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From the foregoing citations from the Judgment of the Privy Council, it is clear that the status of Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Lower Canada is that enjoyed by them under the old law of France prior to the cession. It is under that condition of law that the Church, as a body politic, exists; and while, as in the Guibord case, it cannot be doubted that the civil rights of members of that communion will be maintained by our Courts of Law, the question may well arise, whether serious innovations upon the law and practice of the Church under old France, may not produce a virtual forfeiture of the special privileges conferred upon the Church, as a body politic. It is a widely different thing to guarantee the peaceful enjoyment of their "culte" and "dimes," from pledging the faith and power of the Crown to the enforcement of the decrees of a foreign power, even though that power acts under the insidious guise of only dealing with "faith and morals."

Yet there is one point already indicated in the elaborate Judgment of the Privy Council, which, to my mind, renders my appeal to Roman Catholics in Canada at this moment justifiable, and even imperative.

My Lords, in the foregoing extract, say:—