which he could not control. Neither the majority
in the Assembly nor the members of the Legislative Council were prepared
to slavishly accept his dictation, or to follow him blindfold
whithersoever he might choose to lead them. Some of the official
utterances of these bodies during the session had been as strongly
assertive of their own dignity and independence as the deliverances of
the former Assembly had ever been. Even the Executive Council had begun
to exhibit an impatience of being indirectly dictated to by unsworn
advisers who were permitted by the Lieutenant-Governor to usurp the
functions peculiarly belonging to themselves. His Excellency's
popularity was evidently waning throughout the land. There was a decided
reaction against him, and thousands of Reformers who had voted for
Government candidates at the election were now animated by a strong
sentiment of opposition. The Lieutenant-Governor was also at issue with
the Colonial Office on several matters of importance. To the
recommendations of the Lower Canada Commissioners, as previously
mentioned, he had strenuously opposed himself. He had failed to carry
out the direction of Lord Glenelg to restore Mr. Ridout to the offices
from which that gentleman had been dismissed. He now displayed further
insubordination by neglecting to obey several minor injunctions received
from headquarters, by which course of procedure he involved himself in
much disputatious correspondence. His anxieties were increased by a
commercial crisis which set in about this time in the United States.
There had been an era of seeming prosperity but real inflation in that
favoured land, of which the present crisis was the legitimate
consequence. Specie payments were suspended, and business was all but
paralyzed. This disheartening state of things was speedily reflected in
Canada, which was ill qualified to bear such an infliction. The banks
and the mercantile community generally became alarmed. In the Lower
Province the banks suspended specie payments, and our own were much
disposed to follow the example. The directors of some of our leading
financial institutions applied to the Lieutenant-Governor for advice and
direction. As all these matters, however, belong rather to the
mercantile history of the country than to the story of the Rebellion,
there is no need to go into them with minuteness. Suffice it to say that
Sir Francis Head deemed it proper in this emergency to convene an extra
sessio