridden down and slaughtered by a body of cavalry, many women being among the sufferers. Then followed the passing of the infamous six acts, which were introduced and carried in the House of Commons by Lord Castlereagh, whose name still stands for all that is vile and tyrannical and who was so hated that when he cut his own throat the whole country rejoiced. The six acts were designed to restrict the freedom of the press, to impose heavier penalties on persons criticizing the actions 01 the Government and to prevent public meetings for the consideration of grievances in Church and State. This was the kind of legislation which the House of Assembly of New Brunswick was asked to approve, and which it did approve by its address to the Prince Regent. The only excuse that can be urged for the members is that they did not fully understand the questions on which they undertook to pronounce an opinion. Had they done so, if they had the feelings of men, they would surely have extended their sympathy to those persons in England who were seeking to bring about a better system of representation and the reform of the constitution.

The remaining portion of Governor's speech dealt with provincial matters, and made a number of recommendations. He congratulated the Legislature on the general prosperity of the Province and the increase in the revenue. He recommended the encouragement of agriculture, the further improvement of the great roads, the establishment of better means of communication with Canada, and a permanent provision for the Judges going on circuit. These were all matters Worthy of attention, and no objection could be taken to the Governor's recommendations. But there were causes at work which were not favorable to a good understanding between the Assembly and the Council, and probably no New Brunswick governor was ever so much under the influence of that body as General Smyth. He made their quarrels his own, and a great part of the unpopularity which he encountered was due to that cause. The Council still continued to meet with closed doors, but at the session of 1820, a motion, made by Judge Bliss, that a member might admit strangers to hear the debates of the Council was voted down. In the same manner a motion of the Attorney General for the printing of the Journals of the Council was indefinately postponed. It was not until 1831 that any of Journals of the Council were printed, and strangers were not admitted to hear the debates of that body until 1834. Thus the people of New Brunswick found themselves-under the legislative control of a House that was wholly irresponsible, that met in secret, and that did not deign to give any reasons for its actions.

The old standing quarrel in regard to the payment of members broke out afresh in 1820. The appropriation bill sent up by the Assembly, contained a grant of twenty shillings a day to members of the House for their attendance, the same sum that had been given by the act passed in 1818. When the bill reached the Council it wasr on motion of the Attorney General, resolved that the granting of remuneration to the members of the House of Assembly at so high a rate as twenty shillings a day is "a lavish and improvident grant. " Immediately afterwards on motion of Judge Chipman, the further consideration of the appropriation bill was postponed for six months. There seems to have been no division on this motion, but on the following day Judge Bliss endeavoured to have it rescinded, and the further consideration of the bill resumed, but he w-as defeated by a vote of five to three. The House of Assembly, nothing daunted by the attitude of the Council, resolved that they were the sole judges of their own rights in the appropriation of money for the public service, and that they could see no reason why a grant of twenty shillings a day should be deemed lavish and improvident when a similar one met with the concurrence and approbation of the Council in 1818. A day or two later the House proceeded to vote the grants contained in the rejected appropriation bill over again, and sent them up to the Council for concurrence, the very first item being twenty shillings a day for the payment of members of the Assembly. Judge Bliss now moved to rescind the resolution, declaring the payment of twenty shillings a day to members a lavish and improvident grant, but his motion was lost by a vote of five to four. Immediately afterwards by a vote of six to three, the payment of twenty shillings a day to members was agreed to, so that the Council stood in the ridiculous position of voting for a grant which it had solemnly declared to be "lavish and improvident." The three who voted against the grant were Judge Chipman, the Attorney General, and Mr. Street, and they thought it necessary to enter a protest on the journals. Mr. Street, while a member of the House of Assembly, had always voted for the payment of members, so that his action in this matter shows that making him a member of the Council had wrought a wonderful change in his opinions. But his is not a solitary instance of a man's views on public questions being radically altered by a change in his circumstances and surroundings. When General Smyth was proroguing the legislature he did not fail to remind them that the appropriation bill contained an item which the Council had declared to be "lavish and improvident." He might with more propriety have referred to the most important piece of legislation of the session, the act for incorporating the Bank of New Brunswick, the first financial institution established in the Province. But this measure, so important and necessary, attracted less attention at the time than the petty squabble over the payment of members.