r, and after several speeches of a
very inflammatory character had been made, the mob rushed to the
parliament building, which was soon in flames. By this disgraceful act
of incendiarism most valuable collections of books and documents were
destroyed, which, in some cases, could not be replaced. Supporters of
the bill were everywhere insulted and maltreated while the excitement
was at its height. LaFontaine's residence was attacked and injured.
His valuable library of books and manuscripts, some of them very rare,
was destroyed by fire--a deplorable incident which recalls the burning
and mutilation of the rich historical collections of Hutchinson, the
last loyalist governor of Massachusetts, at the commencement of the
American revolution in Boston.

A few days later Lord Elgin's life was in actual danger at the hands
of the unruly mob, as he was proceeding to Government House--then the
old Chateau de Ramezay on Notre Dame Street--to receive an address
from the assembly. On his return to Monklands he was obliged to take a
circuitous route to evade the same mob who were waiting with the
object of further insulting him and otherwise giving vent to their
feelings.

The government appears to have been quite unconscious that the public
excitement was likely to assume so dangerous a phase, and had
accordingly taken none of those precautions which might have prevented
the destruction of the parliament house and its valuable contents.
Indeed it would seem that the leaders of the movement against the bill
had themselves no idea that the political storm which they had raised
by their inflammatory harangues would become a whirlwind so entirely
beyond their control. Their main object was to bring about a
ministerial crisis. Sir Allan MacNab, the leader of the opposition,
himself declared that he was amazed at the dangerous form which the
public indignation had at last assumed. He had always been a devoted
subject of the sovereign, and it is only just to say that he could
under no circumstances become a rebel, but he had been carried away by
his feelings and had made rash observations more than once under the
belief that the bill would reward the same class of men whom he and
other loyalists had fought against in Upper Canada. Whatever he felt
in his heart, he and his followers must always be held as much
responsible for the disturbances of 1849 as were Mackenzie and
Papineau for those of 1837. Indeed there was this difference betw