GRAND JURIES, POLITICAL POWER AND CITIZENSHIP
IN QUEBEC AND LOWER CANADA, 1764-1830
Donald Fyson, Université Laval

A paper for the 77th annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Ottawa, May 1998

Expanded version since published / version augmentée publiée depuis: «Jurys, participation civique et représentation au Québec et au Bas-Canada: les grands jurys du district de Montréal (1764-1832)», Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 55(1)(2001), p. 85-120 (PDF).

Important note: though this paper does not examine the grand jury beyond 1832, it should be noted that the first jury law of 1832 was not renewed in 1835; the summoning and composition of grand jurors after that point has yet to be explored. See Corrections, additions and clarifications for further details.

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Introduction

The fundamental role of the jury in common-law jurisdictions, at least up until the nineteenth century, needs no demonstration. With the judges and the court officials, the jury stood at the center of the English criminal justice system and most of its colonial derivatives. The issue which most concerns historians of the jury is not its importance, but rather its social composition and its actions in criminal cases: was it really Blackstone's "Palladium of Liberty" or rather an instrument of class control and elite oppression?(1) Always acknowledged as well, though often only in passing, is the importance of the jury system in the construction of British identity.(2) Less well-studied is the place of the jury in the actual political process, as bodies which had an influence on matters that went beyond the strictly legal aspects of the criminal justice system.(3)

Two examples, both from Quebec and Lower Canada, show how juries could serve an explicit political purpose beyond the criminal justice system. The first dates from 1764, at the beginning of British civilian rule in the newly conquered colony. In October, the grand jury of the first Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace at Quebec presented a detailed list of grievances against the colonial administration, including the incompetency and insufficiency of the judiciary, the inconvenience of the military presence, and so on. The presentment, however, also had deeper political implications. First, the grand jury affirmed that it was the sole representative institution in the colony, that its members, as British subjects, thus had a right to be consulted on the substance of all laws affecting the colony, and that all public accounts should be presented to it. In essence, the grand jury was proposing that it take the place of the promised but not delivered legislative assembly. And second, the grand jury argued that all Catholics should be excluded from jury service, as they recognized the supremacy of the Pope, and their presence thus offended the sacred laws and liberties of England. The main body of the presentment was signed by fourteen British jurors, hand-picked as it turned out to represent British mercantile interests against the colonial administration, and seven canadien jurors; however, the portion relating to the disenfranchisement of catholics was signed only by the British jurors.(4)

The presentment caused a great uproar, with Murray denouncing it as folly.(5) The canadien community was also outraged, not only because of the explicit anti-catholic stance that excluded them from the mark of citizenship that the jury represented (indeed, with their exclusion from all public offices, the one mark that remained them), but also because the seven canadien jurors affirmed publicly that they had been tricked into signing a presentment in English which they did not understand; many portions, they claimed, did not reflect the extensive discussions that had preceded its drafting, in which they had actively participated. The canadien jurors offered a point-by-point refutation of the presentment; with regards to the grand jury as a representative institution, however, they passed beside the question, simply rejecting measures "qui nous parrissent encore fort eloignées par l'esperance ou nous sommes, qu'il ne sera question d'aucune Impôt dans cette Colonie".

The second example dates from the end of the 1820s: a report of a committee of the House of Assembly in 1829 into various petitions of grievances against the administration of Dalhousie, including one from inhabitants of the city of Montreal. Among other things, the Montreal petitioners complained that, contrary to the laws of England, juries, both grand and petty, and both King's Bench and Quarter Sessions, were being drawn exclusively from the town of Montreal rather than from the district at large. The committee, chaired by Denis-Benjamin Viger, concluded that this practice of jurors being "selected, or as it were, packed - summoned exclusively from among the inhabitants of a particular place, or from a particular class - cannot be more compatible with liberty, than it is with the rules of impartial justice. It is repugnant to every principle of our government, and can only tend to the overthrow of the constitution of the country."(6)

These complaints were nothing new. Already in 1812, the House of Assembly had struck a committee to examine the qualifications and choice of jurors; and in 1817, another such committee had resolved that all men meeting the age and property qualifications "have a right to be jurors in criminal cases in this province."(7) But the controversy resurfaced in the second half of the 1820s, in the context of clashes between the Patriotes and the authoritarian regime of Dalhousie. The executive's control over the process of selecting juries became, for the Patriotes, yet another symbol of despotism and of the attempted exclusion of canadiens from their democratic rights, given that they predominated in the countryside; a number of highly political jury trials for libel and sedition did nothing to help matters. The controversy only began to die down from 1830, when James Kempt ordered that jurors be drawn from the body of the district; the denouement came in 1832, when the legislature adopted a law regulating the qualification and selection of jurors.(8)

We thus have two visions of the jury as a fundamental part of the constitutional structure, two groups reclaiming their rights to sit on juries. But whereas for the British merchants of the 1760s it was a British institution, connected to British liberties and British citizenship, for the canadien politicians it was a constitutional and democratic institution that fit into their larger notion of the rights of all citizens.

In order to examine more closely this question of the political function of juries, this paper focusses on one type of jury in particular, the grand jury. Of all the different juries, the grand jury was the most explicitly integrated into the political process. Summoned from the county at large, but in practice composed of its "most substantial" inhabitants, grand jurors were not only to judge the initial merits of accusations laid before them, as the first stage of the criminal trial, but also to present their views or findings regarding the general state of their community, including both specific offenders and more general situations that required judicial, administrative or legislative intervention. In theory, grand juries were thus a central feature of the co-option of local elites that characterized English local government before the nineteenth century, much as was the institution of the justices of the peace, and participation in them was an essential feature of elite citizenship.(9)

As in most other British colonies, the institution of the grand jury was imported wholesale into Quebec and Lower Canada as an integral part of the criminal justice system.(10) As in England, the grand jury became an essential component of the two most important criminal courts, the Court of King's Bench (and its ad hoc replacements, the Courts of Oyer and Terminer) and the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace. Indeed, there were only two significant colonial legislative modifications of the English grand jury system in the period that concerns us, both touching the criminal jury in general. First, from the beginning of British civil government in 1764, both protestants and catholics were allowed to serve on juries, unlike in England, where the Test Acts excluded catholics.(11) And secondly, as we will see, from 1787 the property qualifications required of jury members were significantly modified.(12)

If we return to the two examples, they raise some fundamental issues regarding the political role of juries in general and the grand jury in particular. Could and did the grand jury function as a representative political institution, as the English merchants would have liked? Was it stacked in favour of certain groups, the administration, the British community, as the canadien politicians implied? How did it fit with conflicting definitions of citizenship? And, more generally, how was this fundamentally British institution integrated into the specific colonial context of Quebec and Lower Canada, with its authoritarian administration, its contestatory House of Assembly, its open conflicts between elite groups, reformers, tories, British merchants, the canadien bourgeoisie?

