Thomas Chandler Haliburton ("Sam Slick") a study in provincial Toryism

Front matter

on deposit from Massey College

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Preface

Signs have not been wanting of late that the extended period during which Haliburton has been more talked about than read has come to at least a temporary close. Witness the publication within the current twelvemonth of two volumes of selections from his writings, and the increasing amount of attention recently being paid to The Clockmaker and its sequels in college courses in colonial literature. The present would seem, then, an opportune time for the appearance of a definitive account of his life and works. In the hope that it will be accepted as such, this study, originally written and approved some years ago in partial fulfillment of the doctoral requirements at Columbia University, is now offered to the public. If the conclusions which it reaches concerning the private character, the official services, or the literary merits of its subject, who for nearly a century has been generally regarded as worthy of high respect as one of the first, as well as one of the foremost, of Canada’s men of letters, should prove in several ways disappointing to the patriotic pride of those of my fellow Canadians who may also become my readers, I can only state in defense of my findings that they are not other than what an impartial examination of all the evidence in the case has rendered inevitable. If the truth about Haliburton is not stranger than the fiction, it is decidedly more irresistible, and I have been constrained to pursue it even to an end that to some may look not a little bitter. This is far from being an anticipatory admission, however, that Haliburton as either the man or the writer is undeserving of a place of high honor in the annals of authorship in the British

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PREFACE colonies. It is simply a candid warning, posted in advance, that in neither of the aspects specified does he emerge from the pages that follow in any such likeness to a national idol for school-boy worship as that in which, with all too frequent iteration and all too monotonous consistency, he has hitherto been represented. And if for having aspired, as I confess I have, to correct an egregiously false and unnecessarily long-continued impression of one of the more interesting and more colorful personalities of Canada’s pre-Confederation era I should be charged with a wanton and ill-advised, not to say a disloyal, iconoclasm, I shall have to seek both my vindication and my complacency in whatever inferred abetment of my efforts there still remains in a remark made to me by an eminent student of Canadian history and literature on an occasion when I was rather more apprehensive of where my investigation of the Haliburton legend was leading me than I am now that I have found out: “ The day has since passed when Canadians need feel obliged to base their satisfaction in their country’s literary achievement on anything but the facts.” My endeavor has been merely to ascertain and to bring together all the facts available relevant to Haliburton and his contribution to colonial letters. Those who are disposed to reject the corollary must be prepared to challenge the authenticity of my data.

In my treatment of matters so controversial as those involved in a study of Haliburton and his times are bound to be I have deemed it only fair to allow the witnesses I have examined to speak for themselves whenever possible; that is, I have in numerous instances presented their testimony in their own words, and often in extenso, exactly as it stands in the record. This procedure has imposed upon my readers a work of undue length, I know, but no process of abridgment or of paraphrase promised

PREFACE

IX to secure the unprejudiced hearing for my thesis which its implications demand. The quotations from Haliburton I have desired to reproduce with the utmost fidelity to the originals, including even their author’s, or his printers’, inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies in respect to spelling and pointing. But preparing my copy for the press at a distance of a continent’s width from my sources I have more than likely fallen short of so meticulous a standard of accuracy. In quoting from Haliburton’s contemporaries I have presumed on infrequent occasions to alter slightly the form, though never the meaning, of the text utilized.

Obviously the task I have attempted has not been performed without the kindly help of others. Acknowledgment of much of the assistance I have received has been made as opportunity occurred throughout the course of my various chapters. I am under certain further obligations that call for particular mention here. To Carl Van Doren, of the editorial staff of The Century Magazine, and of the Department of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University, I am indebted for his enthusiastic endorsement of my choice of a somewhat unconventional subject for an academic dissertation, and for the contagious interest with which he has followed and directed its development. To Professors W. P. Trent and G. P. Krapp, also of Columbia, my thanks are due for needed information, criticism, and ladvice. Professor Trent, moreover, has been dauntless enough to read through my proofs. My indulgent colleague at Reed College, Professor Barry Cerf, has rendered me the same arduous service. Between them they have caught, I trust, the worst of my “ howlers ”. Dr. A. W. H. Eaton, of Boston, and A. H. O’Brien, Esq., of Toronto, have placed at my disposal the indispensable results of their diligent questing in the fields, respectively, of Haliburton genealogy and of Haliburton bibliography. Without the freedom of the extensive Edwards collection

