dian disputes, and therefore wished to have a history of them, I had not the slightest idea that in undertaking to give you one, I was going to write a book. But, though I will fulfil my promise, I will not exceed it. I shall confine myself to a sketch of the origin, progress, and present state of agitation in Lower Canada. I will shew you the pretensions that have been put forth, the concessions that have been made, and the open questions that now remain; you will then be able to judge whether these grievances have led to disaffection, or disaffection has given rise to grievances, and in either case will be able to perceive what ought to be the remedy. Facts and not theories are wanted; you must know the cause and nature of a disease before you can prescribe for it.

.

If ever you had the misfortune to have had the tooth-ache, you have doubtless found that every one of your friends had an infallible remedy, each of which eventually proved, upon trial, to be nothing more than a palliative, a nostrum that soothed the anguish for a time, by conciliating the nerve; but that the pain returned, with every change of atmosphere, with increased power, while the sedative application became less and less efficacious the oftener it was repeated. You have also found, as others have

experienced before you, that while you were thus temporising with an evil which required more prompt and skilful treatment, you had lost the opportunity of filling the cavity and preserving the tooth, by suffering decay to proceed too far to admit of the operation, and, after years of suffering, had to submit at last to cold iron, the ultima ratio of dentists. Whether the system of palliatives and concessions, that has been resorted to in Canada, is a wise and proper one, I shall not presume to say; but all men must agree that it at least has the merit of displaying an amiable inclination to avoid giving pain. Whatever doubts may arise as to the conciliatory measures of past years, there can be none whatever entertained that they cannot be persisted in any longer with advantage. I shall content myself, however, with merely presenting you with a statement of the case, and you shall decide for yourself whether stopping, or forcible extraction, be now the proper remedy.

LETTER II.

AFTER the late unhappy and wicked rebellion in Canada was suppressed, it was found necessary to punish with death a few of the most conspicuous traitors, for the atrocious mur. ders they had committed. In the colonies, although the justice of this act was fully admitted, the necessity that existed for it was generally deplored. So much blood had been shed in the field, and so much misery entailed upon the country, by that rash and unprovoked revolt, that the people would gladly have been spared the spectacle of a further sacrifice of human life, if the outraged laws of the country had not imperatively called for retribution. They felt, too, that although nothing could justify their having desolated the country with fire and sword, in support of mere speculative points of government, some pity was due to deluded men, who had been seduced from their allegiance by promises of support, and direct encouragement to revolt, by people of influence and standing in the mother country; but although they knew that mischievous counsels had been given, they certainly were not pre

pared to hear similar sentiments publicly avowed in the parliament of the nation. It was, therefore, not without mingled feelings of surprise and sorrow that they heard one honourable member invoke defeat and disgrace upon Her Majesty's troops, whose service was already sufficiently painful without this aggravation; and a noble lord, in another branch of the legislature, denounce, with indignant eloquence, the juries who had tried and the judges that had sentenced these convicted criminals. They ought, however, to have known, and certainly a little reflection would have suggested, that the instinctive horror of those distinguished men at such an event was quite natural, and that they who advocate revolutionary doctrines must necessarily shudder at the untimely fate of those who have dared to act upon them. It was a warning not to be disregarded, a consummation that might be their own, and a lesson fraught with a most salutary moral. As their perceptions were acute enough to make the application, it is to be hoped their prudence will be sufficient to avoid a similar result. Nor is the language held by my Lord Durham, in his recent valedictory proclamation, less surprising. He has thought proper, in that extraordinary document, to give the sanction of his high

station to the popular error that the Canadas have been misgoverned, and thereby expressed a deliberate censure upon the conduct of abler and better men than himself who have preceded him. Now, there are various kinds of misgovernment, which may be effected by acts of commission or omission, or of both, for a defective form of government and misgovernment are widely different. If his lordship meant to use the word in either of those senses, and considered the French Canadians as the subjects of it, then I beg leave most respectfully to state, that he was not warranted by facts in saying so, and that it is an additional proof, if any were wanting, that he knew as little of the affairs of the colony at his departure from thence, as he admits that he did on his arrival there. If, on the other hand, he used it as a cant term to adorn a rhetorical flourish, we shall accept the explanation, and consider it as such, classing it with promises profusely made on his acceptance of office which he has not performed, and similar ones ostentatiously offered on his resignation which he is equally unable to fulfil.

My Lord Brougham has expressed more fully and intelligibly the same opinion in the House of Lords, and has since been at great pains to republish it, first, in the pamphlet form, to cir