In this paper, I will explore these issues from three perspectives that are key to understanding the political role and function of the grand jury. First, the composition of grand juries in Quebec and Lower Canada. Secondly, attitudes towards the role of the grand jury in the functioning of the polity. And finally, the role actually played by grand juries in the political process. Of course, this leaves aside the central role of grand juries in the criminal trial itself, which could in and of itself be highly political, as when grand juries approved bills for libel, sedition or treason; but that is a study in itself.(13) The paper is based largely on an examination of grand juries in the judicial district of Montreal covering the western half of the colony, but in many respects applies to the colony as a whole.

I. The composition of the grand jury

The composition of juries has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars, most notably those working on England. The controversy is fundamental: were juries broadly-based, participatory institutions in which community members judged their peers and participated in the administration of their local polities, or were they rather the oligarchical preserves of local elites? The debate focusses on several inter-related issues, including the selection process (eligibility criteria, the identification of eligible jurors and their actual selection), the social composition of juries, and the question of repeated jury service.(14) An examination of Quebec and Lower Canadian grand juries from these perspectives tells us a great deal about their potential role as representative institutions.

In England, jury selection was a relatively decentralized and partially public affair. Jury service was in general limited to freeholders with land worth £10 per year or more; lists of eligible freeholders were made up by petty constables in each hundred (a small administrative subdivision), posted on the church door for correction and eventually passed on to the sheriff who then selected and summoned jurors from amongst these lists. The selection process was in no way ideal, fraught as it was with corruptiom, special favours, and the like, but it was certainly in no way centralized.(15)

In Quebec and Lower Canada, the procedure was quite different. In the first place, property qualifications were modified significantly from 1787, when an ordinance opened jury service to tenants paying a yearly rent of £15 or more per year, supposedly due to the difficulty of finding sufficient freeholders in the towns of Montreal and Quebec.(16) This, however, stood the whole concept of the jury, based on the fundamental link between citizenship and property, on its head; in essence, since £15 per year was a very modest rent for a merchant or professional, it opened jury service to all members of the elites, whether they owned property in the colony or not.

Further, since there was no concerted attempt in Quebec and Lower Canada to duplicate the machinery of local administration, such as hundreds, petty constables, and so on, the entire process of jury selection was left up to the discretion of the sheriff of each judicial district. Since there were between two and four districts during the period, this meant that in practice two to four government officials, appointed by and at the pleasure of the crown, controlled the entrance to and composition of the palladium of British liberty and the hallmark of British citizenship.(17)

Had the sheriffs followed some regular selection process, this would have made little difference; indeed, administrative centralization could seem a virtue compared to the problems of the English system. But an examination of the procedures actually followed by the sheriffs of the district of Montreal at least tells a different story. The process was not at all arbitrary, but in many respects it was opposed both to the letter of the law and to the spirit of the jury system. The sheriff did draw up lists of eligible householders, from whom he selected jurors;(18) however, up until the very end of our period, these lists were entirely private, administrative documents, with no possibility of public correction. In selecting jurors from these lists, the sheriff followed the basic qualification criteria, as modified by the ordinance of 1787, but he also applied at least three additional criteria, none of which were founded in law.

First, for the King's Bench up until 1812, and for the Quarter Sessions throughout, the sheriff only summoned jurors from the city of Montreal itself - indeed, up until 1830, he only had access to jury lists from the city itself.(19) In 1817, the then sheriff, Frederick William Ermatinger, explained his reasons for this practice before a committee of the House of Assembly: on the one hand, that the absence of administratrive subdivisions made the constitution of a list of qualified jurors outside the city impractible; and on the other hand, that country people were generally too ignorant:

Q. Do you think it consistent with the liberty of British subjects, that the Trial by jury in the district of Montreal, in criminal cases, should be confined to the Citizens of the town and precincts of Montreal?
A. I do. Intruction seems to be so little diffused, as I have already said, throughout the district at large, that I think those Laws better administered, and the liberty of the subject likely to be better protected, by taking jurors within those limits.
(20)

Ermatinger also explained, however, that from September 1812 he had begun summoning half of the King's Bench grand jurors from outside of Montreal itself. This was not necessarily the result of any political pressure from reforming politicians, but rather on instructions from the Governor following a presentment by the grand jury itself in March 1812, a jury half British and under the foremanship of the tory James Caldwell, who argued that this would allow the population at large to participate in and thus appreciate the benefits of the English criminal justice system.(21) The practice was interrupted from November 1822 through May 1827, but largely due to a lack of funds to summon jurors outside of Montreal rather than political considerations;(22) indeed, in the interregnum not only did canadien politicians and papers such as La Minerve call for the jury to be summoned from the district at large, but also, repeatedly, the grand jury itself and the Chief Justice of the Montreal King's Bench, James Reid, hardly a canadien sympathizer.(23) Still, as the House of Assembly committee pointed out in 1817, it was highly unlikely that summoning half of jurors from outside of Montreal was a fair representation of the actual number eligible to serve, though Ermatinger affirmed that to be the case. Further, Ermatinger's description of how he determined which country jurors to summon was the classically vague statement of someone who followed no particular rule: "those taken from the country are returned, after the strictest inquiry respecting their capacity to act as such, and their capability of bearing the expense of coming to town."(24)

This last brings up the second criteria applied by the sheriff: though in law there was no distinction made between the qualifications of grand and petty juries of the different courts, the Montreal sheriff applied an evident gradation. In the eighteenth century, this distinction mainly operated between grand and petty jurors, and there was a certain cross-over between King's bench and Quarter Sessions grand juries; but the situation became even more more rigid in the nineteenth century. Extant jury lists of 1811 and 1813, for example, divided Montreal householders into those eligible for the four different types of jury service (King's Bench and Quarter Sessions grand and petty juries), apparently on the basis of property value, profession, and perhaps personal knowledge.(25) As Ermatinger, the sheriff, declared in 1817, grand jurors in particular were to be "men of the first distinction in the county".(26) No technically eligible juror was excluded, but they were definitively slotted into one of the four types of service. The result was clear. In 1813, in a city with a population of about 13 000 and a judicial district with a population of about 160 000, the sheriff identified 47 men in Montreal as eligible for King's Bench grand jury service, and 96 for Quarter Sessions grand jury service; further, the average annual worth of their properties was £80 for the King's Bench grand jurors and £60 for the Quarter Sessions grand jurors, considerably above the minimum £10 (or £15 for proprietors) property qualification.(27)

And finally, from at least the 1780s, the sheriff always summoned an exactly equal number of British and canadien grand jurors, usually fifteen of each. Not all of these necessarily showed up to be sworn in as jurors, either thorugh neglect or through being excused, but as Table 1 indicates, this had little effect on the roughly half-and-half split between canadien and British grand jurors:

TABLE 1: PROPORTION OF CANADIEN GRAND JURORS(28)

 

King's Bench

Quarter Sessions

1778-1788

49%

48%

1790-1811

50%

52%

1812-1830

47%

49%

Canadiens, of course, made up about 90% of the population of the district, but given the other two criteria, urban dwelling and social standing, this did not necessarily represent, in and of itself, a gross under-representation of the canadien population, even in the eighteenth century,(29) and still less so in the 1820s, when the population of Montreal was well on its way to being half British. However, the three factors taken together had very clear implications: the urban elites, where the British were concentrated, provided the bulk of grand jurors, both at King's Bench and at Quarter Sessions.