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PREFACE of Canadiana in the library of my alma mater, Acadia College, Wolfville, N. S., granted me by former President G. B. Cutten and the librarian, Mrs. Mary K. Ingraham, most of my plans for research would have been brought to an abrupt and fruitless termination. Judge J. A. Chisholm, G. E. E. Nichols, Esq., and Mrs. Harry Piers, of Halifax, N. S., and Mrs. Laura Haliburton Moore, of Wolfville, have allowed me to make transcriptions from their invaluable, possessions of manuscript material. Miss Annie F. Donohoe of the Legislative Library, Halifax, has courteously inducted me into the mysteries of the cataloguing and shelving of the special treasures entrusted to her keeping. The editors of the Halifax Acadian Recorder have admitted me to the rare and unusual privilege of being suffered to consult the complete early files of their unique newspaper. And R. L. Reid, Esq., K. C., of Vancouver, B. C., has been most generous in giving me access to his excellent private library of Canadian literature.

More than to any or to all of these named I owe a debt of gratitude to Edna Whitman Chittick, my wife. Without her willing sacrifices in time, labor, and money, the writing of this book would never have been undertaken, much less carried to completion. At every stage of its progress, from beginning to end, she has been its soundest and most unrelenting critic. If the tardily finished product displays an appreciable competency of workmanship, something in excess of a wife’s legal share of the credit belongs to her. For its shortcomings of whatever nature I alone am responsible. Doubtless they would have been fewer had I always submitted to uxorial suggestion as humbly as an indigent, and married, scholar probably should.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface vii

I. Ancestry 1

Chapter I Ancestry

From the time of its permanent occupation by the British, Nova Scotia has been more truly New England than New Scotland. Long before the founding of Halifax, which may be accepted as Great Britain’s first serious attempt at colonization in Nova Scotia, the New Englanders had begun to play their part as moulders of the destiny of the peninsular province, and with raid and siege had interrupted and finally overwhelmed the rule of its French settlers. The idea of an English fortified port upon the present site of Halifax was itself of New England origin,^ having had its inception in the deeply felt need of the colonists of Massachusetts Bay and vicinity for an outlying naval base to the northward, of a strength sufiicient to challenge and offset the menace of the French “ Dunkirk of America ” at Louisburg, an idea that was quickly forced into accomplishment following the return of Louisburg, previously captured by the New Englanders, to the control of France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Even at the settlement of Halifax, in 1749, New Englanders were present,^ and within a year were numerous enough at the new provincial capital to call forth special

1 T. B. Akins, History of Halifax, 4.

2 A. W. H. Eaton, “ Chapters in the History of Halifax,” Americana, X, 276, 280, 281.

comment from one of the earliest memorialists of the city^s beginnings.® Thereafter their participation in Nova Scotian affairs became increasingly common, culminating, when measured in terms of dramatic and immediate result, in the thorough-going, though clumsily executed and inglorious, expulsion of the Acadians, in 1755. Then occurred, in the early sixties, as the result of the complete downfall of French power in northeastern America, what was in all probability the most important of New England’s contributions to Nova Scotia’s development,* the coming of the New England planters, at the invitation of Governor Lawrence and his Council, to take possession of expropriated and vacant lands of the exiled Acadians. It was these New Englanders who, by their occupation of the French farms and townsites, first brought the country as a whole thoroughly under the domination of English colonial rule, and confirmed to its future inhabitants the enjoyment of those institutions and rights long recognized as the peculiar heritage of the British born, representative government and freedom of worship. From the time of this pre-Loyalist migration, despite the later addition of English, Scotch, Irish, German, and Acadian elements to its population. Nova Scotia has been the child of New England, and to this day the New England origin of a large portion of its people declares itself in their speech and manners, and in their very appearance, as well as in their religious and social customs, and their domestic and

® W. C. Murray, “ History of St. Matthew’s Church, Halifax, N. S.,” Transactions of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, XVI, 148, quoting Akins, History of Halifax, in reference to Rev. William Tutty.

