wanton destruction of dwellings, buildings, property and effects ... should be paid and satisfied.”  The act provided that no indemnity should be paid to persons “who had been convicted of treason during the rebellion, or who, having been taken into custody, had submitted to Her Majesty’s will, and been transported to Bermuda.”  Five commissioners were to be appointed to carry out the provisions of the act, which also provided L400,000 for the payment of legal claims.

Then all the forces hostile to the government gathered their full strength for an onslaught on a measure which such Tories as Sir Allan MacNab and Henry Sherwood believed gave them an excellent opportunity of arousing a strong public sentiment which might awe the governor-general and bring about a ministerial crisis.  The issue was not one of public principle or of devotion to the Crown, it was simply a question of obtaining a party victory per fas aut nefas.  The debate on the second reading of the bill was full of bitterness, intensified even to virulence.  Mr. Sherwood declared that the proposal of the government meant nothing else than the giving of a reward to the very persons who had been the cause of the shedding of blood and the destruction of property throughout the country.  Sir Allan MacNab went so far in a moment of passion as to insult the French Canadian people by calling them “aliens and rebels.”  The solicitor-general, Mr. Hume Blake,[10] who was Irish by birth, and possessed a great power of invective, inveighed in severe terms against “the family compact” as responsible for the rebellion, and declared that the stigma of “rebels” applied with complete force to the men who were then endeavouring to prevent the passage of a bill which was a simple act of justice to a large body of loyal people.  Sir Allan MacNab instantly became furious and said that if Mr. Blake called him a rebel it was simply a lie.

Then followed a scene of tumult, in which the authority of the chair was disregarded, members indulged in the most disorderly cries, and the people in the galleries added to the excitement on the floor by their hisses and shouts.  The galleries were cleared with the greatest difficulty, and a hostile encounter between Sir Allan and Mr. Blake was only prevented by the intervention of the sergeant-at-arms, who took them into custody by order of the House until they gave assurances that they would proceed no further in the unseemly dispute.  When the debate was resumed on the following day, LaFontaine brought it again to the proper level of argument and reason, and showed that both parties were equally pledged to a measure based on considerations of justice, and declared positively that the government would take every possible care in its instructions to the commissioner; that no rebel should receive any portion of the indemnity, which was intended only as a compensation to those who had just claims upon the country for the losses that they actually sustained in the course of the unfortunate