Governor Murray’s letter to the Lords of Trade, written a few days after the presentment of the jury is a fair and statesman-like view of the difficult period.
“* * * Little, very little, will content the new subjects, but nothing will satisfy the licentious fanaticks trading here, but the expulsion of the Canadians who are perhaps the bravest and best race upon the globe, a race who, could they be indulged with a few privileges which the laws of England deny to Roman Catholics at home, would soon get the better of every national antipathy to their conquerors and become the most faithful and most useful set of men in this American empire.
“I flatter myself there will be some remedy found out even in the laws for the relief of this people. If so, I am positive the popular clamours in England will not prevent the humane heart of the king from following its own dictates. I am confident, too, my royal master will not blame the unanimous opinion of his council here for the ordinance establishing the courts of justice, as nothing less could be done to prevent great numbers from emigrating directly and certain I am, unless the Canadians are admitted on juries and are allowed judges and lawyers who understand their language, His Majesty will lose the greatest part of this valuable people.”
His letter immediately continues with the following allusion which helps us to place the position of Montreal in the above general constitutional crisis then affecting the colony. “I beg leave further,” says Murray, “to represent to your Lordship that a lieutenant governor at Montreal is absolutely necessary. That town is in the heart of the most populous part of the provinces. It is surrounded by the Indian nations and is 180 miles from the capital. It is there that the most opulent priests live and there are settled the greatest part of the French noblesse. Consequently every intrigue to our disadvantage will be hatched there.”
A postscript to this letter to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, gives Murray’s appreciation of some of the great commercial class: “P.S.--I have been informed that Messrs. William McKenzie, Alexander McKenzie and William Grant have been soliciting their friends in London to prevail upon Your Lordship to get them admitted into his Majesty’s council of this province. I think it my duty to acquaint Your Lordships that the first of these men is a notorious smuggler and a turbulent man, the second a weak man of little character and the third a conceited boy. In short it will be impossible to do business with any of them.”