PKOCEEDINGS FOR 1904 ' V 



cases in Montreal, but is now ordered to be removed to Ottawa with a 

 view to being opened np and bound, when the distribution of volume 

 IX is complete. There are between fiity and sixty cases of exchanges 

 also in warehouse at Ottawa. It is to be hoped th^t in the new Memorial 

 Building to be erected room will be provided for a home for the Society. 



4. Decease of Members. 



During the year just elapsed the Society has had to deplore the 

 loss of two members, both from the First Section. The Abbé Casgrain 

 was in the very front rank of Canadian littérateurs. His life and work 

 are treated fully in a paper by a competent and sympathetic hand, to 

 appear in the Transactions of this year. 



Mr. Edouard Richard, who died on March 37th, 1904, at Battleford, 

 was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1896, after the publication at 

 Montreal of his work, Acadia, in two octavo volumes. The book made 

 a deep impression because of the number of new authorities cited 

 upon the question of the dispersion of the Acadians. While exonerating 

 the British Government, Mr. Richard fixed the responsibility of the 

 measure upon Governor Lawrence and the people of Boston. Whatever 

 view may be held upon that vexed question, the work is one which must 

 be taken into account by all future writers upon that period of our 

 history. i 



After leaving college Mr. Richard studied law and practised as an 

 advocate from 1868 to 1876, when failing health compelled him to 

 abandon the practice of his profession. The same cause forced him to 

 give up public life; for from 1872 to 1878 he had represented Megantic 

 in the House of Commons. With a hope that a change of climate would 

 be of benefit he accepted the position of Sheriff of the Northwest Terri- 

 tories, but resigned in 1883, and his book on Acadia was written in the 

 following years. 



In 1897 Mr. Richard was sent to Paris to take the work in the 

 French Archives intermitted because of the death of Mr. Joseph Mar- 

 mette. He returned to Canada in 1902, bringing with him a mass of 

 precious material for the history of Canada. But his health was too 

 seriously impaired for the literary labours he had been hoping to under- 

 take, and he died at Battleford in his sixtieth year. His memory will 

 long he held in high estimation by those who knew him. 



5. Election of Fellows. 



The death of the Abbé Casgrain occurred before the time for 

 nominations had expired. Mr. Richard's death was after that date, and 

 there is therefore still a vacancy in the First Section. 



