for the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies, and had consequently alienated the confidence and sympathy of the best part of the nation.  Mr. Hume then wrote the letter in question, in which he also stated that he “never knew a more worthless hypocrite or so base a man as Mr. Ryerson proved himself to be.”  Mr. Mackenzie in this way incurred the wrath of a wily clergyman and religious journalist who exercised much influence over the Methodists, and at the same time fell under the ban of all people who were deeply attached to the British connection.  Moderate Reformers now looked doubtfully on Mackenzie, whose principal supporters were Dr. Duncombe, Samuel Lount, Peter Matthews, and other men who took an active part in the insurrection of 1837.

In the session of 1835 a committee of grievances, appointed on the motion of Mr. Mackenzie himself, reported in favour of a system of responsible government, an elective legislative council, the appointment of civil governors, a diminution of the patronage exercised by the crown, the independence of the legislature, and other reforms declared to be in the interest of good government.  The report was temperately expressed, and created some effect for a time in England, but the colonial minister could not yet be induced to move in the direction of positive reform in the restrictive system of colonial government.

Unhappily, at this juncture, when good judgment and discretion were so necessary in political affairs, all the circumstances combined to hasten a perilous crisis, and to give full scope to the passionate impulses of Mackenzie’s nature.  Sir John Colborne was replaced in the government of the province by one of the most incapable governors ever chosen by the colonial office, Sir Francis Bond Head.  He had been chiefly known in England as a sprightly writer of travels, and had had no political experience except such as could be gathered in the discharge of the duties of a poor-law commissioner in Wales.  His first official act was an indiscretion.  He communicated to the legislature the full text of the instructions which he had received from the king, although he had been advised to give only their substance, as least calculated to hamper Lord Gosford, who was then attempting to conciliate the French Canadian majority in Lower Canada.  These instructions, in express terms, disapproved of a responsible executive and particularly of an elected legislative council, to obtain which was the great object of Papineau and his friends.  Mr. Bidwell, then speaker of the assembly, recognised the importance of this despatch, and forwarded it immediately to Mr. Papineau, at that time speaker of the Lower Canadian house, with whom he and other Reformers had correspondence from time to time.  Lord Gosford was consequently forced to lay his own instructions in full before the legislature and to show the majority that the British government was opposed to such vital changes in the provincial constitution as they persistently