Nicholas and Amable
Daumais, who had aided in the trial and execution of Chartrand, were
subsequently hanged for having taken an active part in the second
insurrection of 1838.

The rebellion of 1837 never reached any large proportions, and very few
French Canadians of social or political standing openly participated in
the movement. Monseigneur Lartigue, Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal,
issued a _mandement_ severely censuring the misguided men who had joined
in the rebellious movement and caused so much misery throughout the
province. In England, strange to say, there were men found, even in
parliament, ready to misrepresent the facts and glory in a rebellion the
causes of which they did not understand. The animating motive with
these persons was then--and there were similar examples during the
American revolution--to assail the government of the day and make
political capital against them, but, it must be admitted, in all
fairness to the reform ministry of that day and even to preceding
cabinets for some years, that the policy of all was to be just and
conciliatory in their relations with the provincial agitators, though it
is also evident that a more thorough knowledge of political conditions
and a more resolute effort to a reach the bottom of grievances might
have long before removed causes of irritation and saved the loss of
property and life in 1837 and 1838.

In the presence of a grave emergency, the British government felt
compelled to suspend the constitution of Lower Canada, and send out Lord
Durham, a Liberal statesman of great ability, to act as governor-general
and high commissioner "for the determining of certain important
questions depending in the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
respecting the form and future government of the said provinces" Despite
a certain haughtiness of manner which was apt to wound his inferiors and
irritate his equals in position, he was possessed of a great fund of
accurate political knowledge and a happy faculty of grasping all the
essential facts of a difficult situation, and suggesting the best remedy
to apply under all the circumstances. He endeavoured, to the utmost of
his ability, to redeem the pledge with which he entered on his mission
to Canada, in the first instance "to assert the supremacy of her
majesty's government," in the next "to vindicate the honour and dignity
of the law," and above all "to know nothing of a British, a French, or a
Canadian party," but "