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shall have subsided, you will succeed in regaining that position of "dignified neutrality" becoming your office, which, as you justly observe, it has hitherto been your study to maintain, and from which, even those who are at present most opposed to you, will, on reflection, perceive that you have been driven, by no fault on your part, but by their own unreasoning violence.

      Relying, therefore, upon your devotion to the interests of Canada, I feel assured that you will not be induced by the unfortunate occurrences which have taken place, to retire from the high office which the Queen has been pleased to entrust to you, and which, from the value she puts upon your past services, it is Her Majesty's anxious wish that you should retain.'

      [Sidenote: Support in the colony.]

      While awaiting, in his retreat at Monklands, the contrecoup from the mother-country of the storm which had burst over the colony, Lord Elgin found a great source of consolation in the numerous sympathetic addresses which poured in from every part of the province: fortifying him in the conviction that the heart of the colony was with him, and that the bitter opposition at Montreal was chiefly due to local causes; especially 'to commercial distress, acting on religious bigotry and national hatred.' One of these addresses, coming from the county of Glengarry, an ancient settlement of Scottish loyalists, appears to have touched the Scotsman's heart within the statesman's. In reply to it he said:—

      Men of Glengarry—My heart warms within me when I listen to your manly and patriotic address.

      I recognise in it evidence of that vigorous understanding which enables men of the stock to which you belong to prize, as they ought to be prized, the blessings of well-ordered freedom, and of that keen sense of principle which prompts them to recoil from no sacrifice which duty enjoins.

      The men of Glengarry need not recapitulate their services. He must be ignorant indeed of the history of Canada who does not know how much they have done and suffered for their Sovereign and their country.

      You inhabit here a goodly land. A land full of promise, where your children have room enough to increase and to multiply, and to become, with God's blessing, greater and more prosperous than yourselves. But I am confident that no spell less potent than the gentle and benignant control of those liberal institutions which it is Britain's pride and privilege to bestow on her children, will insure the peaceful development of its unrivalled resources, or knit together into one happy and united family the various races of which this community is composed.

      On this conviction I have acted, in labouring to secure for you, during the whole course of my administration the full benefit of constitutional government. It is truly gratifying to me to learn that you appreciate my exertions. Depend upon it, they will not be relaxed. I claim to have something of your own spirit: devotion to a cause which I believe to be a just one—courage to confront, if need be, danger and even obloquy in its pursuit—and an undying faith that God protects the right.

      [Sidenote: Debates in the British Parliament.]

      In the meantime the unhappy Bill, which had caused such an explosion in the colony, was running the gantlet of the British Parliament. On June 14 it was vehemently attacked in the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone, as being a measure for the rewarding of Rebels.[9] He, indeed, contented himself with 'calling the attention of the House to certain parts' of the Bill in question; but Mr. Herries, following out the same views to their legitimate conclusion, moved an Address to Her Majesty to disallow the Act of the Colonial Legislature. The debate was sustained with great Vigour for two nights; in the course of which the Act was defended not only by Lord John Russell as leader of the Government, but also, with even more force, by his great opponent Sir Robert Peel. Speaking with all the weight of an impartial observer, he showed that it was not the intention of the measure, and would not be its effect, to give compensation to anyone who could be proved to have been a rebel; that it was only an inevitable sequel to other measures which had been passed without opposition; and, further, that its rejection at this stage would be resisted by all parties in the colony alike, as an arbitrary interference with their right of self-government. On a division the amendment of Mr. Herries was thrown out by a majority of 141. And though, a few nights later, a resolution somewhat in the same sense, moved by Lord Brougham in the Upper House, was only negatived, with the aid of proxies, by three votes, the large majority in the House of Commons, and the firm attitude of the Government on the subject, did much to quiet the excitement in the colony.

      The news from England (wrote Lord Elgin) has produced a marked, and, so far as it goes, a satisfactory change in the tone of the Press; in proof of which I send you the leading articles of the Tory papers of Saturday. … The party, it would appear, is now split into three; but on one point all are agreed. We must have done, they say, with this habit of abusing the French; we must live with them on terms of amity and affection. Such is the first fruit of the policy which was to bring about, we were assured, a war of races.

      This satisfactory result was also due in part to the wise measures adopted by the Ministry, under direction of the Governor-General, for giving effect to the provisions of the much-disputed Bill.

      We are taking steps (he wrote on June 17) to carry out the Rebellion Losses Bill. Having adopted the measure of the late Conservative Government, we are proceeding to reappoint their own Commissioners; and, not content with that, we are furnishing them with instructions which place upon the Act the most restricted and loyalist construction of which the terms are susceptible. Truly, if ever rebellion stood upon a rickety pretence, it is the Canadian Tory Rebellion of 1849.

      [Sidenote: Fresh riots.]

      Unhappily the flames, which at this time had nearly died out, were re- kindled two months later on occasion of the arrest of certain persons concerned in the former riots; and though this fresh outbreak lasted but a few days, it was attended in one case with fatal consequences.[10] Writing on August 20, Lord Elgin says:—

      We are again in some excitement here. M. Lafontaine's house was attacked by a mob (for the second time) two nights ago. Some persons within fired, and one of the assailants was killed. The violent Clubbists are trying to excite the passions of the multitude, alleging that this is Anglo-Saxon blood shed by a Frenchman.

      The immediate cause of this excitement is the arrest of certain persons who were implicated in the destruction of the Parliament buildings in April last. I was desirous, for the sake of peace, that these parties should not be arrested until indictments had been laid before the grand jury, and true bills found against them. Unfortunately, in consequence of the cholera, the requisite number of jurors to form a court was not forthcoming for the August term. The Government thought that they could not, without impropriety, put off taking any steps against these persons till November. They were, therefore, arrested last week; all except one, who was committed for arson, were at once bailed by the magistrates; and he too was bailed the day after his committal by one of the judges of the Supreme Court.

      All this is simple enough, and augurs no very vindictive spirit in the authorities. Nevertheless it affords the occasion for a fresh exhibition of the recklessness of the Montreal mob, and the demoralisation of other classes in the community.

      Again on the 27th he writes:—

      We have had a fortnight of crisis consequent on the arrests which I reported to you last week; which may perhaps be the prelude (though I do not like to be too sanguine) to better times. A most violent excitement was got up by the Press against M. Lafontaine more especially, as the instigator of the arrests and the cause of the death of the young man who was shot in the attack on his house. A vast number of men, wearing red scarfs and ribands, attended the funeral of the youth. The shops were shut on the line of the procession; fires occurred during several successive nights in different parts of the town, under circumstances warranting the suspicion of incendiarism.

      Upon this the stipendiary magistrates, charged by the Government with the preservation of the peace of the city, represented officially to the Governor that nothing could save it but the proclamation of Martial Law. But he told his Council that he 'would neither consent to Martial Law, nor to any measures of increased vigour whatsoever, until a further appeal had been made to the Mayor and Corporation of the city.'

      [Sidenote: Quiet restored.]

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