and in opposition to the ministerial bill. Lord John
Russell thought that the house should be allowed time to consider
precedents; and after some further conversation Mr. Grote gave notice
that he should call the attention of the house to the subject on the
22nd instant.

The subject of Canada was brought before the lords on the 18th by Lord
Glenelg, who moved an appropriate address to the queen. After adverting
to the disturbances in that province, he made reference to the intended
bill. With respect to ulterior arrangements his lordship saw great
difficulties in the way of a legislative union between the two
provinces, but thought that considerable advantage might be made of
a federal union. In conclusion, his lordship defended the conduct of
government in not having provided more troops for the suppression of
the insurrection. Lord Brougham ridiculed Lord Glenelg's despatches, to
which that noble lord had referred in his speech. The despatches
were certainly the products of a mind inadequately furnished with the
experience and knowledge necessary for the task imposed upon it, but
the honest intentions of the writer were equally apparent, and might
have protected him from the kind of invective to which the noble
logomachist subjected him. The whole speech of Lord Brougham was as
damaging to himself as to the government which he assailed. He pursued
the government with his irony and abuse, not because they fell beneath
him in point of honour or principle, but because they refused him their
confidence as Lord Chancellor, when his indiscretions and bullying
rendered him alike odious to the court and unendurable to the cabinet.
His lordship might fairly be considered as much the "standing counsel"
for the rebellious Canadians in the lords, as Mr. Roebuck was in the
commons. Nevertheless, the denunciations of the government by the
eccentric peer were in the main grounded upon their errors and
vacillation, and these vices in their administration were depicted with
a scathing eloquence, and a malignant spirit. Lord Brougham played the
part of a mere partisan, and was set down by the country for such. The
patriotic prestige associated with his name passed away. Lord Melbourne,
in reply, characterized Lord Brougham's speech as "a laboured and
extreme concentration of bitterness." Concerning the charge against
ministers of neglect in not providing against the possibility of an
outbreak, his lordship said, that it was a difficu