to look on them all alike as her majesty's
subjects." After he had appointed a special council he set to work
energetically to secure the peace of the country. Humanity was the
distinguishing feature of his too short career in Canada. A
comprehensive amnesty was proclaimed to all those engaged in the
rebellion with the exception of Dr. Wolfred Nelson, R.S.M. Bouchette,
Bonaventure Viger, Dr. Masson, and four others of less importance, who
were ordered by an ordinance to be transported to Bermuda during the
queen's pleasure. These persons, as well as sixteen others, including
Papineau, who had fled from justice, were declared to be subject to
death should they venture to enter the province. Not a single rebel
suffered death on the scaffold during Lord Durham's administration.
Unfortunately the ordinance, transporting a number of persons without
trial to an island where the governor-general had no jurisdiction, gave
an opportunity to Lord Brougham, who hated the high commissioner, to
attack him in the house of lords. Lord Melbourne, then premier, was
forced to repeal the ordinance and to consent to the passage of a bill
indemnifying all those who had acted under its provisions Lord Glenelg,
colonial secretary, endeavoured to diminish the force of this
parliamentary censure by writing to the high commissioner that "her
majesty's government repeat their approbation of the spirit in which
these measures were conceived and state their conviction that they have
been dictated by a judicious and enlightened humanity"; but a statesman
of Lord Durham's haughty character was not ready to submit to such a
rebuke as he had sustained in parliament He therefore immediately placed
his resignation in the hands of the government which had commissioned
him with powers to give peace and justice to distracted Canada, and yet
failed to sustain him at the crucial moment. Before leaving the country
he issued a proclamation in defence of his public acts. His course in
this particular offended the ministry who, according to Lord Glenelg,
considered it a dangerous innovation, as it was practically an appeal by
a public officer to the public against the measures of parliament. Lord
Durham may be pardoned under all the circumstances for resenting at the
earliest possible moment his desertion by the government, who were bound
in honour to defend him, at all hazards, in his absence, and should not
have given him over for the moment to his enemies, led b