ation to the Republican leaders
that he was not the kind of man they believed him to be. Beyond the
grievances they had enumerated in the report, they had a variety of
others hitherto unmentioned; and when this was intimated to him, he gave
a distinct intimation that he should not take these into consideration.
His graphic account of his interview will well illustrate the manner
in which he treated the Republicans. He says,--"When Mr. Mackenzie,
bringing with him a letter of introduction from Mr. Hume, called upon
me, I thought that of course he would be too happy to discuss with
me the contents of the report; but his mind seemed to nauseate
its subjects. Afraid to look me in the face, he sat with his feet
not-reaching the ground, and with his countenance averted from me at
an angle of about seventy degrees, while, with the eccentricity, the
volubility, and, indeed, the appearance of a madman, the tiny creature
raved in all directions about grievances here, and grievances there,
which the committee, he said, had not ventured, to enumerate. 'Sir,'
I exclaimed, 'let us cure what we have got here first!' pointing to the
report before me. But no; nothing that I could say would induce this
pedlar to face his own report; and I soon found that it had the same
effect upon all the members, and that, like the repelling end of a
magnet, I had only to present it to the Radicals to drive them from the
very object which his majesty's government expected would have
possessed attractions." On his arrival Sir Francis Head promulgated his
instructions; a step which had the effect of precipitating matters in
Lower Canada. He then proceeded to act, by adding three Reformers to
his executive council, making the total number six. By this means the
executive council was brought into unison with the majority of the house
of assembly. Thus favoured, in furtherance of the views of that body as
then constituted, the board requested the governor to bestow upon it a
considerable enlargement of its powers. But this sealed the fate of the
executive council. Instead of granting their request, Sir Francis, who
had already become hostile to the Reformers, dismissed the whole of
the members of which the council was composed. This brought him into
collision with the house of assembly; the supplies were stopped, and
violent and condemnatory addresses drawn up. Sir Francis, however,
fought them with their own weapons; when they stopped the supplies, he
refus