His statements, on the other hand, were represented by Sir George Grey,
on the part of government, as being mere repetitions of charges which
had been abandoned by those who had made them. The motion was supported
by Dr. Lushington and Mr. Fowell Buxton, the latter of whom said,
that few persons residing in that colony knew its affairs better than
himself: the slave-trade prevailed in the Mauritius to such an extent,
that no man could live for a single week as governor of the island and
not behold it under his own eyes; yet not one of the persons engaged in
the traffic had ever been brought to justice. The reason assigned for
this impunity was this--that no court would authorise a conviction,
and that no public functionary would countenance the man who dared to
interfere with their trade. If a case arose in which it was necessary
that the prosecution should be placed upon record, the accused was, on
the first opportunity, set at liberty. The motion was negatived by a
majority of two hundred and twenty-nine against seventy-one.

It has been recorded in previous pages that political discontents
prevailed in Canada. A large portion of the population, French in its
origin, democratic and intemperate in its views, led on by demagogues,
insisted on demands equally inconsistent with a monarchical government,
and with the supremacy of the mother country. Democratical as were their
views, however, they had their supporters in the British parliament.
On the 16th of May, Mr. Roebuck brought forward a proposition for the
reform of the Canadian constitution, which was to consist in nothing
less than in making both branches of the colonial legislature elective.
By the statute 81 George III., c. 81, a constitution was given to the
province of Quebec, which was thereby divided into Lower and Upper
Canada. The constitution so conferred was professedly a copy of the
constitution of England, the governor being as the king, the legislative
council as the house of lords, and the house of assembly as the house
of commons. The object, Mr. Roebuck said, which he had in view, was to
amend the legislative council, which was no more like the house of
lords at home than the governor of the colony was like the king of these
realms. The members of the legislative council, unlike the house of
lords, were poor, having no tenants, and consequently no influence over
the people; they were a _clique_ holding power for their own purposes.
On the explanati