this direction when it was convinced that the step was beyond peradventure in the interest of the dependency.  The manifesto represented only a temporary phase of sentiment and is explained by the fact that some men were dissatisfied with the existing condition of things and ready for any change whatever.  The movement found no active or general response among the great mass of thinking people; and it was impossible for the Radicals of Lower Canada to persuade their compatriots that their special institutions, so dear to their hearts, could be safely entrusted to their American republican neighbours.  All the men who, in the thoughtlessness of youth or in a moment of great excitement, signed the manifesto—­notably the Molsons, the Redpaths, Luther H. Holton, John Rose, David Lewis MacPherson, A.A.  Dorion, E. Goff Penny—­became prominent in the later public and commercial life of British North America, as ministers of the Crown, judges, senators, millionaires, and all devoted subjects of the British sovereign.

When Lord Elgin found that the manifesto contained the signatures of several persons holding office by commission from the Queen, he made an immediate inquiry into the matter, and gave expression to the displeasure of the Crown by removing from office those who confessed that they had signed the objectionable document, or declined to give any answer to the queries he had addressed to them.  His action on this occasion was fully justified by the imperial government, which instructed him “to resist to the utmost any attempt that might be made to bring about a separation of Canada from the British dominions.”  But while Lord Elgin, as the representative of the Queen, was compelled by a stern sense of duty to condemn such acts of infidelity to the empire, he did not conceal from himself that there was a great deal in the economic conditions of the provinces which demanded an immediate remedy before all reason for discontent could disappear.  He did not fail to point out to Lord Grey that it was necessary to remove the causes of the public irritation and uneasiness by the adoption of measures calculated to give a stimulus to Canadian industry and commerce.  “Let me then assure your Lordship,” he wrote in November 1849, “and I speak advisedly in offering this assurance, that the dissatisfaction now existing in Canada, whatever may be the forms with which it may clothe itself, is due mainly to commercial causes.  I do not say that there is no discontent on political grounds.  Powerful individuals and even classes of men are, I am well aware, dissatisfied with the conduct of affairs.  But I make bold to affirm that so general is the belief that, under the present circumstances of our commercial condition, the colonists pay a heavy pecuniary fine for their fidelity to Great Britain, that nothing but the existence of an unwonted degree of political contentment among the masses has prevented the cry for annexation from spreading like wildfire