Were such a man found, he would have earned a noble place in our history.

The House of Assembly, by a majority of thirty-six to sixteen, had voted an address to the Governor, expressing their abhorrence at the outrages which had been heaped on the Queen's Representative, and approving of his just and impartial administration of the Government with his late as well as his present advisers. This address he was to receive at Government House, not at Monklands. He drove into the city, escorted by a troop of volunteer dragoons and accompanied by several of his suite. Showers of stones greeted his progress, and one, at least, fell into his carriage. The Riot Act was read, but the crowd had no ill feeling towards the military, and showed at that time no desire to give an excuse for their interference. The sole object of their hatred was the Governor-General. They waited his reappearance to renew the assault. But he went back by a different route. Discovering what he had done, every vehicle they could press into their service was launched in pursuit, and when they came up with the Vice-regal carriage they assailed it murderously. When the carriage cleared the mob, the head of the Governor's brother was found to be cut, the chief of the police and the captain of the escort injured. Every panel of the carriage had been driven in. It was now no longer safe for members to appear in the street. Monklands was threatened with a hostile visit. For some weeks Lord Elgin did not enter Montreal, but kept within the bounds of his country seat.

It would be easy to reproach Lord Elgin, as wanting in pluck, even as persons were found ready to condemn the Ministry for want of prevision in not making preparations against those unhappy and disgraceful events. Lord Elgin behaved with the truest manliness. No one could doubt the courage of the Duke of Wellington, yet he shrank from going into the City of London in the excited days of 1830. Did the victor of Assaye and Waterloo fear? He would not have been an Irishman had he known what it was to fear, and the Scotch blood in Elgin is a guarantee that no cowardly consideration could have weight with him. The Duke of Wellington said he would have gone into the city had the law been equal to his protection. Fifty dragoons would have done it.

LORD ELGIN BURNED IN EFFIGY.

561 But suppose firing became necessary, who could say where it would stop? Ten innocent persons would fall for one guilty. "Would this," asked the Duke, "have been wise or humane, for a little bravado, or that the country might not be alarmed for a day or two?" Lord Elgin reasoned in the same spirit. He knew that the French of Lower Canada were ready to rise as one man in support of the Government. What would have been his self-reproach had he, for the sake of a "little bravado," been the cause of a collision between the two races? Major Campbell, his Secretary, who was with him during the whole time, bears evidence to his coolness and manliness of bearing. Though no taunt and no advice could make him risk shedding blood, he was, when the fury of the populace was at its height, determined to yield nothing to mob clamour. At the same time, he thought it his duty to tender his resignation, to which offer Lord Grey replied as we might expect.

*

The insults to Lord Elgin and the Baldwin Government were not confined to Montreal. Effigy burning, that sensible practice, took place in Toronto, while portions of the Tory press talked disloyalty. One journal asked, "whether our loyalty was to be contemned or not?"+ Another was in favour of separation. The correspondent of another wrote from Montreal that it was better to become a State of the Union, where British laws and precedents were respected, than be governed by bigoted, unenterprising, domineering Frenchmen.§ Of course most of this sort of trash was mere peevishness, and what the Americans in their way would call "cussedness," in men raging at their dethronement from power, and their banishment from the sweets of oppression and monopoly.

The Legislature, which had sat since the riots in a temporary building, was prorogued on the 30th of May. Early in June the Rebellion Losses Bill was brought under the notice of the Imperial Parliament. Mr Gladstone, with characteristic vehemence, denounced it as a measure for rewarding rebels. The debate was sustained for two nights, the Act being defended by Lord Russell

* See Letter to Lord Grey, dated 30th April, 1849.

+ Patriot. The Provincialist, of Hamilton.

+ Correspondent of the Hamilton Spectator.

and Sir Robert Peel. A majority of 141 supported common justice and constitutionalism. A few nights later, in the House of Lords, Lord Brougham moved a resolution similar to that of Mr. Herries in the Commons, calling on Her Majesty to disallow the Act. Unfortunately the motion was negatived only by three votes, and this was not done without the aid of proxies. But the attitude of the House of Commons was the important matter. This, combined with the firmness of the Government and the patriotic speech of Sir Robert Peel, did much to quiet the angry feelings of the misguiding and misguided among the Opposition. The conduct of the Ministry worked in the same direction. The Commissioners of the Conservative Government were re-appointed. They were furnished with instructions which placed upon the Act the most restricted and loyalist construction. A marked change took place in the Tory papers. On one point all were agreed. The habit of abusing the French must be discontinued. We must, they said, live with them on terms of amity and affection. Such was the first fruit of Baldwin's policy, which heated partisans had declared would bring about a war of races.

