andidates for vice-regal favors, their smiles were fortune, and
their frowns were fate. The Governor was a hostage in the keeping of
the bureaucracy, and the people were but serfs.

[14] Christie's History of Lower Canada, vol. 1, page 347.

Nothing has been left on record to show that when Sir James Craig
issued his absurd proclamation, treason was to have been feared, unless
it be that the clergy were required to read the proclamation from the
pulpits of the parish churches, that Chief Justice Sewell read it from
the Bench, that the Grand Jury drew up an address to the Court and
strongly animadverted upon the dangerous productions of the _Canadien_,
and that the _Quebec Mercury_ expressed its abhorrence of sedition, and
chronicled the fact that 671 _habitants_ had expressed their gratitude
to the Governor, for his "truly paternal proclamation."

In the April term of the Court of King's Bench, the release of Mr.
Bedard from gaol, was attempted, by an attempt to obtain a writ of
_Habeas Corpus_. But the Bench was not sufficiently independent of the
Crown. The writ was refused. The State prisoners were compelled to
remain in prison, indulging the hope that whatever charges could be
preferred against them would be reduced to writing, and a trial be
obtained. It was hoping against hope. Some of the imprisoned fell sick,
among whom was the printer of the _Canadien_, and all in the gaol of
Quebec, with the exception of Mr. Bedard, were turned out of prison.
Mr. Bedard refused to be set at liberty without having had the
opportunity of vindicating his reputation by the verdict of a jury.
Conscious of the integrity of his conduct, and of the legality of his
expressed political opinions, he solicited trial, but the September
session of the Criminal Term of the King's Bench was suffered to elapse
without any attention having been paid to him. Three of the prisoners
were imprisoned in the gaol of Montreal, and were not only subjected to
the inconveniences and discomforts of a damp and unhealthy prison, but
to the petty persecutions of a relentless gaoler. They were one after
the other enlarged without trial, Mr. Corbeil only to die.

In the course of the summer the government had been occupied with the
regulation and establishment of a system of police, in Montreal and
Quebec, and, with that view, salaried chairmen were appointed to
preside over the Courts of Quarter Sessions. The government also
determined upon opening u