The situation was thus almost exactly the opposite of that in England. In England, many incorporated towns were exempted from jury duty, and freeholders in other towns were relatively rare; juries were thus drawn largely from the countryside. In Quebec and Lower Canada, the sheriff's criteria meant that it was largely the urban elites who dominated, entirely so at the level of the Quarter Sessions and very largely so for the King's Bench. Even during the period from 1812 to 1822, when jury service on the King's Bench was broadened to include the enitre district, the sheriff's other criteria remained in place, notably the even split between British and canadien jurors, which now became glaringly unfair, and the selection of "better" jurors; as one indication of the latter, many of the jurors summoned from outside of Montreal were also justices of the peace, solid members of the local elites who were not necessarily servile government appointees but certainly not radical opponents of the constitutional order.

As for the jurors themselves, insofar as their social class is concerned, there was some difference between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and somewhat more between the King's Bench and the Quarter Sessions. In the eighteenth century, the information is sketchy, but the extant grand jury lists from the Montreal King's Bench from the early 1780s read like a who's who of the local fur-trading community: James McGill, Pierre Foretier, Simon McTavish, and so on. The eighteenth-century Quarter Sessions jurors were somewhat less prominent, though names such as Gabriel Franchère, Alexander Henry or Jean-Guillaume Delisle still evoke the same merchant community. Further, in all presentments that I have seen, all Quarter Sessions grand jurors could sign their names; and there was a considerable cross-over between the two bodies, with many individuals sitting on both.

For the nineteenth century, and especially the period after 1810, the information is somewhat better, at least for Montreal jurors. Table 2 summarizes the professional categories of both King's Bench and Quarter Sessions grand juries:

TABLE 2: PROFESSIONAL GROUPS OF MONTREAL GRAND JURORS(30)

 

King's Bench

1812-1830

Quarter Sessions

1810-1830

unknown

487

574

known

477

1139

merchants

287

60%

437

38%

shopkeepers

41

9%

380

33%

professionals

138

29%

245

22%

other elite

8

2%

19

2%

artisans

3

1%

58

5%

These grand jurors were thus firmly members of the bourgeoisie: artisans made up 5% of Quarter Sessions jurors and only 1% of King's Bench jurors. They also overwhelmingly represented the commercial interests of the city. The main distinction between the two was in terms of status: fewer Quarter Sessions grand jurors carried the prestigious label of merchant, not surprising given differing average property values noted above in the jury lists drawn up by the sheriff (for 1813, £80 for King's Bench grand jurors as opposd to £60 for Quarter Sessions grand jurors).

That King's Bench grand jurors were drawn mainly from the elites is not surprising: the same situation generally prevailed in England and in other British North American colonies. What was different from England at least was the overwhelming predominance of the merchant classes: in England, for example, Assize grand juries represented the county gentry, but not its merchant classes concentrated in the towns. The Montreal King's Bench grand jury, rather, resembled more closely what Jim Philipps has found in late eighteenth-century Halifax, though with an even more rarefied pool of jurors. As for Quarter Sessions grand juries, in England, while they were still far from popular institutions, they nevertheless included a significant representation of artisans and small farmers, a far cry from the Montreal Quarter Sessions grand jury.(31)

A final element of the composition of the Montreal grand juries that deserves our attention is the number of times that jurors served. In England, jury service was limited by law to at most once every two or three years; however, at Assizes, many jurors nevertheless served on multiple juries. The average juror at the Surrey Assizes, for example, served just under three times and the average 23-man grand jury comprised 15 jurors who had been there before.(32) In late-eighteenth-century Halifax, repeat service was even more frequent, in part due to the practice of summoning juries for an entire year at once.(33) In the Montreal district, the law also completely disregarded, both for the King's Bench and the Quarter Sessions, and jurors were summoned repeatedly to successive courts. Thus, considering King's bench grand jurors alone, the average juror served just over three times. The practice was further compounded by jurors serving on both King's Bench and Quarter Sessions grand juries; in the eighteenth century, often at the same time; in the nineteenth, generally in succssion, with a Quarter Sessions grand juror "graduating" as it were to the King's Bench grand jury. In all, about 40% of the individuals who sat on King's Bench grand juries had also sat on Quarter Sessions grand juries. Thus, considering both courts together, the average juror sat just over five different times on grand juries, and of an average grand jury of 23 members, eighteen would have had previous grand jury experience.

In terms of the administration of justice, it probably made sense to have experienced jurors. But insofar as the grand jury being a representative institution, this repeated service simply decreased its popular base. La Minerve complained of this in 1828:

Nous fréquentons depuis un grand nombre d'années les cours criminelles à Montréal; nous n'avons jamais vu un seul grand jury sans un, deux, trois ou même quatre membres de certaines familles, qui bien que très peu nombreuses et bien qu'égalées en respectabilité par un grand nombre d'autres, semblent en avoir acquis héréditairement le privilège. La famille tragique d'Atrée a fourni moins de sujets à la scène, que les familles Porteous et McKenzie n'ont fourni de grands jurés.(34)

Indeed, some grand jury members were veritable regulars. The record was held by Louis Plessis dit Bellair, a Montreal shopkeeper who sat on 52 Quarter Sessions grand juries between 1798 and 1829 (almost half of all sessions), but another ten individuals sat on thirty or more grand juries. Interestingly enough, all eleven were canadiens; the most regularly attending grand jurors were thus not British, as La Minerve implied, and indeed, canadien jurors served an average of 5.5 times, as against 4.5 time for British jurors. Even if we consider only the King's Bench for the period 1812-1830, of the ten most regularly attending jurors, half were canadien, in proportion to their numbers among the grand jury as a whole. And the profile of the Quarter Sessions grand jury was quite different again: there, for the period 1812-1830, the ten longest serving grand jurors were all canadiens, and even in the top twenty, there were only two British jurors.

