After 1831, Mr. Papineau steadily evoked the opposition of the more conservative and thoughtful British Liberals who were not disposed to be carried into a questionable position, inimical to British connection and the peace of the country, Dr. Wolfred Nelson, and Dr. O’Callaghan, a journalist, were soon the only supporters of ability left him among the British and Irish, the great majority of whom rallied to the support of the government when a perilous crisis arrived in the affairs of the province.  The British party dwindled away in every appeal to the people, and no French Canadian representative who presumed to differ from Mr. Papineau was ever again returned to the assembly.  Mr. Papineau became not only a political despot but an “irreconcilable,” whose vanity led him to believe that he would soon become supreme in French Canada, and the founder of La Nation Canadienne in the valley of the St. Lawrence.  The ninety-two resolutions passed in 1834 may be considered the climax of the demands of his party, which for years had resisted immigration as certain to strengthen the British population, had opposed the establishment of registry offices as inconsistent with the French institutions of the province, and had thrown every possible opposition in the way of the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were attracting year by year an industrious and energetic British population from the British Isles and New England.

In these resolutions of 1834 there is not a single paragraph or even phrase which can be tortured into showing that the French Canadian agitator and his friends were in favour of responsible government.  The key-note of the whole document is an elective legislative council, which would inevitably increase the power of the French Canadians and place the British in a hopeless minority.  Mr. Roebuck, the paid agent of the assembly in England, is said to have suggested the idea of this elective body, and assuredly his writings and speeches were always calculated to do infinite harm, by helping to inflame discontent in Canada, and misrepresenting in England the true condition of affairs in the province.  The resolutions are noteworthy for their verbosity and entire absence of moderate and wise suggestion.  They were obviously written under the inspiration of Mr. Papineau with the object of irritating the British government, and preventing the settlement of political difficulties.  They even eulogised the institutions of the neighbouring states which “commanded the affection of the people in a larger measure than those of any other country,” and should be regarded “as models of government for Canada.”  They even went so far as “to remind parliament of the consequences of its efforts to overrule the wishes of the American colonies,” in case they should make any “modification” in the constitution of the province “independently of the wishes of its people.”  Colonel Gugy, Mr. Andrew Stuart, Mr. Neilson and other prominent Englishmen opposed the passage of these resolutions, as calculated to do infinite harm, but they were carried by a very large French Canadian majority at the dictation of Mr. Papineau.  Whatever may have been its effect for the moment, this wordy effusion has long since been assigned to the limbo where are buried other examples of the demagogism of those trying times.