[burwash] a KEVIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 45 



defined religious principles, and that as trustees of this royal grant, they 

 could not surrender it or the endowments which accompanied it without 

 knowing what would be substituted for it. This refusal was commu- 

 nicated in a reply which discussed at full length the university question 

 as it existed at that day, and which stated and defended the ecclesiastical 

 position in the most explicit manner. They were, however, willing to 

 concede four points : — 



1. That the Court of the King's Bench shall be the visitor instead 

 of the Bishop of Quebec. 



2. That any clergyman of the Church of England may be appointed 

 president instead of the Archdeacon of York. 



3. That no test or condition of church membership be required of 

 members of the council. 



4. That the council prescribe the conditions for degrees in divinity. 

 This offer of compromise was not acceptable to the House of 



Assembly, and twice during the next three years a bill was introduced to 

 provide for the amendment of the university charter. Owing to the 

 intense political excitement of the time the progress of the first bill, 

 introduced in 1833, was very slow, and it was still in committee when 

 the session closed. A second bill was, in 1835, passed in the House of 

 Assembly and rejected by the Legislative Council. A cop}' was forward- 

 ed to the Colonial Office by Sir John Colborne, with an expression of 

 opinion that " no law for the amendment of King's College charter will 

 be enacted by the Provincial Legislature, but that it might be so modi- 

 fied by the interposition of His Majesty's Government as to leave in 

 essential points no just ground for dissatisfaction on the part of either 

 House." He also forwarded a strong recommendation that the Govern- 

 ment sanction the immediate opening of the college. The reply of Lord 

 Glenelg was '' that the Government had referred the matter to the dis- 

 cretion of the Provincial Legislature, and that the decision of such a 

 question by His Majesty's advisers in England would be condemned with 

 plausibility and not indeed without justice as a needless interference 

 with the internal affairs of the province." 



Sir John Colborne had accompanied his recommendation by a sug- 

 gested form of charter to be enacted by His Majesty's Government in 

 England ; this Lord Glenelg rejected as one that " could hardly fail to 

 give umbrage to the House of Assembly as contrary to the whole tenor 

 of the resolutions of the representatives of the people." The reply com- 

 pletely disappointed the hope expressed by Sir John Colborne in his 

 speech from the throne when proroguing the House " that such a revi- 

 sion of the charter may take place as will accord in essential points with 

 the opinions of the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly." 