In sum, the entire notion of the grand jury as broadly-based representative institution, even of the elites, was significantly modified in the context of Quebec and Lower Canada. Grand juries were largely urban bodies, drawn from the commercial class, though both British and canadien; and the juries were filled with men who had been there before, and would be there again. The juries were representative, certainly, but representative of one particular group, the urban mecantile elites; and as La Minerve declaimed in 1827, "un juré ... composé d'une classe de citoyens ou d'individus faisant partie du même ordre, est un atteinte évidente contre l'institution."(35)

II. Elite attitudes towards the grand jury

Given that the grand jury in Quebec and Lower Canada was thus an elite institution, both at the level of the King's Bench and the Quarter Sessions, it is important to understand in more detail elite attitudes towards it. Most scholars who have studied the jury system in Quebec and Lower Canada have agreed that the political meanings of the system in England did not transfer well to a colonial setting, especially to the canadien population. Thus, concentrating on the period immediately after the Conquest, from 1764 to 1775, Douglas Hay has argued strongly that the meanings of the jury system were not duplicated in Lower Canada; and for the entire period through to Confederation, André Morel has dismissed the role of the jury as tool of legal and constitutional education of the francophone population.(36) To examine this issue more closely, let us see what the respective attitudes of the British and canadien elites were to juries in general, and the grand jury in particular.

1. The British elites

The British merchants of 1764 evidently placed the jury system at the heart of their conception of the constitutional order, and throughout the period, the institution of the jury remained solidly implanted in the hearts of the colony's British elites. British attitudes towards the importance of the grand jury are perhaps best expressed in the charges to the grand juries, both by the chairmen of the Quarter Sessions and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Thus, in the first published charge to a grand jury in the colony, at the Montreal King's Bench in 1797, Chief Justice Monk declared that "the extensive powers vested with, and the great benefits to be expected from, a Grand Jury, are only experienced and felt by the people of a free Government." Later encomiums were not lacking. In 1810 Thomas McCord, chairman of the Quarter Sessions, harkened back to the Saxon roots of the grand jury and described its adoption throughout the world to prove that "it is the product of the highest wisdom, and the greatest benefit that has been conferred upon us by the mother country". In 1822, addressing the Oyer and Terminer grand jury, Chief Justice Reid declared that "among the many duties, which as members of society, you may be called upon to perform, there are few more interesting, or more beneficial to the public, than that of a grand juror." And in 1829, David Ross, chairman of the quarter sessions, drew a direct parallel between the criminal courts, composed of the judges, the grand jury, and the petty jury, and the political constitution, composed of the King, the Lords, and the Commons (no doubt thereby flattering the shopkeepers and small merchants who made up the grand jury).(37)

Reid was moreover especially active in encouraging grand juries to go beyond the simple evaluation of accusations laid before them; repeatedly in the early 1820s he described them as representing the entire district and called on them as such to present "whatever evils and inconveniencies may be found to prevail [in the district], and which may be found to be gaining ground to the prejudice of the public interest", assuring them that "the voice and representation of a grand jury, acting on their oaths of office and guided by motives of public good, must have weight and influence, and will always meet with the consideration, not only from this court, but from every branch of this government, executive and legislative."(38)

There were, however, limits to be placed on the grand jury's political implication. Thus, in November 1822, an Oyer and Terminer grand jury, composed largely of tories such as the John Forsyth (the chairman), Thomas Andrew Turner, and John Molson, responded to Reid's call by launching an all-out attack on the legislature. Declaring themselves to be "deeply sensible of their duty as representing the said District", they regretted that the legislature, which alone had the power to redress the evils they complained of, had ignored previous grand jury presentments, and went on to decry such matters as the proliferation of lottery offices, the weak state of the revenue laws that allowed the open sale of contraband goods, the existence of counterfeiters on the U.S. border (suggesting co-operation with the Americans in this regard), the poor state of the roads throughout the district, and the proliferation of unlicensed physicians, as well as numerous comments on the criminal justice system itself.(39) This wide-spread commentary was apparently too much even for Reid; a year later, his charge warned the grand jury that their representations "must be directed to objects properly within your cognizance, and not extend to those authorities or departments, over which, neither the grand jury, nor the Court have any jurisdiction or controul", a significant step back from his previous statements.(40)

2. The canadien elites

Canadien elite attitudes towards the grand jury were more complex. Unfortunately, for the period before the 1810s, attitudes towards the grand jury are difficult to judge. Certainly, there are the negative comments of Michel Chartier de Lotbinière in the 1770s, discussed by André Morel,(41) although those focussed on the role of the jury in criminal trials rather than their place, more broadly, in the constitutional order. On the other hand, the willing participation of francophone elites in the elaboration of the 1764 Quebec grand jury presentment, and their outrage when their participation was perverted, suggest a certain willingness to use this new tool of expression. Indeed, there is no evidence that they attempted to boycott the jury process; instead, we find canadien jurors signing other presentments later in the 1760s, though with the proviso that they were doing so after having had a translation read to them.(42)

A more indirect way of judging canadien attitudes towards the grand jury in the intervening period is simply by the examining the grand jurors summoned by the sheriff who neglected their duties and were fined as a result. Here, the contrast between canadien and British grand jurors is striking, but not in the way one would expect: of grand jurors fined for defaulting (not turning up when summoned) in the Montreal Quarter Sessions between 1778 and 1809, and again between 1810 and 1830, only a third were canadiens. In other words, even in the eighteenth century, canadien grand jurors were already taking their duties more seriously than their British counterparts.(43)

By the 1820s, indeed, it is clear that canadien elites were firmly convinced of the essentialness of juries in general and indeed, canadien reformers were using this as a weapon to attack their autocratic opponents. Thus, in 1827 we find La Minerve describing juries as "l'appanage essentiel de la liberté dans notre gouvernement ... impossible d'en séparer notre constitution sans le détruire"(44); and in 1830, the special committee of the House of Assembly went even further, declaring that "le droit des citoyens d'être jurés et celui d'un peuple d'élire et de donner son avis sur les lois par les représentants de son choix et tirés de son sein, sont de pair et ne peuvent exister l'un sans l'autre".(45) The contrast with Ross' charge to the Quarter Sessions grand jury is instructive: Ross put it in terms of King (judges), Lords (grand jurors), and Commons (petty jurors), while the committee-members made a direct parallel between jury service and democracy.

At the same time, though, the discourse of the canadien elites with regards to juries focussed entirely on their role in the criminal trial process. What they were defending was the "droit de naissance enfin qui appartient à tout sujet Anglois, d'être jugé par ses pairs et de les juger".(46) The difference between grand and petty juries, and the possibility of an explicitly political function for the grand jury, had no place in this conception.

