Bliss, Henry

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. A. Spray, “BLISS, HENRY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bliss_henry_10E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Author, lawyer, and provincial agent for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; b. 1797 at Saint John, N.B., youngest son of Jonathan Bliss, chief justice of New Brunswick, and Mary Worthington; d. 31 July 1873 at London, England.
    • Henry Bliss, with his brother William Blowers Bliss, was educated at King’s College, Windsor, Nova Scotia, where he received a ba in 1816. In 1819, after legal training in Saint John, his father appointed him clerk of the pleas for the Supreme Court of New Brunswick. After his father’s death in 1822, he was dismissed from this office by the lieutenant governor, who appointed his aide-de-camp to the position. A bitter dispute over patronage ensued; Bliss travelled to England where he won the support of the colonial secretary, Lord Henry Bathurst. Bathurst in 1824 ordered that Bliss be reinstated; the latter, however, did not return to New Brunswick to take up the position, but was admitted to the English bar and later became a queen’s counsel. In 1826 he resigned as clerk of the pleas.
    • In 1824, Bliss and John Bainbridge, a London merchant, had been appointed joint agents for the province of New Brunswick in London at a salary of £200 a year. Bainbridge died in 1836, but Bliss continued to represent the province and, for a number of years, also served as agent for Nova Scotia. The agent’s task was to support legislation favourable to the colony, to oppose unfavourable legislation, and to try to see that the views of the provincial assembly were known at the Colonial Office. 
    • Another pamphlet presented Considerations of the claims and conduct of the United States respecting their north eastern boundary. . . (1826). In An essay on the re-construction of her majesty’s government in Canada (1839), he pointed out the dangers of a union of British North America modelled on American principles of federalism and set forth measures he felt necessary to secure satisfactory union. He apparently approved of confederation when the issue arose in 1864.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=645
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