If I had dissolved Parliament, I might have produced a rebellion, but most assuredly I should not have procured a change of Ministry.  The leaders of the party know that as well as I do, and were it possible to play tricks in such grave concerns, it would have been easy to throw them into utter confusion by merely calling upon them to form a Government.  They were aware, however, that I could not for the sake of discomfiting them hazard so desperate a policy:  so they have played out their game of faction and violence without fear of consequences.

The other course urged upon him by the Opposition, namely, that of reserving the Bill for the consideration of the Home Government, may appear to have been open to no such objections, and to have been in fact the wisest course which he could pursue, in circumstances of so much delicacy.  And this seems to have been the opinion of many in England, who were disposed to approve of his general policy; but it may be doubted whether they had weighed all the considerations which presented themselves to the mind of the Governor on the spot, and which he stated to Lord Grey as follows:—­

There are objections, too, to reserving the Bill which I think I shall consider insurmountable, whatever obloquy I may for the time entail on myself by declining to lend myself even to this extent to the plans of those who wish to bring about a change of administration.

In the first place the Bill for the relief of a corresponding class of persons in Upper Canada, which was couched in terms very nearly similar, was not reserved, and it is difficult to discover a sufficient reason, in so far as the representative of the Crown is concerned, for dealing with the one measure differently from the other.  And in the second place, by reserving the Bill I should only throw upon Her Majesty’s Government, or (as it would appear to the popular eye here) on Her Majesty herself, a responsibility which rests, and ought, I think, to rest, on my own shoulders.  If I pass the Bill, whatever mischief ensues may probably be repaired, if the worst comes to the worst, by the sacrifice of me.  Whereas, if the case be referred to England, it is not impossible that Her Majesty may only have before her the alternative of provoking a rebellion in Lower Canada, by refusing her assent to a measure chiefly affecting the interest of the habitans, and thus throwing the whole population into Papineau’s hands, or of wounding the susceptibilities of some of the best subjects she has in the province.  For among the objectors to this Bill are undoubtedly to be found not a few who belong to this class; men who are worked upon by others more selfish and designing, to whom the principles of constitutional Government are unfathomable mysteries, and who still regard the representative of royalty, and in a more remote sense the Crown and Government of England, if not as the objects of a very romantic