The disturbances which followed the passing of the 'Rebellion Losses Bill'
have been described in the preceding chapter chiefly as they affected the
person of the Governor. But it may be truly said that this was the aspect
of them that gave him least concern. He felt, indeed, deeply the
indignities offered to the Crown of England through its representative. But
there was some satisfaction in the reflection that, by taking on himself
the whole responsibility of sanctioning the obnoxious Bill, he had drawn
down upon his own head the chief violence of a storm which might otherwise
have exploded in a manner very dangerous to the Empire. 'I think I might
say,' he writes, 'with less poetry but with more truth, what Lamartine said
when they accused him of coquetting with the _Rouges_ under the
Provisional Government: "_Oui, j'ai conspire! J'ai conspire comme le
paratonnerre conspire avec le nuage pour desarmer la foudre._"' But the
thunder-cloud was not entirely disarmed; and it burst in a direction which
popular passion in Canada has always been too apt to take, threats of
throwing off England and joining the American States. As far back as March
14, 1849, we find Lord Elgin drawing Lord Grey's attention to this subject.

There has been (he writes) a vast deal of talk about 'annexation,' as
is unfortunately always the case here when there is anything to
agitate the public mind. If half the talk on this subject were
sincere, I should consider an attempt to keep up the connection with
Great Britain as Utopian in the extreme. For, no matter what the
subject of complaint, or what the party complaining; whether it be
alleged that the French are oppressing the British, or the British the
French--that Upper Canada debt presses on Lower Canada, or Lower
Canada claims on Upper; whether merchants be bankrupt, stocks
depreciated, roads bad, or seasons unfavourable, annexation is invoked
as the remedy for all ills, imaginary or real. A great deal of this
talk is, however, bravado, and a great deal the mere product of
thoughtlessness. Undoubtedly it is in some quarters the utterance of
very sincere convictions; and if England will not make the sacrifices
which are absolutely necessary to put the colonists here in as good a
position commercially as the citizens of the States--in order to which
_free navigation and reciprocal trade with the States are
indispensable_--i