the power of taxation (so that there was no room left
for such perverse legislation by a British Parliament
as had lately cost its sovereign the United States).
The act of habeas corpus was extended to the
province (a privilege which no one of French blood
had ever enjoyed before); the tenure of land was to
be the socage[113] tenure so long and happily established
in England. Complete religious toleration was
established, and a certain proportion of land was
allotted in Upper Canada, as a provision for a Protestant
clergy, and the foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment.
So great was Pitt’s desire to complete the resemblance
between the colony and Great Britain, that he even
contemplated the creation of an aristocracy, by the
introduction of a provision enabling the King to grant
hereditary colonial titles, the possession of which
should include hereditary seats in the provincial
Council. The two latter clauses were opposed by
Fox, and the latter of them, though sanctioned by
Parliament, was never carried out in practice.
But Fox, bitter as he was at this time in his general
opposition to the government, agreed cordially in the
general principles of the bill, avowing his conviction
that “the only method of retaining distant colonies
with advantage is to enable them to govern themselves,”
so that each party in the British Parliament is entitled
to a share of the credit for this pattern of all subsequent
colonial constitutions—Pitt for the original
genius for organization which his contrivance of all
the complicated details of the measure displayed, and
Fox for his frank adoption of the general principle
inculcated by his rival, even while differing as to
some of the minor details of the measure. During
these years the country was increasing in prosperity,
and the minister was daily rising in credit; more powerful
and more popular than the most successful or the most
brilliant of his predecessors. But during these
same years two great constitutional difficulties had
arisen, one of which, indeed, the deep sense which
both parties felt of the danger of investigating it
shelved almost as soon as it was seen; but the other
of which, besides the importance which it derived
from the degree in which it involved the principle
of the supreme authority of Parliament, and brought
under discussion even that which regulates the succession
to the crown, imperilled the existence of the ministry,
and threatened a total change in both the domestic
and foreign policy of the nation.
The Prince of Wales, who had come of age in the summer of 1783, had at once begun to make himself notorious for the violence of his opposition to his father’s ministers, carrying the openness of his hostility so far as, during the Westminster election to drive about the streets with a carriage and all his servants profusely decorated with Fox’s colors; and, still more discreditably, by most unmeasured profligacy of all kinds. The consequence was that he soon became