kindest sentiments of esteem and affection. They reflect with pleasure upon your great affability to all the inhabitants of this country whilst we cannot but call to mind your condescension and tenderness of regard to your clergy in particular. They seem already actuated with a portion of your spirit, which inspires universal benevolence and zeal for your God-churches already begin to rise-learning and science promise their dawn upon this frozen clime. We hope still to share in the directions which can procure these public benefits, and so far promise ourselves success in the ministry, as we follow our intended Pattern for Imitation. what reward shall we give for what has been done for us? We commit you to the approbation of your conscience,* and join in recommendation of your welfare to that God whose zealous servant you are. Wishing you a happy return to those who are now stretching out their arms to receive you, We are, Right Reverend Sir, With the greatest respect and esteem, Quebec, August 10th, 1789." DAVID FRANCIS DE MONTMOLLIN, PHILIP TOOSEY, DAVID CHS. Delisle, JOHN DOTY, JOHN STUART, JAMES TUNSTALL, JOHN LANGHORNE, L. J. B. N. VEYSSIÈRE. But The Bishop was pleased to return the following answer to this Address: MY REVEREND BRETHREN, This affectionate Address at our parting claims my warmest thanks,-be pleased to accept of them-they flow from a heart deeply interested in your welfare, reputation and happiness. My thanks are also due for your kind attention, for your advice and assistance at this visitation. The approbation which you are pleased to bestow on my endeavours in behalf of religion and literature is very flattering; and I * Were this Address signed by the Swiss clergy only, this clause would perhaps be intelligible. thank God for any degree of success that those well-meant endeavours may have met with. We are all embarked in the cause of God and His truth-a consciousness of this should animate our exertions, and support us under every obstruction and trial. The Divine Master we serve has set the example of meekness, purity, and love, which we should follow; and whilst we steadfastly copy that pattern, in the discharge of our several duties, we may safely trust the issue to Him, and rest assured of His favour and protec tion. I fervently pray the Almighty to direct your conduct, and to prosper your labours: may He dispose the hearts of your respective flocks to profit by these labours, and earnestly to concur with you in what involves their own dearest interests; thereby alleviating the difficulties of your station, strengthening your hands, and brightening your prospects, so that you may be mutual blessings, and a crown of rejoicing to each other on that awful day when the present scene, with all its delusive objects, shall wholly vanish, and the fate of mankind, according to their conduct here, will be determined for ever. CHARLES NOVA SCOTIA. To the issue of the 20th of August we are indebted for the interesting incidents connected with the Bishop's departure from Quebec : Sunday last the Right Reverend the Bishop of Nova Scotia preached an excellent farewell sermon at the Recollet church, previous to his leaving this Province, and on Monday at one o'clock in the afternoon, attended by the' clergy, citizens, and many of the military gentlemen, he embarked on board His Majesty's Weasel Sloop of War, where he was received with a salute of eleven guns, and immediately started for Halifax with a fair wind." Thus did the first Anglican Episcopal visitation of Canada begin and end. Not only did it add new life and vigour to the Church, but it demonstrated the fact that a Bishop should be appointed to oversee this important country, so rich in natural resources, and so well adapted to become the home of millions of happy people. CHAPTER VIII. THE COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE FOREIGN DIVINES. Probably the most difficult task in the acquisition of accurate knowledge concerning any historical event, is the sifting of evidence. One's judgment is very liable to receive a warp in a certain direction, and to remain under its influence throughout the whole inquiry. A wrong impression certainly went abroad, soon after the Conquest of Canada, concerning the number of French Protestants in the newly-acquired Province, and there is no doubt that this was partly the cause of the appointment of the Swiss clergy to the first three parishes. A State Paper drawn up in 1786* states that "At the settling of the Peace in 1762 it was represented to Government that there were a vast number of French Protestants in Canada, for whose benefit it would be proper to send out clergymen who could preach in that language, though in reality the number was very small, and the English Protestants were ten times as many." Canon Hawkins says that Mr. De Montmollin had a few French hearers at Quebec,† "not converts, however, from the Roman Catholics but Huguenots." And the Lutheran Chaplain to the Duke of Brunswick's Dragoon Regiment, Rev. F. V. Melsheimer, made the following entry in his diary‡ on the 29th of May, 1776 "This evening we anchored off the Island of Orleans. It was still early and our captain wanted to go ashore; he asked me to be of his party, and I, nothing