defensible; but it would not have been the best course.  Mine was a better one.’  And shall I tell you what was the deep conviction on my mind, which, apart from the reluctance which I naturally felt to shed blood (particularly in a cause in which many who opposed the Government were actuated by motives which, though much alloyed with baser metal, had claims on my sympathy), confirmed me in that course?  I perceived that the mind of the British population of the province, in Upper Canada especially, was at that time the prey of opposing impulses.  On the one hand, as a question of blood and sensibility, they were inclined to go with the anti-French party of Lower Canada; on the other, as a question of constitutional principle, they felt that I was right, and that I deserved support.  Depend upon it, if we had looked to bayonets instead of to reason for a triumph, the sensibilities of the great body of which I speak would soon have carried the day against their judgment.

And what is the result? 700,000 French reconciled to England—­not because they are getting rebel money—­I believe, indeed, that no rebels will get a farthing; but because they believe that the British Governor is just.  ‘Yes;’ but you may say ’this is purchased by the alienation of the British.’  Far from it; I took the whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that the Canadian British never were so loyal as they are at this hour; and, what is more remarkable still, and more directly traceable to this policy of forbearance, never, since Canada existed, has party-spirit been more moderate, and the British and French races on better terms than they are now; and this, in spite of the withdrawal of protection, and of the proposal to throw on the colony many charges which the Imperial Government has hitherto borne.

    Pardon me for saying so much on this point; but ’magna est
    veritas.’

[1] I.e. one of the rebels of 1837, who had been banished to Bermuda
    by Lord Durham.

[2] One of the Conservative papers of the day wrote:—­’Bad as the payment
    of the rebellion losses is, we do not know that it would not be better
    to submit to pay twenty rebellion losses than have what is nominally a
    free Constitution fettered and restrained each time a measure
    distasteful to the minority is passed.’

[3] ‘I confess,’ he wrote in a private letter of the same date, ’I did not
    before know how thin is the crust of order which covers the anarchical
    elements that boil and toss beneath our feet.’

[4] ’When he entered the Government House he took a two-pound stone with
    him which he had picked up in his carriage, as evidence of the most
    unusual and sorrowful treatment Her Majesty’s representative had
    received.’—­Mac Mullen, p. 511.