it here is altogether out of the
question. It should be read in its entirety in the official Journal of
the session.

During the weeks following the prorogation the public excitement
continued to increase, until it had reached a height without precedent
in the history of the Province. The Reformers felt that they had been
wofully deceived in the Lieutenant-Governor, and many of them placed no
bounds to their censure. Some of the Reform newspapers hinted pretty
strongly that no people could be expected to remain permanently loyal
when they were deprived of their rights year after year, and when all
their petitions were set at naught. The political atmosphere was charged
with electricity. The outlook was lurid and ominous. Some of the
loyalists began to dread an actual uprising of the people. Such an
uprising, they thought, would be a legitimate sequel to so extraordinary
a proceeding as the stoppage of the supplies. To not a few well-meaning
but old-fashioned people the mere act of refusing to vote the supplies
was in itself a species of treason. To more practical people this act
presented itself in a different aspect. It seemed to them indicative of
a niggard and ruinous parsimony. They gazed with ill-concealed envy at
the marvellous prosperity of the neighbouring State of New York. Any one
crossing the Canadian frontier in that direction at once became aware
that he had passed from a land of comparative stagnation to a land of
activity and progress. This contrast had been largely brought about by
the construction of great public works, and a lavish policy on the part
of the State Legislature. There seemed no reason to doubt that the
adoption of a similar policy would bring about similar results in Upper
Canada, where large and costly public works were urgently needed for the
proper development of the resources of the colony. But, instead of
liberal grants of money for such purposes, the Assembly had cut down the
supplies to meet the barest works of necessity. The colony could never
hope to hold up its head by the side of its enterprising neighbour while
such a cheese-paring system prevailed.

The Lieutenant-Governor's advisers were shrewd enough to make the most
of this unpromising state of affairs. The cheese-paring policy went for
something, but it was almost lost sight of in the much more effective
imputation of disloyalty to the Empire. Nothing was so certain to turn
the scale of public opinion in favour of his Ex