3. Two concepts of the grand jury

By the 1820s, then, the entire elite population was convinced of the importance of juries; the controversy turned, as we saw, on their composition and mode of selection, reflecting deeper disagreement about their veritable nature. Reform-minded canadien elites called for a democratization of the jury process, though this democratization also had a decidedly ethno-linguistic spin. Thus, for example, in 1827 La Minerve put it in blunt terms:

Un grand nombre des Jurés de ces villes d'abord est composé d'hommes quelquefois entièrement étrangers aux accusés dont la cause est portée devant eux. Ils le sont sur tout ce qui tient aux habitudes et aux moeurs, à l'éducation, à la langue, aux usages, au pays, à la profession, &c. Ils le sont enfin par tout ce qui peut éloigner les hommes les uns des autres, les isoler en quelque sorte et les priver des objets de comparaison par lesquels ils pourroient juger des motifs et de l'intention et par conséquent du ,érite ou du démerite de leurs actions. Souvent ils sont nés dans un autre hémisphère, pou s'ils ont pris naissance sur la partie du globe que nous habitons, la différence sous d'autres rapports n'est pas toujours moins marquée.(47)

In 1829, a committee of the House of Assembly, struck to inquire into the qualification and summoning of jurors, was even more direct: with regards to the ordinance of 1787, which had opened jury service to tenants, the committee declared that

il n'est certainement pas vrai qu'il soit difficile de trouver des jureurs dans les villes de Québec et de Montréal, qui soient franc-tenanciers, c'est-à-dire propriétaires de biens-fonds; rien au contraire n'est plus facile, dans toutes les parties de cette province, et dans les villes comme dans les campagnes. La propriété est si généralement répartie, que les propriétaires forment de beaucoup le plus grand nombre, mais comme les propriétés foncières sont et qu'elles étaient, surtout en [1787], entre les mains des anciens habitans de ce pays, votre Comité ne peut voir dans la loi provinciale sous considération, que l'expression du désir de la part des hommes en autorité, d'éloitgner les propriétaires Canadiens ou de les ravaler en leur donnant pour égaux, dans l'honorable et importante fonction des jurys et enquêtes, des hommes sans facultés et dénués d'indépendance, au risque d'abatardir cette belle institution des Jurys, en vailissant les jureurs.(48)

In contrast, Tory papers such as the Montreal Gazette opposed and ridiculed the notion of a broader selection of the jury, and the grand jury in particular. In 1833, after the jury qualification act had come into effect, the Gazette commented satirically on the composition of the King's Bench grand jury:

Independent of their almost total ignorance of reading and writing, not merely of the English but even of the French language, there is not in the very appearance and behaviour of the present Grand Jury, any thing to excite that reverance and respect, which every one acquainted with the Constitution has been taught to entertain for the Grand Inquest of the District, under the criminal law of England. To our readers at a distance who have not had an opportunity of visiting our court house to see the present jury; we would merely remark, that it is the first that has appeared in a uniform costume; hodden grey capot with horn buttons and sash. One man, in truly independent style, has doffed his capot, and sits in the box with only his vest of étoffe du pays, to which are attached drab barragon sleeves. The majority have their necks decorated with tri-color worsted comforters - in short, they are people well enough adapted for the Petty Jury, but completely out of their sphere in the capacity of Grand Jurors. By the way the learned foreman spells "Bill" Bille: Doctor Pangloss has long since informed us, that some people spell physician with an F.(49)

To use the imagery of Ross, the Commons had invaded the Lords. In some ways, the British view had not advanced significantly since the first Quarter Sessions grand jury in 1764 ...

We are then back to two fundamentally different concepts of the grand jury. On the one hand, a more republican conception of the avatar of democracy, the birthright of the people; on the other, a Burkean notion of the source of order, the appanage of the elites, not to be opened to the common ruck. On the one hand, an exclusively criminal institution; on the other, an essential part of the political process.

Nevertheless, it is important not to push too far this distinction between democratic and oligarchical notions of the jury. The "democratic" conception of the jury defended by the canadien reformers and their allies was still severely limited, far more so than the franchise, for example. The £10 property qualification for jurors contrasted with the £2 qualification for voters, which severely curtailed the "democratic" nature of the jury, even when all eligible inhabitants were included. Thus, for example, the lists of inhabitants eligible as jurors for the district of Quebec, which the 1830 House of Assembly committee praised for its completeness, comprised some 3000 names, out of a population of 80 000 - in other words, less than 5% of the population bore this fundamental hallmark of citizenship.(50) And no reformers suggested that the jury qualification be lowered; indeed, the jury qualification act of 1832 actually raised the qualification for grand jurors, to £25 annual value in freehold, or £60 annual rent, for the King's Bench, and £15 annual value in freehold, or £40 annual rent, for the Quarter Sessions.(51) Finally, never of course was there any question of extending the right to sit on juries to women; this is the period, we must recall, when the Patriotes suggested the disenfranchisement of all women, including those of property. Even the more "radical" conception of juries thus remained firmly elitist, and firmly male.

III. The grand jury in the political process

The grand jury was thus firmly an institution of the male elites of the colony, and both canadien and British elites were convinced of its importance, though by the 1820s they were disagreeing fundamentally on its meaning. But what was the actual role of the grand jury in the political process? Was all the fuss simply rhetorical, as many authors have suggested regarding the charges to the grand juries? or did grand juries actually have a part to play in the political process? Some initial observations on the functioning of grand juries in the district of Montreal allow me to advance some tentative hypotheses. though the work in this regard is by no means complete.

In the first place, it is essential to distinguish between two levels of political activity, colonial and local, and the two types of grand juries, King's Bench and Quarter Sessions. The importance of the grand juries in the political process varied considerably according to these different elements.

At the colonial level, the role of grand jury in the political process was relatively limited. The first Quebec grand jury clearly tried to develop a role as a representative institution, even going so far as to invite people to address grievances to it,(52) but even more clearly failed. In general, grand juries made relatively few recommendations directed at general colonial politics; in the papers of the civil secretary of the governor between 1764 and 1792, for example, the main repository of political representations in the colony before the institution of the House of Assembly, there are only seven references to grand jury presentments, of which three were from Montreal juries.(53) The exception to this rule was presentments specifically directed towards the criminal justice system itself: prisons, asylums, the operation of the courts, and so on, which lay within the direct competence of the grand jury and the court. As Jean-Marie Fecteau has shown, the King's Bench grand juries in particular here added their voice to broader elite calls for reform, especially from the late 1810s on.(54) Further, the publication of these presentments in the various newspapers insured that their contents became part of the general political debate on the issue, along with editorials, letters to the editor, petitions, and other means of political expression.

