than {29} that which had crossed the Atlantic in 1822. The
delegates succeeded in obtaining Lord Dalhousie's recall, and they were
enabled to place their case before a special committee of the House of
Commons. The committee made a report very favourable to the _Patriote_
cause; recommended that 'the French-Canadians should not in any way be
disturbed in the exercise and enjoyment of their religion, their laws,
or their privileges'; and expressed the opinion that 'the true
interests of the provinces would be best promoted by placing the
collection and expenditure of all public revenues under the control of
the House of Assembly.' The report was not actually adopted by the
House of Commons, but it lent a very welcome support to the contentions
of Papineau and his friends.

At last, in 1830, the British government made a serious and well-meant
attempt to settle, once and for all, the financial difficulty. Lord
Goderich, who was at that time at the Colonial Office, instructed Lord
Aylmer, who had become governor of Canada in 1830, to resign to the
Assembly the control of the entire revenue of the province, with the
single exception of the casual and territorial revenue of the Crown, if
the Assembly would grant {30} in exchange a civil list of L19,000,
voted for the lifetime of the king. This offer was a compromise which
should have proved acceptable to both sides. But Papineau and his
friends determined not to yield an inch of ground; and in the session
of 1831 they succeeded in defeating the motion for the adoption of Lord
Goderich's proposal. That this was a mistake even the historian
Garneau, who cannot be accused of hostility toward the _Patriotes_, has
admitted.

Throughout this period Papineau's course was often unreasonable. He
complained that the French Canadians had no voice in the executive
government, and that all the government offices were given to the
English; yet when he was offered a seat in the Executive Council in
1822 he declined it; and when Dominique Mondelet, one of the members of
the Assembly, accepted a seat in the Executive Council in 1832, he was
hounded from the Assembly by Papineau and his friends as a traitor. As
Sir George Cartier pointed out many years later, Mondelet's inclusion
in the Executive Council was really a step in the direction of
responsible government. It is difficult, also, to approve Papineau's
attitude toward such governors as Dalhousie and {31} Aylmer, both of
wh