Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/65



Address of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada
TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

May it please your Majesty,

We your Majesty's most faithful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Council in Provincial Parliament assembled, beg leave most humbly to approach the Throne with sentiments of the most profound gratitude for your Majesty's paternal solicitude and condescension, in the information which his Excellency the Governor-in-Chief was commanded to give us, at the opening of the present Session, "That your Majesty's Ministers had proposed to Parliament certain alterations in the Act of the 31st of his Majesty's George the Third, of glorious memory, cap. 31, principally with a view to unite the two Legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada; and that this measure was withdrawn and postponed to the next Session, in order to afford an opportunity of ascertaining the sentiments of the people of these Provinces upon it."

Encouraged by the innumerable benefits which your Majesty has been pleased to confer upon this Colony, and by the new proof of your Majesty's benevolence, and called upon thus solemnly to submit our humble opinion, we should be wanting in our duty to your Majesty, to this Province, and to ourselves, if we did not, with due submission, and most respectful freedom, represent to your Majesty that, "Our Constitution, as happily established by the 31st of his late Majesty George th Third, of glorious memory, has eminently promoted the welfare and prosperity of this Province, secured the peace and happiness of all classes of his Majesty's subjects, and has strengthened the bond of union with the Mother Country."

That on the contrary, the Union of the two Legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada will, in our opinion, be attended with inevitable evils, will be productive of fears and apprehensions, arising from the discussion and strife incident to the diversity of municipal regulations, language, laws, religion, institutions, and