demanded.  The action of the Lower Canadian house on this matter was communicated to the assembly of Upper Canada by a letter of Mr. Papineau to Mr. Bidwell, who laid it before his house just before the prorogation in 1835.  In this communication the policy of the imperial government was described as “the naked deformity of the colonial system,” and the royal commissioners were styled “deceitful agents,” while the methods of government in the neighbouring states were again eulogised as in the ninety-two resolutions of 1834.  Sir Francis Bond Head seized the opportunity to create a feeling against the Reformers, to whom he was now hostile.  Shortly after he sent his indiscreet message to the legislature he persuaded Dr. Rolph, Mr. Bidwell and Receiver-General Dunn to enter the executive council on the pretence that he wished to bring that body more into harmony with public opinion.  The new councillors soon found that they were not to be consulted in public affairs, and when the whole council actually resigned Sir Francis told them plainly that he alone was responsible for his acts, and that he would only consult them when he deemed it expedient in the public interest.  This action of the lieutenant-governor showed the Reformers that he was determined to initiate no changes which would disturb the official party, or give self-government to the people.  The assembly, in which the Liberals were dominant, passed an address to the king, declaring the lieutenant-governor’s conduct “derogatory to the honour of the king,” and also a memorial to the British house of commons charging him with “misrepresentation, and a deviation from candour and truth.”

Under these circumstances Sir Francis eagerly availed himself of Papineau’s letter to show the country the dangerous tendencies of the opinions and acts of the Reformers in the two provinces.  In an answer he made to an address from some inhabitants of the Home District, he warned the people that there were individuals in Lower Canada, who were inculcating the idea that “this province is to be disturbed by the interference of foreigners, whose powers and influence will prove invincible”—­an allusion to the sympathy shown by Papineau and his friends for the institutions of the United States.  Then Sir Francis closed his reply with this rhodomontade:  “In the name of every regiment of militia in Upper Canada, I publicly promulgate ’Let them come if they dare’” He dissolved the legislature and went directly to the country on the issue that the British connection was endangered by the Reformers.  “He succeeded, in fact,” said Lord Durham in his report of 1839, “in putting the issue in such a light before the province, that a great portion of the people really imagined that they were called upon to decide the question of separation by their votes.”  These strong appeals to the loyalty of a province founded by the Loyalists of 1784, combined with the influence exercised by the “family compact,” who had all offices and lands at their