Grand juries did make occasional presentments on matters outside of their direct competence. The November 1822 presentment has already been mentioned, and there were a few others: thus, in March 1790, the King's Bench grand jury suggested that, due to a shortage of wheat, its export be restricted;(55) and in September 1828, the same body suggested modifications to the manner that sheriff's sales' were conducted.(56) But these were rare, and on such crucial and conflictual issues as the functioning of the civil justice system, which one might expect King's Bench grand juries at least to address (they were, after all, communicating with the Chief Justice of the District of Montreal, the second most important figure in the entire judicial apparatus), I have found only this single example.

This did not mean that the grand jury could not on occasion indirectly play an important political role. On the one hand, grand jury presentments could form part of the political rhetoric deployed in other causes. Thus, for example, in the 1803 quarrel over taxation for prisons, the fact that the Montreal King's Bench grand jury (composed largely of merchants, as usual) came out in support of a local assessment for raising funds for the prisons was later used by the administration in its fight against the Parti canadien's support for increased duties.(57) And on the other hand, as we saw, the composition and actions of juries could become important sources of political conflict. Nevertheless, in perspective, this indirect role was also limited.

The relative infrequency with which grand jury presentments aimed at broader political ends, beyond criminal justice as such, is understandable. First, there were many other means of expression available to the elites: petitions, for example, which were a much more commonly used means of expressing the wishes of the elites, both to the colonial administration and to the House of Assembly; newspapers themselves provided an essential forum, especially from the 1810s onwards; and from 1792, of course, the House of Assembly was yet another vehicle for the expression of elite sentiment. As well, unless the presentments were published or sent up to the administration, the grand jurors were not necessarily addressing central figures in the broader political process: the Chief Justice in the case of the King's Bench (whose interventions in the administration were largely limited to the law and the administration of justice; Reid in particular was little involved in politics), and local justices of the peace on the other. There were thus more efficient ways of reaching those in power than through grand jury presentments.

At a local level, however, the situation was quite different. Here, there was no representative government, with the cities being run by the city's justices of the peace. These same justices sat on the bench of the Quarter Sessions and heard the presentments of their grand juries, who thus had a direct input into local administration.(58) At this level, the Quarter Sessions grand juries in particular played significant roles in the political process, providing the means for local elites to comment on and participate in the exercise of local power.(59)

For Montreal, between 1765 and 1830 there were over 70 Quarter Sessions and ten King's Bench grand jury presentments that dealt with issues concerning local administration, ranging from the method of paving the streets to the organization of policing.(60) A full analysis of the contents and effects of these presentments lies beyond the scope of this paper, but some of their essential features give an idea of the importance of the grand jury as a political institution at this level.

First, the presentments very clearly expressed the desires of class of merchants and shopkeepers who made up the grand juries. Thus, for example, groups detrimental to the business of these men, such as pedlars, unlicensed tavernkeepers, or unruly carters received considerable negative attention.(61) And from about the 1810s, presentments began to show signs of the considerable concern about public order then much in vogue; thus, for example, it was a Quarter Sessions grand jury presentment in 1817, transmitted first to the Governor and then to the House of Assembly, that led to the establishment of the city's night watch, an important innovation in the policing of the city.(62) The moral stances of this class are also evident: in particular, an attention to the plight of the "deserving" poor, as in an 1814 presentment where the grand jury asked the court to intervene against firewood speculation "qui pourroit devenir très dangereux voyant que le pauvre peuple est incapable de se pourvoir de bois de chauffage au moyen de cette speculation qui pourroit induire le pauvre peuple a des conséquences tres funestes s'il nest pas pris des mesures en conséquence", coupled with a condemnation of the undeserving poor, as in an 1821 presentment against the tolerance of beggars, which distinguished them clearly from "les vrais pauvres incapables de gagner leur vie".(63)

Second, the grand jury presentments were also used on occasion to criticize directly the members of the city's local administration, the justices of the peace and their inferior officers. Thus, in 1788, a Quarter Sessions grand jury complained of "the glaring neglect of the inspector of police in not keeping the roads in this city and suburbs in proper repair;" King's Bench grand jury presentments in 1824 and 1825 both complained that the financial resources allowed by the legislature for the watch were insufficient to the needs of the city; in 1821, the Quarter Sessions grand jury presentment strongly condemned the justices for apathy and inefficiency in their attention to their duties; and most directly, in 1820 an Oyer and Terminer grand jury (including three justices of the peace who were themselves involved in the administration of the city), after severely criticizing the municipal administration, called for the incorporation of the city of Montreal.(64)

Third, there are indications that some inhabitants of the city came to see the Quarter Sessions grand jury in particular as a body which could potentially represent them. Thus, for example, the grand jury occasionally received petitions asking for redress of various grievances; in July 1825, a petition from over a hundred residents of the city complaining of the municipal administration was directed to the grand jurors, not directly to the justices.(65) And at another level, even the legislature seemed to see a representative role for the Quarter Sessions grand jury in the administration of the city, by giving it control over the nomination of various key bodies. Thus, from 1796, it was the grand jury that annually nominated the assessors who set the property taxes on the city's inhabitants; from 1818, they also nominated the wardens of the city's house of industry; and from 1829, the members of the city's fire society.(66)

Finally, the political role of the grand jury at a local level, unlike its composition or its role in criminal cases, does not seem to have been the source of conflict between canadien and British elites. Indeed, all Quarter Sessions grand jury presentments were signed by both canadien and British jurors, and almost as often written in French as in English. The reasons for this are evident: in matters of local administration, the local commercial elites who dominated the jury, both canadien and British, shared common values.

Presenting was all well and good, but were these presentments heeded? Here the jury is still out, but certainly, insofar as the Quarter Sessions grand jury is concerned, the justices on the bench did on numerous occasions heed the presentments, often through the framing of municipal regulations. Thus, for example, the presentments against firewood speculation and beggars, mentioned above, resulted in specific regulations; and an 1810 regulation outlawing burials within the city, later an important bone of contention with the local Catholic hierarchy, began "A former Grand Jury having presented as a nuisance, interments within the city".(67) If they concerned matters out of the justices's competence, presentments might be sent on to the administration; thus, it was a Quarter Sessions grand jury presentment in January 1791, passed on to the Governor by the justices, which eventually led to the demolition of the fortifications of Montreal, an crucial step in the city's nineteenth-century "improvement",(68) and as already mentioned, the 1817 presentment on the watch led to the 1818 Watch act. Nevertheless, it is important to recall that the grand jury had no coercive power, and that grand jury presentments were not always listened to. This was increasingly so in the later 1820s, under the local administration of more autocratic Tory justices such as Samuel Gale and David Ross: in 1831, for example, the Quarter Sessions grand jury complained that "in times past the recommendations of one Grand Jury have been generally forgotten by the members of the Court during the next term."(69)

Still, it was thus at this level, and largely in the Quarter Sessions, that grand juries played their most important role in the political process, representing the interests of the merchant and commercial class in the local administration of their city and affording them with a means of wielding political power at this local level. Given their important role in this respect, it is perhaps more comprehensible that the sheriff believed that they should be summoned only from the city itself. To canadien reformers in the 1820s, however, as we have seen, the role of juries, both grand and petty, was limited to the criminal process, and in this role the Quarter Sessions grand jury dealt with cases from the entire district; little wonder that for them, it was crucial to call the Quarter Sessions grand jury from the body of the district, and not simply from the city itself. What the local canadien elites on the Montreal Quarter Sessions grand jury thought of this remains to be determined; did they oppose the dilution of their power in this respect?

