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System of Government for Canada: Difference between revisions
→Twelfth article of the reform
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In the middle of this waiting, which your glory commands you end soon, here is the only wish that my sincere patriotism expects in your favour: may your children, and the children of your children, return by their abundant blessings, the zeal and the love of freedom which you will deploy in the critical circumstances, where you suffer, and never have to pour tears of blood on the destiny which threatens them! because it is no longer the time to let yourselves be blinded, ''Messieurs''; it is of all your posterity, which it is question of defending and saving today. Today the government has the arrangement of the province of Québec(6) in its hands; it would take centuries to bring it back from an error of legislation ''qui lui échapperait'' against the economy of your interests and your rights; and how not to tremble on the future existence of such a sad event, since so many lying voices avert from all sides to mislay the government's justice, by surprising its good faith! There are only you as a body, ''Messieurs'', who, by a decided and vigorous exertion, can form a counterweight, to counterbalance the actions of these enemies, unchained against your freedom. There is only you who can plead your cause eloquently; but at least am I relying on quite authentic titles when I ensure you that, provided that you want to plead it as brave men, you will undoubtedly not lose it. | In the middle of this waiting, which your glory commands you end soon, here is the only wish that my sincere patriotism expects in your favour: may your children, and the children of your children, return by their abundant blessings, the zeal and the love of freedom which you will deploy in the critical circumstances, where you suffer, and never have to pour tears of blood on the destiny which threatens them! because it is no longer the time to let yourselves be blinded, ''Messieurs''; it is of all your posterity, which it is question of defending and saving today. Today the government has the arrangement of the province of Québec(6) in its hands; it would take centuries to bring it back from an error of legislation ''qui lui échapperait'' against the economy of your interests and your rights; and how not to tremble on the future existence of such a sad event, since so many lying voices avert from all sides to mislay the government's justice, by surprising its good faith! There are only you as a body, ''Messieurs'', who, by a decided and vigorous exertion, can form a counterweight, to counterbalance the actions of these enemies, unchained against your freedom. There is only you who can plead your cause eloquently; but at least am I relying on quite authentic titles when I ensure you that, provided that you want to plead it as brave men, you will undoubtedly not lose it. | ||
[[Image:North.jpg|thumb|left|Frederick North, Earl of Guilford]][[Image:Sydney.jpg|thumb|Thomas Townshend, Viscount Sydney]] | [[Image:North.jpg|thumb|left|Frederick North, Earl of Guilford]][[Image:Sydney.jpg|thumb|Thomas Townshend, Viscount Sydney]]What do you have to claim for the reform of the unhappy government which now oppresses you? Nothing moreover, but as nothing less, than the prerogatives of the citizens of England; but by the content of the social contract, nature assigns it to you, the laws of nations ensure them to you, the constitution of the State, at least by its spirit, confirms them to you; and finally the wishes of all the patriotism of England (as much as it is possible for an ordinary person to count so many votes) wish you the plenary concession and the perfect enjoyment of it. Our sovereign, of which you have, at the highest degree, to demand justice, has been proclaimed, by the public voice, the best of princes who ever sat on the throne of England. A title, at the very least comforting to you, decorates him; he is the special protector, ''et de prédilection de coeur'', the father of Canada; this quality, well understood in the capital, must by itself be enough to redress and give life to your confidence. The ministry which governs us today enjoys, in the universal ideas, of the glory of popularity, that is to say of a patriotism decided to extend the national happiness in the most remote domains of the empire; the whole body of the people, by recognition and regard, found it honourable to design, by choice, a Parliament according to their model: finally, the minister of the department responsible for the province of Quebec, is Milord Sidney. This lord, then known only as Mr. Townshend(7), was the senator who rose up in advance with more energy and force, against the sanction given in Parliament to the bill of Quebec, because of the despotism, that he prejudged, ''dans les vues anticipées de sa juste politique'', would one day result from it: Milord Sidney is by honour bound to support the advances of Mr. Townshend, and to extirpate a tyranny which he had rejected and condemned before its advent. | ||
Enfin, ce grand ministre est, par sa mère, de la descendance du fameux archi-patriote [[Sidney]](8), ce célèbre patron de la liberté, dont il était si exalté, si épris, qu'il ne voulut rien souffrir chez lui qui ne fut marqué de ses augustes livrées. Un sang si libre, coulant dans ses veines, ne condamnera pas à l'esclavage tout un peuple de nouveaux sujets, qui viennent à son tribunal officiel redemander la liberté, au nom de l'illustre nation qui les a adoptés. | Enfin, ce grand ministre est, par sa mère, de la descendance du fameux archi-patriote [[Sidney]](8), ce célèbre patron de la liberté, dont il était si exalté, si épris, qu'il ne voulut rien souffrir chez lui qui ne fut marqué de ses augustes livrées. Un sang si libre, coulant dans ses veines, ne condamnera pas à l'esclavage tout un peuple de nouveaux sujets, qui viennent à son tribunal officiel redemander la liberté, au nom de l'illustre nation qui les a adoptés. | ||