But all these land questions sank into utter insignificance compared with the dispute which arose out of the thirty-sixth clause of the Constitutional Act of 1791, which provided that there should be reserved for the maintenance and support of a “Protestant clergy,” in the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, “a quantity of land equal in value to a seventh part of grants that had been made in the past, or might be made in the future.”  Subsequent clauses of the same act made provision for the erection and endowment of one or more rectories in every township or parish, “according to the establishment of the Church of England,” and at the same time gave power to the legislature of the two provinces “to vary or repeal” these enactments of the law with the important reservation that all bills of such a character could not receive the royal assent until thirty days after they had been laid before both Houses of the imperial parliament.  Whenever it was practicable, the lands were reserved under the act among those already granted to settlers with the intention of creating parishes as soon as possible in every settled township throughout the province.  However, it was not always possible to carry out this plan, in consequence of whole townships having been granted en bloc to the Loyalists in certain districts, especially in those of the Bay of Quinte, Kingston and Niagara, and it was therefore necessary to carry out the intention of the law in adjoining townships where no lands of any extent had been granted to settlers.

The Church of England, at a very early period, claimed, as the only “Protestant clergy” recognized by English law, the exclusive use of the lands in question, and Bishop Mountain, who became in 1793 Anglican bishop of Quebec, with a jurisdiction extending over all Canada, took the first steps to sustain this assertion of exclusive right.  Leases were given to applicants by a clerical corporation established by the Anglican Church for the express purpose of administering the reserves.  For some years the Anglican claim passed without special notice, and it is not until 1817 that we see the germ of the dispute which afterwards so seriously agitated Upper Canada.  It was proposed in the assembly to sell half the lands and devote the proceeds to secular purposes, but the sudden prorogation of the legislature by Lieutenant-Governor Gore, prevented any definite action on the resolutions, although the debate that arose on the subject had the effect of showing the existence of a marked public grievance.  The feeling at this time in the country was shown in answers given to circulars sent out by Robert Gourlay, an energetic Scottish busy-body, to a number of townships, asking an expression of opinion as to the causes which retarded improvement and the best means of developing the resources of the province.  The answer from Sandwich emphatically set forth that the reasons of the existing depression were the reserves of land for the Crown and clergy, “which must