* A. W. H. Eaton, “ Rhode Island Settlers ... in Nova Scotia . . Americana, X, 2, 3; Rev. W. O. Raymond, “Pre- Loyalist Settlements of Nova Scotia,” Transactions, Royal Society of Canada, 1911, Sec. II, 36, 37.

ecclesiastical architecture.® The final stage in what may be termed the New Englandization of Nova Scotia was reached with the inflow of Loyalist refugees from the revolting colonies, during and at the close of the American War of Independence. The New England element among the newcomers was, of course, largely qualified by people from other sections, particularly from New York. Nevertheless the Loyalist migration to Nova Scotia served to strengthen to a marked degree an influence which was already strong there, though, to be sure, the New England Loyalists differed from the pre-Loyalists in disclosing monarchical rather than republican sympathies. The net result of the successive arrivals of New Englanders in Nova Scotia was that the province speedily became what it still remains — a new New England. Altogether, then, it was perfectly natural that the person most generally called the father of American humor ® should have been born at Windsor, Nova Scotia, rather than at, say, Windsor, Connecticut; and there is no occasion for wonder that the most popular delineator of the comic Yankee should have been himself a Bluenose.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s great-grandfather was one Andrew Haliburton, an obscure wig-maker of Edinburgh, Scotland.^ Beyond this Andrew Haliburton the

® Archibald MacMechan, University Magazine, XVI, 574; A. W. H. Eaton, History of King’s County, Nova Scotia, 207 ; James F. W. Johnstone, Notes on North America, I, 32; George Head, Forest Scenes and Incidents in the Wilds of North America, 22-24.

® See below, 358 ff.

7 For this and many of the subsequent facts relating to the Haliburton family I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. A. W. H. Eaton of Boston, Mass. For the results of his exhaustive and accurate researches into the genealogy of the Haliburtons see his History of King’s County, Noia Scotia, 676-679, and The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, LXXI, 57-74.

family cannot with any certainty be traced.® Early in life Andrew Haliburton emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, and there on February 23, 1719, married Naomi, or Amy, Figg, who was probably the widow of John Figg. On De-

8 There is current, however, a persistent belief that the Haliburtons from whom Thomas Chandler Haliburton was descended were in turn descended from the Haliburtons of Newmains and Mertoun, a Scotch border family to which belonged Barbara Haliburton of Newmains, the maternal grandmother of Sir Walter Scott. (See H. J. Morgan, Bibliotheca Canadensis, 166; H. G. Haliburton, Haliburton: A Centenary Chaplet, 13, 14; Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th. ed., XI, 383, foot-note.; J. B. Atley, Lord Haliburton, 3; J. F. Freeman, The Canadian Academy, I, nos. 1, 2; etc., etc.) Positive evidence in support of such a connection is, nevertheless, strikingly lacking. William Haliburton, of Windsor, Nova Scotia, the grandfather of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, entertained this belief, and entered into correspondence with Walter Scott, “ Writer to the Signet,” the father of Sir Walter, with a view to investigating its validity, and also, doubtless, with a view to laying claim to certain Scottish property. The Memorials oj the Haliburtons, drawn up by Walter Scott, “ in answer to the inquiries of Mr. William Haliburton of Halifax [sic], Nova Scotia, who claimed a descent from the Haliburtons of Haddon ” (head-note, p. 57), contains, however, not a word in confirmation of the wished-for relationship. Thomas Chandler Haliburton himself, so far as it is known, made no definite claim to the distinguished, or at least profitable, connection desired by his grandfather, though his fondness for allusion to his Scottish ancestors may have lent some color to the prevalent assurance concerning his descent. In The Attache, first series, II, 267, he speaks, indeed, of having visited “ the residence of my forefathers ” in Scotland, but in the same volume he presents the ridiculous figure of Sam Slick's father in search of a title, a serio-comic sketch that may very well have owed its suggestion to the disappointed antiquarian researches of his grandfather. Yet the fact that he shared his grandfather’s conviction respecting his rights to a Scottish inheritance is pretty well established by a comment in his handwriting pencilled in the margin of a family copy of Sir David Erskine’s Annals and Antiquities oj Dryburgh ati the point where mention is made of the cember 18, 1730, he married as his second wife, Abigail, daughter of Job and Mary (Little) Otis, of Scituate, a sister of Dr. Ephraim Otis, whose wife was a Rachel

