[cruikshankI administration OF SIR JAMES CRAIG 88 



my mind, but it is doubly wicked and atrocious because it has been ad- 

 vanced by persons who must have been supposed to spoak with ceitainty 

 'on the subject and was therefore the more calculated to impose upon 

 you. In another part you ane told that I wanted to tax your lands and 

 that the late House of Assembly would consent only to tax wine, and 

 that upon that account I had dissolved the House. Inhabitants of St. 

 Denis, this is also directly false. I never had the most distant idea of 

 taxing you at all." 



He appointed Hon. P. A. de Bonne to a vacant seat in the Execu- 

 tive Council and despatched K3dand, his private secretary, to England, 

 to justify his policy to the ministry and recommend the repeal of the 

 Constitutional Act, upon which the province would revert to the position 

 of a Crown Colony. 



Lord Liverpool, however, frankly told Ryland that even if the 

 ministers were inclined to approve of such a drastic proposal, they would 

 not dare to bring it before Parliament, and suggested a reunion of the 

 provinces or a redistribution of constituencies to increase the number 

 of English-speaking members in the Assembly. Referring to an intima- 

 tion conveyed in one of Craig's despatches that the policy of the leaders 

 of the opposition was inspired by the hope and desire of forcing them- 

 selves into office, he inquired whether some of them could not be "brought 

 over." To this Ryland replied that this policy had already been adopted 

 in several instances, but that there were very few posts of emolument 

 at the disposal of the Governor-General. 



The Attorney-General for Great Britain gave an opinion thait Par- 

 liament possessed the authority to reunite the provinces, but not to 

 alter the number of representatives of the boundaries of the electoral 

 districts which could only be changed by the Legislature. He also held 

 that the statements in Le Canadien, upon which the action of the Execu- 

 tive Council in the suppression of that newspaper was based, were not 

 actually sufficient to justify a charge of treasonable conduct, but as they 

 were undoubtedly designed to cause miscliief, the publishers might be 

 prosecuted for seditious libel. 



During the summer, both Blanchet and Taschereau, humbly ex- 

 pressed regret for their conduct and were promptly released, but 

 Bedard resolutely denied that he had committed any offence and de- 

 manded that he should either be released unconditionally or brought 

 to trial. A writ of liaheas corpus was refused, and he remained in prison. 

 An attempt by his political associates to buy another printing press 

 which was offered for sale in Montreal was thwarted by the vigilance 