Conclusion

Three main points come out of this preliminary examination of the political role of grand juries in Quebec and Lower Canada. In the first place, the grand juries were certainly representative institutions, but of the elites, and the urban elites in particular: in no way did they even remotely represent the population at large. Secondly, the notion of the jury as central to a specifically British political identity is debatable; indeed, it was equally important to notions of citizenship advanced by canadien reformers, though with the important difference of an almost exclusive concentration on the grand jury's role in the criminal process. And finally, grand juries did play an important political role, but not at the colonial level. Rather, they were integral part of the political process at a local level, where in the absence of representative institutions they became one of the principal voices of the urban elites, both canadien and British. Whether this continued after the institution of municipal government in 1832, remains to be seen.


Notes

1. For examples of both arguments, see in particular the articles in J.S. Cockburn and Thomas A. Green, eds., Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury in England, 1200-1800 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988); on eighteenth-century England, compare, for example, the approaches of P.J.R. King, "'Illiterate Plebeians, Easily Misled': Jury Composition, Experience and Behavior in Essex, 1735-1815" (254-304), and Douglas Hay, "The Class Composition of the Palladium of Liberty: Trial Jurors in the Eighteenth Century" (305-357).

2. Examples include Douglas Hay's work on eighteenth-century England and Quebec: "Property, Authority and the Criminal Law," in Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John Rule, E.P. Thompson, and Cal Winslow, Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Middlesex: Penguin, 1975): 17-64; "The Meanings of the Criminal Law in Quebec, 1764-1774," in Louis A. Knafla ed., Crime and Criminal Justice in Europe and Canada: Essays (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1985): 77-110; also on British North America, Paul Romney, "From Constitutionalism to Legalism: Trial by Jury, Responsible Government, and the Rule of Law in the Canadian Political Culture," Law and History Review 7(1)(1989): 121-174. The immense literature on the constitutional order in the eighteenth century, especially in the American colonies and the United States, is replete with references to the fundamentally defining nature of the right top trial by jury; for a recent example, see Daniel J. Hulsebosch, "Imperia in Imperio: The Multiple Constitutions of Empire in New York, 1750-1777", Law and History Review 16(2)(1998): 319-380.

3. A notable exception, though for a period which precedes ours, is J.S. Morrill, The Cheshire Grand Jury, 1625-1659: A Social and Administrative Study (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1976). See also Norma Landau, The Justices of the Peace, 1679-1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

4. For the general context of the presentment, see A.L. Burt, The Old Province of Quebec (Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1968) I: 99-100 and André Morel, "La réception du droit criminel anglais au Québec (1760-1892)", Revue Juridique Thémis 13(2-3)(1976): 459-460, 483-484. The text itself, with ancillary documents, is in Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty, Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791 (Ottawa: Historical Documents Publication Board, 1918): 212-219.

5. NA MG23 GII1 (Murray papers): 17/11/1764 to Cramahé, "The Grand Jury gentlemen and their adherents begin to see and be ashamed of their folly. They expected and wished for resentment on my part, the contempt and disregard I have shown to all their performance has totaly disconcerted them."

6. Journals of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada (henceforth JHALC) 38(1829) Appendix Ee.

7. Ibid. 20(1812): 110; 26(1817): 494 and Appendix K.

8. There are numerous references to the question of the qualification of juries in newspapers from 1827 on; see for example the series of articles in La Minerve 2/7/1827 through 13/8/1827, or JHALC 38(1829): 336-347, 39(1830): Appendices Ee and Ss.

9. There are relatively few studies of grand juries themselves in early modern England; the most notable are Morrill, The Cheshire Grand Jury; J.M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986): 318-333; and portions of both King, "'Illiterate Plebeians, Easily Misled'" and Hay, "The Class Composition of the Palladium of Liberty".

10. On the grand jury in various colonial settings, see, for example, Gwenda Morgan, "Law and Social Change in Colonial Virginia: The Role of the Grand Jury in Richmond County, 1692-1776", Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 95(4)(1987): 453-480; Christopher Waldrep, "Egalitarianism in the Oligarchy: The Grand Jury and Criminal Justice in Livingston County, 1799-1808," Filson Club History Quarterly 55(3)(1981): 253-267; Elise Histed, "The Introduction and Use of the Grand Jury in Victoria," Journal of Legal History 8(2)(1987): 167-177; Y.K. Lee, "The Grand Jury in Early Singapore (1819-1873)," Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 46(2)(1973): 55-150.

11. 4 George III, 17/9/1764, "An Ordinance for regulating and establishing the Courts of Judicature, Justices of the Peace, Quarter-Sessions, Bailiffs, and other Matters relative to the Distribution of Justice in this Province".

12. 27 George III c.1 (1787).

13. As shown in the various articles in F. Murray Greenwood and Barry Wright, eds., Canadian State Trials: Law, Politics, and Security Measures, 1608-1837 (Toronto, UTP, 1997); see for example Jean-Marie ecteau, F. Murray Greenwood and Jean-Pierre Wallot, "Sir James Craig's 'Reign of Terror' and Its Impact on Energency Powers in Lower Canada, 1810-13": 342.

14. Many of the articles in Cockburn and Green, Twelve Good Men and True focus on this issue.

15. Richard Burn, The Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer 16th ed. (London, 1788) II: 693-724; King, "'Illiterate Plebeians, Easily Misled'": 258-261; Hay, "The Class Composition of the Palladium of Liberty": 311-329.

16. 27 George III c.1 (1787).

17. The process is discussed in some detail in JHALC 26(1817): Appendix K and 39(1830): Appendices Ee and Ss.

18. For the eighteenth century, two such lists have survived for the district of Montreal, from 1765 (though only concerning protestants; NA RG4 A1: 5417-5419) and from 1785 (NA RG4 A1: 9000-9007). For the nineteenth century, there are three such lists, from 1811, 1813 and (probably) late 1817 (NA RG4 B19 volume 1A).

