oquy I may for the time entail on
myself by declining to lend myself even to this extent to the plans of
those who wish to bring about a change of administration.

In the first place the Bill for the relief of a corresponding class of
persons in Upper Canada, which was couched in terms very nearly
similar, was not reserved, and it is difficult to discover a
sufficient reason, in so far as the representative of the Crown is
concerned, for dealing with the one measure differently from the
other. And in the second place, by reserving the Bill I should only
throw upon Her Majesty's Government, or (as it would appear to the
popular eye here) on Her Majesty herself, a responsibility which
rests, and ought, I think, to rest, on my own shoulders. If I pass the
Bill, whatever mischief ensues may probably be repaired, if the worst
comes to the worst, by the sacrifice of me. Whereas, if the case be
referred to England, it is not impossible that Her Majesty may only
have before her the alternative of provoking a rebellion in Lower
Canada, by refusing her assent to a measure chiefly affecting the
interest of the _habitans_, and thus throwing the whole
population into Papineau's hands, or of wounding the susceptibilities
of some of the best subjects she has in the province. For among the
objectors to this Bill are undoubtedly to be found not a few who
belong to this class; men who are worked upon by others more selfish
and designing, to whom the principles of constitutional Government are
unfathomable mysteries, and who still regard the representative of
royalty, and in a more remote sense the Crown and Government of
England, if not as the objects of a very romantic loyalty (for that, I
fear, is fast waning), at least as the butts of a most intense and
unrelenting: indignation, if political affairs be not administered in
entire accordance with their sense of what is right.

In solving these knotty problems, and choosing his course of action, the
necessities of the situation required that he should be guided by his own
unaided judgment, and act entirely on his own responsibility. For although,
throughout all his difficulties, in the midst of the reproaches with which
he was assailed both in the colony and in England, he had the great
satisfaction of knowing that his conduct was entirely approved by Lord
Grey, to whom he ope