MERTON' COLLEGE AND CANADA. 471 



were probably misunderstood, and the lukewarm spirit of the times 

 (had I been even called on for their explanation) would, doubtless, 

 have slighted my reasons as merely struck out in the heat of imagi- 

 nation, and not, as they are, the sober deductions of much thought 

 and of personal observation, yet nothing has happened since I left 

 England in the least to invalidate, to my own conception, the policy 

 of the measures I then proposed ; and as far as may be now in the 

 power of His Majesty's Ministers, I most earnestly hope that what- 

 remains will be effected — that is, by giving the means of proper 

 education in this province, both in its rudiments and in its comple- 

 tion, that from ourselves we may raise up a loyal and, in due progress, 

 a learned clergy, and which will speedily tend to unite not only the 

 Puritans within the Province, but the clergy of the Episcopal Church 

 however dispersed, to consider with affection the Parent State, to form, 

 ■corroborate and unite, Avithin the United States, that powerful body 

 of people who naturally must prefer the alliance of Great Britain to< 

 that of France, who are mostly members of the Episcopal Church, and' 

 on all sides to bring within its pale in Upper Canada, a very gi'eat- 

 body of denominationalists who, in my judgment, as it were, offer 

 themselves to its protection and re-union." (He appears to have^ 

 supposed that by certain relaxations on the part of the Episcopal 

 authorities on both sides of the line, the breach between the descen- 

 dants of the so-called " pilgrim fathers" and the mother-church might 

 be healed, and a universal good will towards England throughoutthe 

 North Amei'ican continent be established.) 



"These objects," he again repeats, " would be materially promoted 

 by a University in Upper Canada, which might, in due progress,, 

 acquire such a character as to become the place of education to many 

 persons beyond the extent of the King's Dominions." 



As siiggestive of a precedent for Government aid to his University 

 projected for Upper Canada, he refers to the grant promised (but 

 never made) to Bishop Berkeley for a College in Bei-muda, in 1725.. 

 He also hints that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 

 would do well also to patronize the undertaking, as likely to aid 

 powerfully in carrying out the benevolent designs of the Society in 

 regard to the aborigines of North America. 



" If I recollect, my Lord," he says to Bishop Mountain, " Parlia- 

 ment voted £20,000 for the erection of the University proposed by 

 Bishop Berkeley, in the Bermudas. The object, not to speak dia- 



