moderately
within the limits of the constitution, that the latter felt compelled by
a sense of dignity to refuse the confirmation of the great agitator as
speaker in 1827. The majority in the assembly vehemently asserted their
right to elect their speaker independently of the governor, whose
confirmation was a mere matter of form, and not of statutory right; and
the only course at last open to Lord Dalhousie was to prorogue the
legislature. Mr. Papineau was re-elected speaker at the next session,
when Lord Dalhousie had gone to England and Sir James Kempt was
administrator.

After 1831, Mr. Papineau steadily evoked the opposition of the more
conservative and thoughtful British Liberals who were not disposed to be
carried into a questionable position, inimical to British connection and
the peace of the country, Dr. Wolfred Nelson, and Dr. O'Callaghan, a
journalist, were soon the only supporters of ability left him among the
British and Irish, the great majority of whom rallied to the support of
the government when a perilous crisis arrived in the affairs of the
province. The British party dwindled away in every appeal to the people,
and no French Canadian representative who presumed to differ from Mr.
Papineau was ever again returned to the assembly. Mr. Papineau became
not only a political despot but an "irreconcilable," whose vanity led
him to believe that he would soon become supreme in French Canada, and
the founder of _La Nation Canadienne_ in the valley of the St. Lawrence.
The ninety-two resolutions passed in 1834 may be considered the climax
of the demands of his party, which for years had resisted immigration as
certain to strengthen the British population, had opposed the
establishment of registry offices as inconsistent with the French
institutions of the province, and had thrown every possible opposition
in the way of the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were
attracting year by year an industrious and energetic British population
from the British Isles and New England.

In these resolutions of 1834 there is not a single paragraph or even
phrase which can be tortured into showing that the French Canadian
agitator and his friends were in favour of responsible government. The
key-note of the whole document is an elective legislative council, which
would inevitably increase the power of the French Canadians and place
the British in a hopeless minority. Mr. Roebuck, the paid agent of the
assembly in Eng