and of good sense, a judicious epicurean, an agreeable selfseeker, cool and gay, mingling a natural authority with a negligence which he took pleasure in carrying even to exaggeration. "I don't care," was his habitual expression. The queen soon became much attached to him; he amused her as well as advised her, and had an affectionate freedom in his intercourse with her which was almost fatherly. The Tories soon became extremely jealous of Lord Melbourne's personal influence over the young sovereign. "We have no chance at all," said the Duke of Wellington; "I have no small-talk, and Peel has no manners." The penetration and good sense of the queen soon taught her to recognize superior merit hidden under a cold or unattractive exterior, but she always preserved her affection for Lord Melbourne, even after the necessities of public affairs obliged her to separate from him.

The first difficulties of Queen Victoria's government arose from Canada. The population of Lower Canada had remained French in manners and habits, even after the misfortunes and faults of Louis XV. had delivered the province over to England. It had struggled long and passionately to remain faithful to that France who was not able to keep her colonies, but has left her ineffaceable stamp everywhere, and the tender memory of her rule. The colonists of Upper Canada, English in origin, whether coming directly from the mother-country, or coming in over the border from the United States, had by degrees gained an importance and taken a control in the affairs of the colony which threatened to become preponderant. The strife of rival tendencies and influences had brought about between the two populations an antagonism which manifested itself especially in the conflict of the two legislative bodies, one named by the crown, the other elected by popular suffrage. The animosity was carried so far that the representative assembly refused to vote subsidies. This legal resistance shortly be

came open revolt, active and enduring in Lower Canada, soon and easily repressed in Upper Canada. In the latter province, Major Head, the governor, contented himself with calling out the militia and invoking the aid of all well-disposed citizens against the rebels; for the pacification of Lower Canada, all the regular troops had been required. Parliament suspended the constitution of Lower Canada, still in large measure stamped with French traditions, and the ministry appointed as governorgeneral Lord Durham, son-in-law of Lord Grey, and confided to him almost dictatorial powers.

The new governor of Canada had been a member of the ministry which had accomplished the work of parliamentary reform; he was ardent, eloquent, sincere in the enthusiasm of his views and of his character. His disposition was capricious, and his best friends dreaded his explosions of temper. He might save Canada, or he might ruin it. Canada was saved through the audacity of Lord Durham's measures, and the governor himself was ruined by them.

The armed rebellion had already been suppressed when the governor-general arrived at Quebec, towards the close of May, 1838; the chief leaders had quitted the colony, a few others were in prison. Lord Durham perceived that it would be impossible to have them judged by the ordinary tribunals; the jury were sure to acquit them without exception. He did not institute a higher court, but, proclaiming an almost general amnesty, he excepted from it those only who had fled the country and those now in prison who had been openly implicated in acts of high treason. In the exercise of his supreme authority, he transported the prisoners to the Bermuda Islands, and pronounced sentence of death against those excepted from the amnesty who should attempt to return into the colony. In all his measures for the re-establishment of a settled gov ernment, he set aside the provisional council which had been

formed to replace the suspended laws, and ruled alone, with the assistance of his secretaries and aids-de-camp. The power which he exercised was absolute. Such was, in his mind, the mission with which he had been charged.

Parliament judged otherwise. When the news of Lord Durham's dictatorial acts reached England, the opposition seized upon them at once with an eagerness which united in the same attack Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst. The ministry yielded, and disowned the acts of Lord Durham. The latter learned by an American newspaper that he had been thus cast off, and his resignation crossed on the way the official announcement that his conduct had been disapproved at home. Carried away by his resentment, the governor published a proclamation at Quebec, appealing to the sentiment of justice in the colony against the censure of the English government. His recall had become inevitable. He returned to England, deeply irritated. and wounded, and never rallied from the blow which he had received. He died shortly after (in the year 1840), at the age of forty-eight, without having seen the result of his efforts in favor of a new constitution for the colony of Canada.

It was, however, Lord Durham's report, skilfully prepared by Mr. Charles Buller, which has served as the basis for the reforms made successively in the constitution of Canada, transforming it into a real federation, governing itself, in fact, and every day becoming freer and more prosperous. The work was accomplished with a prudence and a wisdom which Lord Durham never could have manifested; but it was he who first conceived the idea of it, and the system he sought to inaugurate has since then been applied to the numerous colonies. of England as fast as the mighty instinct of the Anglo-Saxon race has founded them in all the seas.

It was a measure analogous to that of placing Lord Durham in command in Canada which the ministry presented in

the session of 1839, with the intention of relieving the embarrassments of the government in Jamaica. The emancipation. of the blacks remained imperfect in that island; the planters composing the representative assembly of the colony found it difficult to accustom themselves to the equality which recent laws had granted to their former slaves.

The government and the legislative council protected the negroes against the oppression still practised against them, the illegality of which they themselves did not always understand. To put an end to the conflict between the two powers, the ministry proposed to suspend, for a period of five years, the constitution of the colony. This measure, necessary perhaps, but dangerously anti-liberal, was attacked simultaneously by the Tories and by a certain number of the radicals. The administration was already tottering, and a majority of only five was announced in favor of the law. The ministry resigned. The queen took counsel with the Duke of Wellington, who advised her to send for Sir Robert Peel, assuring her that the new administration would encounter its chief difficulties in the House of Commons.

The chief difficulty, however, was to arise from a different quarter; it was the queen herself who was to become the obstacle in the formation of the Tory Cabinet. Sir Robert Peel readily made his selection, and the queen offered no objection to the persons proposed, although she had never scrupled to say from the first how much she regretted the Whigs, while yielding without hesitation to the constitutional rule which required her to part with them. But the demands of Sir Robert Peel extended to the household of the queen; he felt the serious disadvantages of leaving the queen surrounded by the wives and sisters of his political opponents, and he requested the dismissal of Lady Normanby and the Duchess of Sutherland. The queen was attached to her ladies. It appeared to her that her