on his first interview was that ‘though a very young man and but a few days in office [he] appears to be very much _au fait_ in matters of public business’. A week or two later he wrote of him as ‘a very elegant young man of fine talents, as I am informed’, and very pleasing manners.[224] With these two ministers and with various other public men, including George Canning, Ryland conferred or corresponded during his stay in England, which lasted for the better part of two years. On one occasion, soon after his arrival, he was present at a Cabinet Council, being seated, as we learn from the full account which he wrote to Craig, between Percival and Lord Liverpool. He was asked a large number of questions, including a query as to the number of regular troops in Canada, and, as the result, he appears to have formed a very poor opinion of the knowledge and capacity of the ministry. [Sidenote: Craig’s views on the political situation in Lower Canada.] He had brought with him to England a very long dispatch in which Craig had set out his views. Craig estimated the population of Lower Canada at the time when he wrote, May, 1810, at between 250,000 and 300,000 souls, out of whom he computed that no more than 20,000 to 25,000 were English or Americans. The remainder, the French Canadians, he represented as, in the main, wholly alienated from the British section of the community, French in religion, laws, language and manners, and becoming more attracted to France and more alienated from Great Britain, in proportion as the power of France in Europe became more consolidated. The large mass of the people were, so he wrote, wholly uneducated, following unscrupulous men, their leaders in the country and in the House of Assembly. The Roman Catholic priests were anti-English on grounds of race and religion; their attachment to France had been renewed since Napoleon made his concordat with the Pope; and, being largely drawn from the lower orders of society, and headed by a bishop who exercised more authority than in the days of the old régime and who arrogated complete independence of the civil government, they were hardly even outwardly loyal to the British Crown. The growing nationalist and democratic feeling was reflected and embodied in the elected House of Assembly. When the constitution was first granted, some few Canadian gentlemen had come forward and been elected; but, at the time when the governor wrote, the Canadian members of the Assembly, who formed an overwhelming majority, according to his account consisted of avocats and notaries, shopkeepers and habitants, some of the last named being unable either to read or write. The organ of the party was the paper _Le Canadien_, which vilified the Executive officers as ‘gens en place’, and aimed at bringing the government into contempt. [Sidenote: Constitutional changes recommended.]