a very full and anxious consideration of the question, it was decided to act on the recommendation of the legislature that it should thereafter meet alternately at Toronto and Quebec, and that the next session should be held at Toronto in accordance with this arrangement This “perambulating system” was tried for several years, but it proved so inconvenient and expensive that the legislature in 1858 passed an address to Her Majesty praying her to choose a permanent capital.  The place selected was the city of Ottawa, on account of its situation on the frontier of the two provinces, the almost equal division of its population into French and English, its remoteness from the American borders, and consequently its comparative security in time of war.  Some years later it became the capital of the Dominion of Canada—­the confederation of provinces and territories extending across the continent.

In the autumn of 1849 Lord Elgin made a tour of the western part of the province of Upper Canada for the purpose of obtaining some expression of opinion from the people in the very section where the British feeling was the strongest.  On this occasion he was attended only by an aide-de-camp and a servant, as an answer to those who were constantly assailing him for want of courage.  Here and there, as he proceeded west, after leaving French Canada, he was insulted by a few Orangemen, notably by Mr. Ogle R. Gowan, who appeared on the wharf at Brockville with a black flag, but apart from such feeble exhibitions of political spite he met with a reception, especially west of Toronto, which proved beyond cavil that the heart and reason of the country, as a whole, were undoubtedly in his favour, and that nowhere was there any actual sympathy with the unhappy disturbances in Montreal.  He had also the gratification soon after his return from this pleasant tour to receive from the British government an official notification that he had been raised to the British peerage under the title of Baron Elgin of Elgin in recognition of his distinguished services to the Crown and empire in America.

But it was a long time before Lord Elgin was forgiven by a small clique of politicians for the part he had taken in troubles which ended in their signal discomfiture.  The political situation continued for a while to be aggravated by the serious commercial embarrassment which existed throughout the country, and led to the circulation of a manifesto, signed by leading merchants and citizens of Montreal, urging as remedies for the prevalent depression a revival of colonial protection by England, reciprocal free trade with the United States, a federal union or republic of British North America, and even annexation to the neighbouring states as a last resort.  This document did not suggest rebellion or a forceable separation from England.  It even professed affection for the home land; but it encouraged the idea that the British government would doubtless yield to any colonial pressure in