We have had a fortnight of crisis consequent on the arrests which I reported to you last week; which may perhaps be the prelude (though I do not like to be too sanguine) to better times.  A most violent excitement was got up by the Press against M. Lafontaine more especially, as the instigator of the arrests and the cause of the death of the young man who was shot in the attack on his house.  A vast number of men, wearing red scarfs and ribands, attended the funeral of the youth.  The shops were shut on the line of the procession; fires occurred during several successive nights in different parts of the town, under circumstances warranting the suspicion of incendiarism.

Upon this the stipendiary magistrates, charged by the Government with the preservation of the peace of the city, represented officially to the Governor that nothing could save it but the proclamation of Martial Law.  But he told his Council that he ’would neither consent to Martial Law, nor to any measures of increased vigour whatsoever, until a further appeal had been made to the Mayor and Corporation of the city.’

[Sidenote:  Quiet restored.]

This appeal was successful.  A proclamation, issued by the Mayor, was responded to by the respectable citizens of all parties; and a large number of special constables turned out to patrol the streets and keep the peace.  Meanwhile the coroner’s jury, after a very rigorous investigation, agreed unanimously to a verdict acquitting M. Lafontaine of all blame, and finding fault with the civic authorities for their remissness.  This verdict 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 public acknowledged its importance, and two of the most violent Tory newspapers had articles apologising to Lafontaine for having so unfairly judged him beforehand.  ’From, these and other indications (wrote Lord Elgin) I begin to hope that there may be some return to common sense in Montreal.’

[Removal of Government from Montreal.]

My advisers, however (he proceeds), now protest that it will be impossible to maintain the seat of Government here.  We had a long discussion on this point yesterday.  All seem to be agreed, that if a removal from this town takes place, it must be on the condition prescribed in the address of the Assembly presented to me last Session, viz. that there shall henceforward be Parliaments held alternately in the Upper and Lower Provinces.  A removal from this to any other fixed point would be the certain ruin of the party making it.  Therefore removal from Montreal implies the adoption of the system (which, although it has a good deal to recommend it, is certainly open to great objections) of alternating Parliaments.  But this is not the only difficulty.  The French members of the Administration ... are willing to go to Toronto for four years at the close of the present Parliament,