laration of faith
in American justice by sending his brother-in-law, Colonel Grey of the
71st Regiment, to Washington to lay the facts before President Van
Buren and to remonstrate vigorously against the laxity which permitted
an armed force to organize within the borders of the Republic for an
attack upon its peaceful neighbour. Such laxity was against the law of
nations. As a result of Durham's spirited action, the military forces
on both sides of the boundary-line worked in concert to put down such
lawlessness. President Van Buren's attitude, however, cost him his
popularity in his own country.

{14}

The most pressing and most thorny question was how to deal with the
hundreds of prisoners who, since the rebellion, had filled the Canadian
jails. A large number of these were only suspected of treason; some
had been taken in the act of rebellion; and some were confined as
ringleaders, charged with crimes no government could overlook and hope
to survive. In some countries the solution would have been a simple
one: the prisoners would have been backed against the nearest wall and
fusilladed in batches, as the Communists were dealt with in Paris in
the red quarter of the year 1871. Even in Canada there were hideous
cries for bloody reprisals. But the ingrained British habit of giving
the worst criminal a fair trial blocked such a ready and easy way of
restoring tranquillity. Still, a fair trial was impossible. In the
temper then prevailing in the province no French jury would condemn, no
English jury would acquit, a Frenchman charged with treason, however
great or slight his fault might prove to be. The process of trying so
many hundreds of prisoners would be simply so many examples of the
law's burdensome delay. To leave them to rot in prison, as King Bomba
left political offenders {15} against his rule, was unthinkable.
Durham met the difficulty in a bold and merciful way. The young Queen
was crowned on June 28, 1838. Such an event is always a season of
rejoicing and an opportunity for exercising the royal clemency in the
liberation of captives. Following this excellent custom, Durham
proclaimed on that day an amnesty in his sovereign's name; and, in a
month after his arrival, he gave freedom to hundreds of unfortunates,
who had endured many hardships in the old, cruel jails of the time, in
addition to the tortures of suspense as to their ultimate fate.

There were some who could not be so released. Th