To Ryland the affairs of Canada were all in all; to the ministry whom he deemed so weak, they were overshadowed by events and difficulties at home and abroad, compared with which the political questions which troubled Lower Canada were insignificant, noteworthy only as likely, if not carefully handled, to add to the burden which was laid on the statesmen responsible for the safe-keeping of the Empire. In 1809 Talavera had been fought and hardly won, but it was the year also of the disastrous expedition to Walcheren. In 1810, behind the lines of Torres Vedras, Wellington was beginning to turn the tide of French invasion in the Peninsula. The next year saw Massena’s retreat, but at home the political situation was complicated by the insanity of the old King and the consequent necessity of declaring a regency. In 1812, the year of Salamanca, Percival the Prime Minister was assassinated, his place being taken by Lord Liverpool, who, as long as Ryland was in England, had been in charge of the colonies. In the same year, war with the United States long threatened, came to pass. These years were in England years of financial distress and of widespread misery. William Cobbett giving voice to the hungry discontent of the poor was fined and imprisoned, and Ryland hoped that his fate would have some effect in Canada.[227] [Sidenote: Legal opinion as to patronage to appointments in the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, and as to the Sulpician estates.] Lord Liverpool, however, was very loyal to Craig, though he did not support any such drastic measures as the latter had suggested. At the end of July, 1811, by which time Craig had left Canada, he wrote a letter to him expressing the Prince Regent’s high approbation of his general conduct in the administration of the government of the North American provinces and the Prince’s particular regret at the cause which had necessitated his retirement. He wrote too to Craig’s successor, Sir George Prevost, highly praising Ryland and expressing a hope that he would be retained in his appointment. The law officers of the Crown in England had been consulted as to the Roman Catholic Church in Canada in view of the governor’s proposals, and advised that so much of the patronage of Roman Catholic benefices as was exercised by the Bishop of Quebec under the French Government had of right devolved on the Crown. On the further question, whether the Crown had the right of property in the estates of the Sulpician seminary at Montreal, they advised that legally the Crown had the right, inasmuch as the Sulpicians who remained in Canada after the British conquest had no legal capacity to hold lands apart from the parent body at Paris which had since been dissolved, and had not obtained a licence from the Crown to hold the estates; but the law officers, seeing the hardship which would be involved in wholesale confiscation of the lands after so many years of undisturbed