uncertainty as to what had become of one John Haliburton, his son George, and their posterity, whose fate it was necessary to learn before he could hope to be seriously considered as a possible heir to the coveted property : “ It was known and purposely and intentionally misstated. — T. C. Haliburton.” (Manuscript account of the Haliburton family, by Miss Georgina Haliburton, now in the possession of Mrs. Laura Haliburton Moore, Wolfville, Nova Scotia.) The common acceptance of the Newmains and Mertoun descent of the Nova Scotian Haliburtons seems to have been given its chief currency, however, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s second youngest son, R. G. Haliburton, with whom the desire for illustrious ancestry was an obsession. But R. G. Haliburton never made good his pretensions to the descent referred to, although at one time he had in his possession documents that might have finally settled the matter, as appears in a letter of his written to the Rev. G. W. Hill, and printed in the Appendix of the latter’s Memoir of Sir Brenton Halliburton: “ ‘ The Memorials ’ were commenced (Sir Walter says) by his father, in reply to some inquiries made by Mr. W. Haliburton, of Halifax, N. S. (my great-grandfather) about the year 1793. I had in my possession all the original correspondence, relating to a claim to property made by Mr. W. Haliburton, as the nearest heir to his uncle . . . and I can remember that the title to the property claimed turned upon a dispute as to an Elizabeth Davidson, who had been in possession of property claimed by Mr. W. Haliburton, somewhere on ‘ the Borders.’ Sir Walter sent a copy of the ‘ Memorials ’ to Mr. Alexander Haliburton, the father of my brother-in-law, Alexander F. Haliburton; and some old relatives of theirs pointed out that there was a mistake as to the account of Elizabeth Davidson. They were not aware that she had been a subject of controversy between old Walter Scott and my great-grandfather — and of a correspondence which led to the commencement of the ‘ MemorialsThe fact that the results of the correspondence here mentioned were never made public seems sufficient confirmation of the futility of any claim to a traceable Scottish ancestry for Thomas Chandler Haliburton reaching farther back than his great-grandfather, Andrew, the wig-maker of Edinburgh.

Hersey, of Hingham. It was through this second marriage of Andrew Haliburton, and through that of his son William to his first cousin, Susanna Otis, that the Nova Scotian Haliburtons became related to the well-known James Otis of Massachusetts.® Having acquired some property in Boston, Andrew Haliburton emigrated once more, this time to Jamaica, British West Indies. There he died, shortly after his arrival. His widow, who was now the mother of four children, returned to Boston, where she opened an inn or boarding-house, which before long was destroyed by fire. Undismayed, she went with her family, then consisting, it is said, ‘‘ of her own four children, a daughter of her late husband by a former wife, and a daughter of that wife by a former husband,” to Narragansett, Rhode Island, and there made a second attempt at inn-keeping. At Narragansett, in the parish of St. Paul, she became, on October 18, 1756, the second wife of Edward Ellis, M. D., to whose children of his first marriage she had already been something of a step-mother, since they had been for some years members of her household. Of this remarkable woman, who had now added another to the triple-family group for whose upbringing she was responsible, the few intimate glimpses we possess deserve to be recorded, for it was in all probability to her that her numerous descendants owe their endowment of Yankee shrewdness and self-reliance, which is their most pronounced characteristic. “ She was,” writes Mrs. Harriet Prescott, widow of William P. Prescott, “ as I have heard, a smart, sensible, capable woman, well calculated to have the care and training of young people at that day ”;

9 R. G. Haliburton, Haliburton: a Centenary Chaplet, 14.

10 Eaton, Hist. King’s Co., 676.

11 In a letter quoted by Sarah E. Titcomb, Early New England People, 26.

and again/2 u made a good wife, and was generally considered to be a good mother to his [Edward Ellis’s] children; that is, she was careful that they should learn all good housewifery, and be careful, industrious and exceeding neat. She held, as I have heard, a ‘ tight rein ’ over them, — showing no partiality to her own children, . . . Of Dr. Ellis, her second husband, we know only that he had served as Surgeon-General to the Massachusetts troops at the first capture of Louisburg, and after the return of the Rhode Islanders’ committees of investigation, sent to Nova Scotia as the result of Governor Lawrence’s offer of the Acadian farms, had become interested in lands there near Windsor. Thither the Ellises removed in 1760 or 1761,^^ taking part in the pre- Loyalist migration then in full flood from the eastern parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and settled in the township of Newport, between the Kennetcook and St. Croix rivers, where, by a grant issued in 1761, 58,000 acres were assigned to Edward Ellis “ and others,” of which Ellis’s share was 500 acres.^^ Dr. Ellis received a further grant of 1000 acres in Horton in 1763.^® He died while on a business trip to Amsterdam shortly before 1769.^^

