82 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



he wrote to Colonel William Claus from Quebec on March 32nd, 1810. 

 " The spirit of insubordination and revolt was advancing so rapidly 

 ajuong the Canadian population of the province that it became abso- 

 Jutely necessary for tlie peace to put a check to it, and fortunately a 

 person was found at the head of the Government of sufficient energy to 

 meet and crush at once the monster who strived to draw the people from 

 tlie state of unexampled prosperity to all the horrors of civil commotion. 

 Several persons liave been arrested. Bedard, Blanchet and Taschereau 

 are the principal. I hope at any rate, terror will prove effective, for I 

 begin to think gratitude and a recollection of the sacrifice any cliange 

 would produce will scarcely operate a reform in their rooted animosities 

 against all anyway connected with the name of Englishman. All con- 

 fidence has forever vanished, and the bubbile set up by Ijord Dorchester 

 and! Sir E. S. Milnes, has completely burst never to rise again." ^ 



Turreau relates that Saint Hilaire informed him that a French 

 expedition for the recovery of Canada would simply be a matter of en- 

 tering into possession as the hearts and arms not only of the French in- 

 habitants but of the neighbouring Indians were devoted to the Emperor. 

 The English, he said, were so fully convinced of thei strength of this 

 sentiment of disaffection to them, that as soon as the French flag was 

 seen in the St. Lawrence the scattered detachments of regular troops 

 "would be withdrawn into Quebec and Halifax and the invaders would 

 })e permitiBd to become masters of the rest of Canada, probably without 

 firing a shot. He had, in fact, been informed tliat instructions had been 

 given not to attempt the least resistance in the field.- But Saint Hilaire 

 died suddenly a few months later and Turreau failed to re-open com- 

 munications with the Canadian conspirators. 



By a goodly majority of tlitô French-Canadians, Craig wais undoubt- 

 edly viewed as a thorough-paced tyrant, but there seemed to be very 

 little inclination on tlie part of their leaders to further endanger their 

 liberty and perhaps their lives by open resistance, and the suppression of 

 Le Canadien seemed to restore tranquillity for a time. In his proclama- 

 tion he asserted that the " most base and diabolical falsehoods " had 

 been insidiously promulgated and disseminated. " In one part," he 

 continued, " it is announced as my intention to embody and make 

 soldiers of you, and that, having applied to the late House of Representa- 

 tives to enable me to assemble twelve thousand of you for that purpose, 

 and they having declined to do so, I had therefore to dissolve them. 

 This is not only directly false, such an idea never having entered into 



1 Original letter In possession of Miss C. Claue, Niagara, Ont. 

 * Faucher de St. Maurice. 



