of '37 and '38. The bill provided for a
new commission of five, with power to examine witnesses on oath. In
accordance with the finding of the previous commission, the total sum
to be expended was limited to L100,000. If the losses exceeded that
sum, the individual claims were to be proportionally reduced. {118}
The necessary funds were to be raised on twenty-year debentures bearing
interest at six per cent. LaFontaine introduced and explained the
bill, and Baldwin supported it in a brief speech. It was easy enough,
with their unbroken majority, to vote the measure through; but the
storm of opposition it raised might have made less determined leaders
hesitate or draw back.

[Illustration: Sir Louis H. LaFontaine. After a photograph by Notman]

The vehemence of the opposition was not due merely to the readiness
with which the faction out of power will seize on the weak aspects of a
question in order to embarrass the government. Such sham-fight tactics
are common enough and may be rated at their proper value. The leaders
of the British party were sincere in their belief that the success of
this measure meant the triumph of the French and the reversal of all
that had been done to hold the colonies for the Empire against rebels
whose avowed purpose was separation. Twelve years had gone by since
they had failed in the overt act. Now Papineau was back in the House,
about to receive his arrears of salary as Speaker. In Elgin's eyes he
was a Guy Fawkes waving flaming brands among all sorts of combustibles.
Mackenzie had been granted amnesty by the monarch {119} he had called
'the bloody Queen of England.' Wolfred Nelson, who had resisted Her
Majesty's forces at St Denis, was to have his claim for damages
considered. It was not in the flesh and blood of politicians to endure
all this; and before condemning the opposition to this bill, as is the
fashion with Canadian historians, we might ask what we should have done
ourselves in such circumstances. What the Tories did was to raise the
war-cry, 'No pay to rebels.' It resounded from one end of the province
to the other and roused to life all the passion that had slumbered
since the rebellion.

In the debate on the second reading of the bill a scene almost without
parallel took place on the floor of the House. The Tories taunted the
French with being 'aliens and rebels.' Blake, the solicitor-general
for Upper Canada, retorted the charge, and accused the Tories o