Among the and others ” associated with Edward Ellis in the Newport grant was his step-son, William Halyburton,^® who had followed his mother to Nova Scotia shortly

13 A daughter of Dr. Ellis had previously removed to Nova Scotia as the wife of a British officer. Titcomb, Early N. E. People, 27, 28.

1* Records, Crown Lands Office, Halifax, N. S.

1® Eaton, Hist. King’s Co., 676.

13 Records, Crown Lands Office, Halifax, N. S.

1^ Eaton, N. E. Hi^t. and Geneal. Reg., LXXI, 61.

18 So the Crown Lands and other records consistently spell the name. It was this William Haliburton who corresponded with Walter Scott. See above, foot-note 8.

after his marriage to his first cousin, Susanna Otis. Of William Haliburton we have some interesting account, written by a relative. Miss Georgina Haliburton, in a manuscript now preserved in the library of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society in Boston.

“ William,” she states, “ was a boy of fine intellectual promise, but showed no special inclination to any one pursuit. He was fond of adventure, and a pioneer’s life would have suited him well. He began the study of medicine and surgery; but when he was nineteen an expedition was formed against the Indians, and throwing aside his studies he went as a volunteer surgeon with a company of young men and joined the expedition. After some months campaigning he returned unhurt, and his mother, feeling great anxiety lest his love of adventure should increase, strongly encouraged his early attachment to his cousin Susanna Otis. ... At last the marriage took place, and the couple had a long and happy married life.”

The same manuscript records also a tradition concerning the coming of William Haliburton and his bride to their new home, and of the hardships to be endured before they had established themselves:

“ Landing at Halifax, probably from Boston, the young husband on horseback and his wife on a pillion behind him made the long journey to Newport over the rough forest road, and for eighteen months after they reached Falmouth [ie., East Falmouth, as Newport was originally called], with their two Negro servants from the household of Mrs. Haliburton’s father, Ephraim Otis of Scituate, lived in tents. At last, however, they built a good two-story frame house, the foundations and posts of which were logs, the outside being clapboarded. They had brought with them ‘ eighteen months’ provisions, tents, furniture, spinning wheels, a loom, and farm implements,’ to serve them on their plantation; but after enduring the hardships and trials of farm life as long as they could, the couple gave farming up and moved into the village of Windsor, where Mr. Haliburton entered on the more congenial study of law.” 20

As quoted, Eaton, N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., LXXI, 63.

20 As retold, Eaton, Hist. King's Co., 68, 69.

Picturesque as is this account of the “ long journey ” from Halifax to Newport, it must be regarded as highly improbable. The condition of the provincial roads made such a ride almost an impossibility. It seems far more likely that the Haliburtons, like many of their fellow emigrants from Rhode Island, came by vessel direct to Windsor,^^ or at least to some convenient landing place on the shores of Minas Basin.

The removal of William Haliburton from Newport to what is now Windsor took place probably in 1763, for on May 1 of that year “ William Hallyburton, Gentleman, exchanges his farm lot on ‘ the River Kennetcook, Letter F, number 3, the 2nd Division, with the Marsh and Dyke with the same ’ for the ‘ Farm lot, on the River Pisiquid, Letter A, No. 3 in the second Division, exclusive of the Dyke, Marsh and Village Lot drawn with the same ’ belonging to Jonathan Babcock.” The village of Windsor, in or near which William Haliburton now made his home, became the birthplace of three successive generations of Haliburtons. It was already a settled district of respectable antiquity, having been early occupied by the Acadians,^^ who were quick to see its advantages, and to discover the fertility of the surrounding river lands. Very early, too, had the colonial officials at Halifax turned their envious eyes upon the locality, and before the arrival of the New Englanders had issued to themselves grants to the Frenchmen’s lands. Following closely upon the final departure of the Acadians, the townsite, already including a military reservation and fortified post, was appropriated by those in convenient authority at Halifax.^*

