1838, Lord John Russell brought forward a bill to suspend the constitution of the colony, and to confer on a new Governor, who was at once to proceed thither, very ample powers for remodelling the government of the province, subject, of course, to the sanction of the home government.  In the previous year he had succeeded in carrying some resolutions announcing the determination of Parliament not to concede the demands of the Assembly of the Lower Province, which have been already mentioned.  And the reasons which he gave for this course are worth preserving, as expressing the view recognized by Parliament of the relations properly existing between the mother country and a colony.  It was on a proper understanding of them that he based his refusal to make the Executive Council in Canada responsible to the Assembly.  He held such a step to be “entirely incompatible with those relations.  Those relations require that his Majesty should be represented, not by a person removable by the House of Assembly, but by a Governor sent out by the King, responsible to the King, and responsible to the Parliament of Great Britain.  This is the necessary constitution of a colony; and if we have not these relations existing between the mother country and the colony, we shall soon have an end of these relations altogether.”  And he pointed out the practical difficulties which might reasonably be apprehended if such a change as was asked were conceded.  “The person sent out by the King as Governor, and those ministers in whom the Assembly confided, might differ in opinion, and there would be at once a collision between the measures of the King and the conduct of the representatives of the colony.”

The plan of sending out a new Governor free from any previous association with either of the parties, or any of the recent transactions in the colony, was, probably, the wisest that could have been adopted.  Unfortunately, it was in some degree marred by the choice of the statesman sent out, Lord Durham, a man of unquestioned ability, but of an extraordinarily self-willed and overbearing temper.  He drew up a most able report of the state of the provinces, combined with recommendations of the course to be pursued toward them in future, so judicious that subsequent ministers, though widely differing from his views of general politics, saw no better plan than that which he had suggested; but, unhappily, the measures which he himself adopted, especially with respect to the treatment of those who had been leaders in the late rebellion, were such manifest violations of law, that the government at home had no alternative but that of disallowing some of them, and carrying a bill of indemnity for others.  He took such offence at their treatment of him, though it was quite inevitable, that he at once resigned his appointment and returned home.  But the next year the Queen sent down a message to the Houses recommending a union of the two provinces (a measure which had been the most important, and the