offer
as a bribe to draw him away from his countrymen and their national
ideal, and declined it, thereby increasing the tension. Thus, as the
time for the election drew near, the French were still further
hardening their hearts against the governor-general of United Canada,
and Sydenham, his patience now exhausted, could but exclaim in baffled
anger, "As for the French, nothing but time will do anything with them.
They hate British rule--British connection--improvements of {97} all
kinds, whether in their laws or their roads; so they will sulk, and
will try, that is, their leaders, to do all the mischief they can."[27]

Meantime he had prepared two other politic strokes before he called
Parliament: the regulation of immigration, and a project for raising a
British loan in aid of Canadian public works. Immigration, more
especially now that the current had set once more towards Canada, was
one of the essential facts in the life of the colony; and yet the evils
attendant on it were still as obvious as the gains. Most of the
defects so vividly portrayed by Durham and his commissioners still
persisted--unsuitable immigrants, over-crowded ships, disease which
spread from ship to land and overcrowded the local hospitals, wretched
and poverty-stricken masses lingering impotently at Quebec, and a
straggling line of westbound settlers, who obtained work and land with
difficulty and after many sorrows.[28] Sydenham had none of Gibbon
Wakefield's doctrinaire enthusiasm on the subject; and, as he said, the
inducements, to parishes and landlords to send out their surplus
population were already {98} sufficiently strong. But much could and
must be done by way of remedy. It was his plan to regulate more
strictly the conditions on board emigrant ships, and to humanize the
process of travelling. Government agents must safeguard the rights of
ignorant settlers; relief, medical and otherwise, should be in
readiness for the destitute and afflicted when they arrived; sales of
land were to be simplified and made easier; and a system of public
works might enable the local authorities to solve two problems at one
time, by giving the poorer settler steady employment, and by completing
the great tasks, only half performed in days when money and labour
alike were wanting.[29] The final achievement of these objects
Sydenham reserved until he should meet parliament, but he had laid his
plans, and had primed the home authorities with facts lo