the Bermudas during the
queen's pleasure. The sixteen refugees were forbidden to return to
Canada under penalty of death without benefit of clergy.

No one can fail to see that this course was dictated by the humanest
considerations. A criminal rebellion had terminated without the
shedding judicially of a drop of blood. Lord Durham even took care
that the eight prisoners should not be sent to a convict colony. The
only criticism directed against his course in Canada was on the ground
of its excessive lenity. Wolfred Nelson and Robert Bouchette had
certainly suffered a milder fate {110} than that of Samuel Lount and
Peter Matthews, who had been hanged in Upper Canada for rebellion. Yet
when the news of Durham's action reached England, it was immediately
attacked as arbitrary and unconstitutional. The assault was opened by
Lord Brougham, a bitter personal enemy of Lord Durham. In the House of
Lords Brougham contended that Durham had had no right to pass sentence
on the rebel prisoners and refugees when they had not been brought to
trial; and that he had no right to order them to be transported to, and
held in, Bermuda, where his authority did not run. In this attitude he
was supported by the Duke of Wellington, the leader of the Tory party.
Wellington's name is one which is usually remembered with honour in the
history of the British Empire; but on this occasion he did not think it
beneath him to play fast and loose with the interests of Canada for the
sake of a paltry party advantage. It would have been easy for him to
recognize the humanity of Durham's policy, and to join with the
government in legislating away any technical illegalities that may have
existed in Durham's ordinance; but Wellington could not resist the
temptation to embarrass the Whig {111} administration, regardless of
the injury which he might be doing to the sorely tried people of Canada.

The Melbourne administration, which had sent Durham to Canada, might
have been expected to stand behind him when he was attacked. Lord John
Russell, indeed, rose in the House of Commons and made a thoroughgoing
defence of Durham's policy as 'wise and statesmanlike.' But he alone
of the ministers gave Durham loyal support. In the House of Lords
Melbourne contented himself with a feeble defence of Durham and then
capitulated to the Opposition. Nothing would have been easier for him
than to introduce a bill making valid whatever may have been irregular
i