nions which he had
succeeded in winning from the Canadian people during his able
administration of nearly eight years. The passionate feeling which had
been evoked during the crisis caused by the Rebellion Losses Bill had
gradually given way to a true appreciation of the wisdom of the course
that he had followed under such exceptionally trying circumstances,
and to the general conviction that his strict observance of the true
forms and methods of constitutional government had added strength and
dignity to the political institutions of the country and placed Canada
at last in the position of a semi-independent nation. The charm of his
manner could never fail to captivate those who met him often in social
life, while public men of all parties recognized his capacity for
business, the sincerity of his convictions, and the absence of a
spirit of intrigue in connection with the administration of public
affairs and his relations with political parties. He received
evidences on every side that he had won the confidence and respect and
even affection of all nationalities, classes, and creeds in Canada. In
the very city where he had been maltreated and his life itself
endangered, he received manifestations of approval which were full
compensation for the mental sufferings to which he was subject in that
unhappy period of his life, when he proved so firm, courageous and
far-sighted. In well chosen language--always characteristic of his
public addresses--he spoke of the cordial reception he had met with,
when he arrived a stranger in Montreal, of the beauty of its
surroundings, of the kind attention with which its citizens had on
more than one occasion listened to the advice he gave to their various
associations, of the undaunted courage with which the merchants had
promoted the construction of that great road which was so necessary to
the industrial development of the province, of the patriotic energy
which first gathered together such noble specimens of Canadian
industry from all parts of the country, and had been the means of
making the great World's Fair so serviceable to Canada; and then as he
recalled the pleasing incidents of the past, there came to his mind a
thought of the scenes of 1849, but the sole reference he allowed
himself was this: "And I shall forget--but no, what I might have to
forget is forgotten already, and therefore I cannot tell you what I
shall forget."

The last speech which he delivered in the pictures