anada, premature as it was, marked, perhaps, the limitation of Lord
Durham's scheme. But although he was mistaken in the degree of
allowance to be made for the distinct individuality of the French
province--a defect afterwards made good on Dominion Day--the work he
did, the counsel he gave, made an epoch in the progress of Canadian
nationality, and prepared the ground for the completer measures of the
future.

[Illustration: THE MARQUIS OF LORNE (DUKE OF ARGYLL)]

The treatment of rebels was the most critical question with which Lord
Durham had to deal, and it was ultimately the cause of his withdrawal,
so timid and unchivalrous was the Government of the day in the face of
political and journalistic criticism. While granting a general amnesty
to the rank and file of the offenders, the High Commissioner offended
constitutional pedants by deporting eight of the leading
revolutionists without trial to Bermuda; and although this measure was
taken advisedly, with the purpose, as it turned out, of saving the
prisoners from the heavier penalty they would certainly have received
from a regular court, the Viceroy's numerous enemies did not scruple
to use this technical omission as a basis for attacks upon his policy.
Moreover, when he was bitterly denounced in the House of Lords by
Brougham and Lyndhurst, the ministry of Melbourne offered but a feeble
defence of their representative; with the result that Durham, on
hearing of this desertion by the Cabinet which had appointed him, sent
in his resignation.

The departure of the High Commissioner was deeply regretted by those
who were able to appreciate the wisdom and sincerity of his
administration, though indeed it was otherwise regarded by the leaders
of that social clique in Quebec whose family compact he had resolutely
condemned. Yet he had builded better than England or Canada or himself
then knew, and his tireless energy and imagination left behind him the
material for a sound structure. Besides the masterly report of his
commission, a visible, if less important, monument to his beneficent
work for Canada still stands in the magnificent terrace at Quebec,
known to-day under an improved form and by another name, yet in a
larger measure his conception and his achievement. He sailed from
Quebec on the 1st of November, 1838, the ceremony of his departure
being hardly less imposing than that marking his arrival five months
before. Troops lined the streets from the Governor's r