21 Eaton, N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., LXXI, 64.

22 Rev. H. Y. Hind, The Old Parish Burying Ground, 91, 92.

23 By whom it was known as Piziquid.

2* By the so-called “ Councillors’ Grant,” 1759, and others. Eaton, “ Rhode Island Settlers. . . in Nova Scotia. . Americana, X, 86,

It was the holding by a favored few of large areas of unoccupied land in Windsor that deterred for years the normal progress of its growth.^® William Haliburton was one of the first of the newcomers to gain a foothold in the community by taking advantage of the breaking up of these estates through the natural processes of sale, exchange, and escheat. In 1771, and again in 1772, he himself obtained grants, but only of i acre each, within the township limits, and much later, in 1814, held, in trusteeship with others, even the site of Fort Edward itself as a public market-place.2® In Windsor he practised law and there became eventually a Justice of the Peace,^^ and Judge of Probate, the latter of which offices he held until his death, in 1817.^® He appears to have been a man true to his New England origin, keen and enterprising in business and an adept at inventing mechanical contrivances. But he was meditative as well as practical, taking a decided interest in abstruse scientific speculations and writing frequently, it is said, in both prose and verse, though with what success not a line of either remains to tell.29

William Haliburton was followed in his profession by his third child, William Hersey Otis Haliburton, born at Windsor, September 3, 1767. W. H. 0. Haliburton studied law in Halifax in the office of William Steam, Esquire, and soon became known as a lawyer of very considerable ability. He was appointed Clerk of the Peace for his native county of Hants in 1786, was made one of the two

25 Haliburton, Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, II, 101.

26 Records, Crown Lands Office, Halifax, N. S.

2^ See signature as such, collection of Beckles Willson, Windsor,

N. S.

28 Eaton, N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., LXXI, 63.

pioneer King’s Counsellors in Nova Scotia in 1817,^® and became a judge of the Inferior Courts of Common Pleas in 1824. From 1806 to 1824 he served with distinction as representative, first of his township and later of his county, in the provincial House of Assembly. Of his career as a legislator it has been said that he exhibited statesmanlike ideas, a power of subtle reasoning and much eloquence.” The records in the office of the Registry of Deeds in Windsor and the Crown Lands Office in Halifax reveal the fact that as a man of business he was aggressive and successful in the accumulation of property. His public utterances and the measures he supported in the House of Assembly show him to have been a strict constitutionalist and a stickler for the letter of the law. “ He would, he declared, never consent to deviate from the constitutional forms of the House,” and he held himself uncompromisingly to a similar rule of conduct in matters beyond the control of committees on parliamentary usage. He consistently differed from an increasing number of his colleagues throughout his twenty-four years in the House of Assembly in his attitude toward Nova Scotia’s Family Compact,” the old Council of Twelve, in whose hands as the upper branch of the legislature there reposed a well-nigh tyrannical power. A staunch Tory, he made little or no concession to the party of reform, then beginning to challenge with some insistence the Council’s abuse of privilege. W. H. 0. Haliburton was, however, far from an unenlightened legislator. He opposed a Governor’s unwarranted proposal to increase the salary of the Provincial Treasurer, objected to giving the Council more power in the matter of appointing road com-

30 Israel Longworth, “ Honorable Judge Robie,” Acadiensis, I, 80.

31 Beamish Murdoch, History of Nova Scotia, III, 439.

82 Murdoch, Hist. N. S., Ill, 433, 434.

missioners, condemned the excessive taxes laid on the coasting trade of the province, protested against forcing the militia to travel long distances to drill, and, though arguing the legality of restricting marriage licensing to the Anglican clergy, expressed a desire for a law relieving dissenters from what he admitted was an unfair restriction. If he opposed the local assessment plan for the support of schools, it was because he knew his province too well to have any confidence in the successful working of the measure, and not through any lack of interest in the matter of popular education. And it was only his Tory devotion to the rights of property, the Church, and the King, that led to his, by no means unjustifiable, resistance to legislation intended for the relief of debtors, or for the support of a Presbyterian Academy, or for the admission of a Catholic to the House without oath.^^