19. Testimony of Frederick William Ermatinger, in JHALC 26(1817): Appendix K and 39(1830): Appendix Ss.

20. JHALC 26(1817): Appendix K.

21. ANQM TL30 S1 SS11, Registers of the Courts of King's Bench and of Oyer and Terminer of the District of Montreal (henceforth KBR), March 1812.

22. See for example Uniacke (the Attorney General) to Cochran (the Civil Secretary) 2/11/1822, in NA RG1 E15A volume 43 (1822) file "Miscellaneous Judicial 1822".

23. Presentments of the grand jury to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, May 1823 (Montreal Herald 17/5/1823); to the Court of King's Bench, August 1824 (Montreal Herald 11/9/1824); to the Court of King's Bench, MArch 1825 (Montreal Herald 12/3/1825); charge of Chief Justice Reid to the grand jury of the Court of King's Bench, March 1825 (Montreal Gazette 12/3/1825).

24. Testimony of Frederick William Ermatinger, JHALC 26(1817): Appendix K.

25. The exact basis for the distinctions is often unclear: for example, in the 1813 list, what distinguished Alexander Patterson, a merchant and tenant of property valued at £160, slotted for Quarter Sessions grand jury duty, from James Leslie, a merchant and tenant of property valued at £80, slotted for King's Bench grand jury duty?

26. Testimony of Frederick William Ermatinger, JHALC 26(1817): Appendix K.

27. From the 1813 jury list in NA RG4 B19 volume 1A.

28. All analyses of the actual composition of juries in this paper are based on a list of some 5000 grand jurors that I have compiled from a number of sources. For the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, these are the registers of the court, 1779-1830 (ANQM TL32 S1 SS11, henceforth QSR). For the Court of King's Bench, these are a list of all King's Bench jurors 1778-1784 (NA RG4 A1 8987-96) and a smaller list for 1785 (NA RG4 A1: 9266-72), various King's Bench grand jury presentments from 1769 (Quebec Gazette 27/4/1769), 1787 (Montreal Gazette 24/5/1787), 1790 (NA RG4 A1: 14725-27), 1799 (Montreal Gazette 11/3/1799) and 1804 (JHALC 13(1805): 60-62), and the registers of the court, 1802-1803 and 1812-1830 (KBR).

29. The 1785 list of Montreal householders eligible for jury service contains 141 British and 200 canadien names, though the roundness of the latter figure is perhaps suspicious (NA RG4 A1: 9000-9007).

30. Based on the professional categorizations in the jury lists of 1811 and 1813 (NA RG4 B19 volume 1A) and in Thomas Doige, An Alphabetical List of the Merchants, Traders and Housekeepers Residing in Montreal. The Second Edition (Montreal, 1820). Evidently, these professional categorizations are in no way precise, but they do give some sense of the social standing of the individuals concerned. The unknowns were not necessarily of lower social status, since the sources used included large numbers of Montreal householders at the level of artisans and labourers.

31. On eighteenth-century England, King, "'Illiterate Plebeians, Easily Misled'": 261-283; Hay, "The Class Composition of the Palladium of Liberty": 329-348; Beattie, Crime and the Courts: 322-324; on British North America and the United States, Jim Phillips, "Halifax Juries in the Eighteenth Century" (forthcoming); Romney, "From Constitutionalism to Legalism": 130; Waldrep, "Egalitarianism in the Oligarchy".

32. Beattie, Crime and the Courts: 327-329; see also Hay, "The Class Composition of the Palladium of Liberty": 343-348.

33. Phillips, "Halifax Juries in the Eighteenth Century".

34. La Minerve 21/8/1828.

35. La Minerve 17/9/1827.

36. Hay, "Meanings of the Law": 94-97; Morel, "La réception du droit criminel anglais": 521-523.

37. Montreal Gazette 20/3/1797, 30/4/1810, 16/11/1822, 12/1/1829.

38. Ibid., 16/5/1821.

39. Ibid., 23/11/1822.

40. Ibid., 6/9/1823.

41. "La réception du droit criminel anglais": 498-499.

42. NA RG4 A1: 4491-4492 (1765); Quebec Gazette 11/8/1766.

43. From QSR.

44. La Minerve 2/7/1827.

45. JHALC 39(1830): Appendix Ss.

46. La Minerve 13/8/1827.

47. La Minerve 16/8/1827.

48. JHALC 38(1829): 343.

49. Montreal Gazette 3/5/1833.

50. JHALC 39(1830): Appendix Ss.

51. 2 William IV c.22 (25/2/1832).

52. Quebec Gazette 22/11/1764.

53. NA RG4 A1.

54. Jean-Marie Fecteau, La pauvreté, le crime, L'Etat au Québec, de la fin du XVIIIe siècle à 1840 (Montréal: VLB, 1989), passim.

55. NA RG4 A1: 14725-27.

56. Montreal Gazette 15/9/1828.

57. Jean-Pierre Wallot, "La querelle des prisons dans les Bas-Canada (1805-1807)", in Un Québec qui bougeait: Trame socio-politique au tournant du XIXe siècle (Montréal: Boréal Express, 1973): 47-105.

58. For an overview of local administration in MOntreal before 1832, see my «Les structures étatiques locales à Montréal au début du XIXe siècle», Les Cahiers d'histoire, 17(1-2)(1997): 55-75.; on the operation of the criminal courts at the level of the justices, see my «Criminal Justice, Civil Society, and the Local State: The Justices of the Peace in the District of Montreal, 1764-1830», Ph.D., Université de Montréal, 1995.

59. As has been rermarked for local grand juries in other colonial contexts: see the literature described above, note 10.

60. These are mainly drawn from QSR and KBR, with a few additional presentments from newspapers and from the documents of the Clerk of the Peace (ANQM TL32 S1 SS1).

61. Among others, see QSR 9/10/1766, 12/4/1788, ?/7/1794, 29/10/1814, 29/10/1825, 30/10/1828, 30/4/1830; Montreal Herald 25/11/1820, 17/9/1823; Montreal Gazette 23/11/1822, 15/9/1828.

62. JHALC 27(1818): 76-79.

63. QSR 29/10/1814, 19/1/1821,

64. QSR 24/1/1788, 19/7/1821; Montreal Gazette 29/11/1820, 11/9/1824, 12/3/1825.

65. QSR 19/7/1825; the original petition, dated 15/7/1825, is in ANQM TL32 S1 SS1.

66. 36 George III c.9 (1796); 58 George III c.15 (1818); 9 George IV c.16 (1829); 9 George IV c.57 (1829).

67. Montreal Gazette 5/3/1810, 27/4/1815; QSR 30/4/1822.

68. QSR 15/1/1791; NA RG4 A1: 16175-78.

69. QSR 19/7/1831.