loth, cheerfully jumped into his gig. We found a parish here, with the pastor, a Frenchman by birth and a Protestant by religion. Uprightness and simplicity in all his ways,. made this good man of sixty-two a true father to his parishioners, who numbered fifty-four families. These islanders live in noble simplicity. They are nearly all natives and live happily under the British dominion. Their houses are scattered along the shore, each man having his garden and plot of land.........We bought some fresh food and at ten returned on board." *Can, Arch., Series Q, Vol. 49, P. 343. † Annals of the Diocese of Quebec, page 14. This document was recently published by the Quebec Literary and Historical Society. One would naturally arrive at the conclusion that there were French Protestants in considerable numbers in Canada, in the early days of the English regime. Dr. Ogilvie's work at Quebec, the representations on the subject referred to above, and the entry of the Hessian chaplain, would be sufficient, one would think, to establish the fact. But the idea thus gained would be erroneous, for Garneau tells us there were no Huguenots in Canada at the period of the Conquest, and the French Protestants of the Island of Orleans were not emigrants since the Conquest, as they were said to be natives. And the S. P. G. Annual Report states that after Dr. Ogilvie's departure from Quebec in 1763, the French congregations he had gathered together were permitted to dwindle away. Had there been a congregation consisting of fifty-four families on the Island, the clergyman's name would be on the clergy lists and pay rolls, and it would appear year after year in the old Quebec Almanac. The Hessian chaplain was probably the victim of a hoax. A subject of greater consequence to the Church than the alleged disappearance of the French congregation at the Island of Orleans, was the charges brought against the Swiss clergy. This subject absorbed so much attention, and was the cause of so many complaints both to the Government and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, that it must now come before us for consideration. Much light has been thrown upon this inquiry in recent years; but it is very necessary to weigh carefully all that bears upon it. The last semi-official account of some of these charges is that published in the Annals of the Diocese of Quebec, by Canon Hawkins, Secretary of the Scciety for the Propagation of the Gospel. This book was published in 1848. The whole passage is here reproduced: "The three next clergymen, of whom we find any mention, seem to have been appointed by the Government under the expectation that an impression might be made upon the French Canadians by clergymen who could perform the Anglican services in the French language. The first was a Monsieur De Montmollin, a Swiss, ordained in our church. His name occurs in the register of Quebec, in the year 1768. He had a few French hearers, not converts, however, for they were all of the o'd Huguenot stock; but his imperfect pronunciation marred the effect of his ministrations to the English. "The second, the Reverend David Chadbrand Delisle, also of Swiss extraction, and but imperfectly acquainted with our language, was sent by the Government to act in the double capacity of chaplain to the garrison and minister to the English congregation at Montreal. "Mr. Veyssière, a Recollet friar, who had been disgraced in his own communion, was adopted as the minister at Three Rivers, but seems to have done no more credit to the Church of England than he had done to the Church of Rome." The authority on which these statements were made was probably the letter of the Reverend Charles Mongan to Colonel Nepean,* which was as follows: : No. 8, DUFOUR'S PLACE, SIR, From a desire of giving as little interruption as possible, I am induced thus to acquaint you, that, agreeable to your direction, I called upon Dr. Morris (Morice?), with whom, and several others of the principal members of the Society, I have had repeated conversations, and to whom I was happy in being able to give some useful information upon the state of our Church in Canada, having spent a year in that Province, during which time, at the desire of the late Bishop of London, I took every pains to make myself acquainted with that subject, the particulars of which I had the honour of transmitting to his Lordship; but his death happening soon afterwards, prevented those exertions he intended, in showing the Government the necessity of putting our Church upon a more respectable footing in that country, and of sending out ministers to the principal towns who were likely to recover our religion from that state of disrepute into which it had fallen, through the unaccountable neglect of this country in sending out clergymen totally unfit for the situation in which they were placed. A more particular description of these gentlemen, with a short account of our church affairs in Canada, is contained in the inclosed extracts of a memorial lately transmitted to this country with a hope of obtaining relief. The Society for Propagating the Gospel seems perfectly convinced of the deplorable state of the Church of England in Canada, * Canadian Archives, Series Q, Vol. 26, page 20. |