Jonathan Sewell (born Jonathan Sewall; June 6, 1766 – November 11, 1839) was a lawyer, judge, defensive spymaster and political figure in Lower Canada. Sewell utilized the idea of substantive law (shaping how people should act through distilling punishment) over procedural law (outright punishing the guilty for what was committed) as much as possible when it came to delegating punishment for criminal cases specifically; Sewell saw the certainty of punishment over the seriousness of punishment as enough to alter the intentions of non-violent or non-hardened criminals. In civil suits, Sewell "likely did more than anyone to professionalize the administration of civil justice (in Lower Canada and Montreal) prior to the codification of civil laws in 1866."
Before being highly successful in politics, Sewell proved to be an extremely adept law student, performed as a violinist, and an orchestral composer, who once was selectively placed in "the lead position of an amateur orchestra" by the first member of the British royal family to live in British North America during any term longer than a visit (1791-1800), Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (at the time known as Prince Edward Augustus).
Sewell had attempted to influence the French-Canadian population in Montreal and Quebec (at the time Montreal and the colony of Lower Canada) in the early 1800s through both a failed attack on the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church in the colony, and through control of the educational system the colonial government was responsible with delegating. The latter could be argued as successful as the institution created under the "mind control to Anglicize" guidelines later became McGill University, but the parameters of Canadian and Quebec education changed with the ever-mutable nature of the colonial (the colony would become "united" multiple times with the rest of the British North American colonies and change systems of government until 1867) and federal education guidelines and government recommendations.
It is noted that Sewell's "extreme faith" in his attendance and due to his varying roles within his life caused him to be "easily the most powerful official (in Lower Canada and Montreal) under the Governor in the colony."
Sewell believed that the colony of Lower Canada was in danger of being "lost to England and the Crown" around the early 1800s. Sewell was retained by the Governor of Lower Canada at the time (Sir Craig) to "analyze the political ills of the colony." Sewell believed and mentioned in this report that "the great links of connection between a Government and its subjects are religious, Laws and Language," and he was under the impression that "those links did not exist in the colony." Sewell claimed that the British and the Canadians (used to refer generally to people of British and/or French descent at this time) nurtured a "national antipathy" and that because "no incorporation of two such Extremes (as British and French mannerisms) can ever be effected." Sewell concluded that "the province (of Lower Canada) must be converted to an English Colony, or, it will ultimately be lost to England." Finally, Sewell spoke on why he thought these political ills arose in the colony in the first place: 1) "From the French predilections in the great Mass of the Inhabitants" (a fancy way of saying "to prefer the political traditions that many of the French colonists have within them for political rioting and revolution over loyalism) and 2) "From want of Influence and power in the Executive Government." This is also why Sewell sought out to control institutions that would influence the French population of Lower Canada at the time like the Roman Catholic Church and (when that failed) the education system through the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (later McGill University) to increase the colonial anglicization of the colony.
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Early life
He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Jonathan Sewall, the last British attorney general of Massachusetts and Esther Quincy. After a group of patriots attacked the family's residence, the Sewalls moved to Bristol, England; they adopted the spelling Sewell for the family name at this time. He attended Brasenose College, Oxford and then went to New Brunswick in 1785, where he studied law with Ward Chipman. He was named registrar of the Vice Admiralty Court for New Brunswick in 1787. In 1788, he was called to the bar and set up practice.
From 1799-1800 Sewell had conducted updated verses for "God Save the King" which caused somewhat of a sensation in 1800 when they were sung on stage in London by actor Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan, after an assassination attempt on King George III.
Career
In 1789, he moved to Quebec City from New Brunswick and qualified as a lawyer there. In 1790, he served as interim attorney general for the province, which after went to James Monk. In 1793, Sewell was named solicitor general and inspector of the king's domain and, in 1795, he became attorney general and advocate general in Lower Canada. In 1796, he was appointed judge in the Vice-Admiralty Court at Quebec. On September 24 that same year, he married Henrietta, daughter of chief justice William Smith. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada for William-Henry (later Sorel) in 1796. In the house, he was often called on to draft bills, but with regard to government business, he normally played a role secondary to that of leaders of the English party such as John Young and Pierre-Amable de Bonne. He supported the party, except on two controversial issues — the financing of prisons in 1805 and the expulsion of Ezekiel Hart, a Jew — in which his legal opinions obliged him to break rank. He remained in the assembly until 1808.