Two months later, unfortunately, the fires were again rekindled. Some persons implicated in the destruction of the parliamentary buildings were arrested. All except one who was committed for arson were bailed by the magistrates. They would not have been taken before the magistrates if a sufficient number of grand jurors to form a court could have been got together. This was impossible owing to the cholera, and the Government thought they could not with propriety put off action against these persons until November. The man committed for trial was bailed the next day by one of the judges of the Supreme Court. All this surely showed no vindictive spirit on the part of the Government; but it seemed otherwise to the mob. On the night of the 18th of August, a crowd attacked M. Lafontaine's house. Unfortunately, some of the persons within fired, and one of the assailants fell. The more riotous now cried out that Anglo-Saxon blood had been spilled by a Frenchman. Violent attacks were made on Lafontaine in the papers. A vast number of men wearing red scarves and ribands, attended the funeral of the poor misguided young

SEAT OF GOVERNMENT REMOVED.

563

fellow. Incendiaries were busy in several parts of the city. A coroner's jury, however, after a searching investigation, unanimously agreed to a verdict acquitting M. Lafontaine of all blame, This verdict," says Lord Elgin's biographer," was important, for two of the jury were Orangemen who had marched in the procession at the funeral of the young man who was shot." The Orangemen might march at a young fellow's funeral, and yet have no hand in the riots. If they had any hand in the riots they must have forgotten the principles of 1688, and the teaching of William III. However, the verdict had a good effect. Two of the most violent papers published articles apologising to Lafontaine for having unfavourably judged him before hand. But weeks passed on, and there was nothing to warrant confidence that in future the Parliament could with safety meet at Montreal. On the 3rd September, Lord Elgin wrote: "The existence of a perfect understanding between the more outrageous and the more respectable factions of the Tory party in the town, is rendered even more manifest by the readiness with which the former, through their organs, have yielded to the latter when they preached moderation in good earnest." Lord Elgin clung to the idea of continuing the meeting of parliament in Montreal. Not until November did he acknowledge that there was no other course to be taken but that pressed on him by his Ministers, that the Legislature should sit alternately at Toronto and Quebec. He determined to summon parliament for the next two sessions at Toronto. The perambulating system lasted until 1858, when Ottawa was chosen as the capital. Meanwhile, it did much good by removing the feeling of alienation which existed between the Canadians of French and the Canadians of British descent, acting just as mixed schools act on the sentiments of Protestants and Roman Catholics. Closer communication begat mutual esteem and respect.*

While these arrangements were being discussed, the feeling of Western Canada as to Baldwin and Baldwin's policy was tested by Lord Elgin making a tour in the stronghold of British feeling, accompanied only by an aide-de-camp and a servant. Everywhere he was received with cordiality, and in most places with enthu

*Lord Grey's Colonial Policy, i. 235. See also"Letters of Lord Elgin," p. 94.

siasm. But a long time elapsed before the "Family Compact" section of the Tories forgave the Governor. They made him a subject of ceaseless detraction. They were the dominant class still in society, and their disparaging tone was echoed by travellers in England, with the result of giving the impression that Lord Elgin was deficient in nerve and vigour. Anybody who has observed to what perfection the use of mendacious slander is carried here in Canada, will sympathise with the calm, generous-hearted, great man, who afterwards displayed so much energy and boldness in China. But time, the friend of truth and genius, the baffler of those foul things of twilight, the spy, and the slanderer, brought his vindication.

We have seen something of an annexation feeling, the fruit of the ignoble tendency of minorities, to look abroad for aid against the power of the majority. We have seen also that the word rebel" had actually been applied to Baldwin and his friends. What did those rebels do, when a manifesto, in favour of annexation, was put forward, bearing the signatures of magistrates, Queen's counsel, militia officers, and others holding commissions of one kind or other at the pleasure of the Crown? They advised Lord Elgin to remove from such offices as were held during the pleasure of the Crown, the gentlemen who admitted the genuineness of their signatures, and those who refused to disavow them.

In June, 1849, an Act, dear to Baldwin's heart, was passed by the Imperial Parliament, which, by lowering freights, increased the profits of the Canadian trade in wheat and timber, and greatly advanced the prosperity of Canada. Reciprocity did not come so quickly. As the year closed, disloyal utterances grew fainter, but did not wholly subside.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE Ministry now applied themselves with energy to developing the resources of the country. Reciprocity was pressed on the

[AUTHORITIES.-The same as the previous Chapter; the Clergy Reserves, by Charles Lindsey; Dublin University Magazine, November, 1876.]