ex-Councillors had been a
deceitful manoeuvre to gain credit with the country for Liberal
feelings and intentions where none really existed. The question of
Executive responsibility was gone into at considerable length, and the
conduct of the ex-Councillors was approved of in every particular. There
is no need to analyze the entire report, which was long and exhaustive.
It distinctly recommended the withholding of the annual supplies. The
Assembly, by adopting the report, and by committing itself to this
extreme measure, proved that, in the language of Lord Glenelg's
instructions,[232] it regarded the present in the light of "an
emergency." The supplies, however, were not entirely withheld. Money
was granted for the construction of roads, for schools, for the
improvement of navigation, and other useful purposes; but all these
grants were nullified by the Lieutenant-Governor, who signified his
disapprobation of the Assembly's conduct by refusing his assent to the
money-bills of the session. He afterwards stated as one of his reasons
for this refusal that he had good grounds for believing a portion of the
money would have been spent by the Assembly in sending an agent to
England[233]--which was probably the fact.

The Assembly, feeling that some reason should be assigned for their
action in the matter of the supplies, which were now withheld for the
first time in the history of Upper Canada, passed an Address to the
King, in which the Lieutenant-Governor's conduct was painted in no
neutral tints. He was directly charged with being despotic, tyrannical,
unjust and deceitful. His conduct was declared to have been "derogatory
to the honour" of his Majesty, and "demoralizing to the community." A
memorial to the House of Commons was also adopted, in which his public
acts were referred to as having been arbitrary and vindictive, and
wherein he was charged with mis-statements, misrepresentations, and
"deviations from candour and truth." This bitterly-worded memorial was
formally signed by Mr. Bidwell as Speaker of the House--a circumstance
which was long remembered against him by the person implicated.

It must have been gall and wormwood to Sir Francis to be compelled to
forward these documents to the Colonial Office. It was the first time
that clear and undisguised charges of so humiliating a nature had been
officially laid against a colonial Lieutenant-Governor, and one must
needs confess that nothing short of the most unas