Some time within 1796-1797, Sewell established an intelligence network within Lower Canada (alongside others like Montreal magistrate and merchant John Richardson) that "would function for more than a decade with relative effectiveness".
Sewell helped introduce the Better Preservation Act of 1797, which allowed the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of suspected treason. In 1797, he prosecuted David McLane for treason, who was executed. He prepared legislation which led to the establishment of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (later McGill College) in 1801, in an attempt to gain "control over the population" after a failed attempt to do it through the Roman Catholic Church.
In the early 1800s, Sewell crossed "his opinions based in law and his opinions based in (government) policy preference" with legal cases involving the Church of England (the Anglican Church), which was not something that he normally liked to do, as he "considered that the Church of England in the colony lacked in law certain rights essential to its functioning (such as the legal existence of parishes), but Sewell still believed it to be an established church (aka state religion) and took on cases for them. However, when it came to a religion that Sewell was not directly involved with legally or personally (such as the Roman Catholic Church in this case), Sewell "asserted that (government) policy dictated the exercise of a royal supremacy (that Sewell) believed was sanctioned in law, and (Sewell) argued that a supposed lack of legal recognition of the (Roman Catholic) church by British law should be exploited to oblige it to accept royal supremacy." That is evidence of both crossing opinions and hypocrisy on the part of Sewell, as "by 1801 Sewell had come to fear 'with too much certainty' that it (royal supremacy for the Roman Catholic church) had, in fact, been established by the Quebec Act of 1774."
Personal life
Sewell also led an amateur orchestra and performed violin in a quartet at Quebec City and opened the Theatre Royal there in 1832. He helped found the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec and served as its president from 1830 to 1831. Sewell was also a member of the Barons' Club and an active shareholder in the Union Company of Quebec (who built the Union Hotel as "a focal point of social life at Quebec)."
Some time in the 1820s "for many years", Sewell presided over the Quebec branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and was a leading member within the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. Sewell had offered to build a new chapel in 1824 as the cathedral was "too small" on the condition that he and his heirs could name the incumbent. Bishop Jacob Mountain accepter the offer and Sewell named his son Edmund Willoughby as incumbent. Sewell then purchased a lot on Rue Saint-Stanislas and constructed a building there based on a model of Ranelagh Chapel in London, called Holy Trinity Chapel. Sewell spent more than 3500 Pound Sterling on the building and it opened in November of 1825. The new chapel held 800. Governor Dalhousie called the chapel "neat" but called Willoughby "unfit and unqualified."
In December 1808, Sewell "assumed the patronage of a literary society formed by (one of his former pupils) Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspe plus other young men of Quebec."
Sewell promoted the theatre and tried to get the Catholic Bishop in Lower Canada, Joseph-Octave Plessis, to repeal the prohibition on theatre for Catholics - Sewell's efforts were not successful and could possibly have been an attempt at anglicizing the French Canadian population because of his previous attempts to control the Catholic Church in Canada by attacking its legitimacy in legislature.
In October 1818, Sewell was appointed to the board of the Royal Institution (of the Advancement of Learning, later McGill University) and headed a meeting of the managers of the Quebec Dispensary.
In 1819, Sewell donated "a fine imported cow and her bull calf" to the Agriculture Society, as it is noted that Sewell was "long a subscriber" to the society.
Works
An abstract from precedents of proceedings in the British House of Commons (1792)
Orders and rules of practice in the Court of King's Bench for the district of Quebec Lower Canada (1809)
A plan for the federal union of British provinces in North America (1814)
For Mrs Sewell My own dear Jewell
An Orderly Room
An Essay on the juridical history of France so far as it relates to the law of the province of Lower Canada... (1824)
Plan for a general legislative union of the British provinces in North America (1824, with J. B. Robinson)
Honours
LL.D. (honoris causa), Harvard (1823)
Election to the American Philosophical Society (1830)
Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1839)