LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN CANADA. 51 
purpose of making roads, erecting and repairing public buildings, or for any other purpose 
respecting the local convenience and economy of such town or district. 
During the military regime, the captains of militia dispensed justice and carried out 
the orders of the authorities in the parishes.” The king, in 1763, gave instructions to 
Governor Murray, who succeeded General Amherst, to lay out townships and provide 
town sites, with the view of encouraging the settlement of English-speaking people. 
Provision was also made for building a church, and for giving 400 acres of land to the 
support of a clergyman, and 200 acres for a schoolmaster.’ In 1764 the governor 
established courts of quarter sessions for the trial of petty causes. These courts were 
composed of justices of the peace who had to address their warrants to the captains and 
other officers of militia in the first instance.* The majority of the inhabitants dwelling 
in each parish were also permitted to elect, on the 24th of June in each year, six men to 
act as Baillis and Sous-Baillis.° The names of these men were sent in to the deputy 
secretary of the province, and the governor-general, with the consent of the council, 
appointed the persons who were to act. These officers had for some years the inspection 
of the highways and bridges, and also acted as constables. In 1777, it was deemed advis- 
able to pass an ordinance providing for the repair and maintenance of the roads and 
bridges in the province, under the direction of the grand voyer, whose office was reéstab- 
lished in accordance with the desire of the imperial government to continue the old 
institutions of the country, to which the people were accustomed. The old French 
system was practically again in force. The proprietors and farmers were required to 
keep up the roads and bridges that passed by their respective properties. All repairs 
were performed by statute labour or at the cost of the parish. The judges of common 
pleas on circuit were to report on the state of the communications, as provided for in the 
ordinance.’ 
In 1791 a very important constitutional change took place in the political condition 
of Canada. At the close of the American War of Independence, a large number of people 
known as United Empire Loyalists, on account of their having remained faithful to the 
British Crown during that great struggle, came and settled in the provinces. Some ten 
thousand persons, at least, made their homes in Upper Canada, while a considerable num- 
ber found their way to the Eastern Townships which lie to the south of the St. Lawrence, 
between the Montreal district and the frontier of the United States. The Parliament of 
Great Britain then thought it advisable to separate the French and English nationalities 
by forming the two provinces on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, known until 1867 
as Lower Canada and Upper Canada. To the people of both sections were granted repre- 
sentative institutions.’ By a proclamation of the governor-general, dated 7th of May, 
1792, Lower Canada was divided, for legislative purposes, into the following twenty-one 
counties :—Bedford, Buckingham, Cornwallis, Devon, Dorchester, Effingham, Gaspé, Hamp- 
shire, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leinster, Montreal, St. Maurice, Northumberland, 

‘14 Geo. III. c. 83; Bourinot’s Parliamentary Procedure, ch. i. on Parliamentary Institutions in Canada, 
pp. 9-12. - 
* Doutre et Lareau, p. 485. * Ibid., p. 563. 
* Ibid., p. 589. 5 Tbid., p. 590. 
° Ordinances for the Province of Quebec (Brown and Gilmore), p. 86. 
731 Geo. III. c. 31; Bourinot, p. 14. 
