The government party gained the election. But after the contest, the opposition, seeing their hopes of success--which were founded upon the plan of embarrassing the government into their measures, by gaining majorities in parliament and stopping the supplies--all destroyed by the result of this election; and knowing that immigration was every year adding to the strength of their opponents, finally determined to change the struggle from the hustings and the parliament, to the camp and the battle-field--to risk all in a bold attempt to strike down the oak at a blow, instead of attempting to destroy it, branch by branch, by democratic measures and factious legislation. That there were men of this party who did not approve of this desperate step, and that there were others who thought it premature, we believe and know; but that the great body of the party itself sympathised with the leaders in it, and would have gloried in, and contributed by all the means in their power to their success, had it been attainable, we are not only sure of, but could prove by the history of the whole affair, given by those who had the best means of understanding it. When Lord Durham arrived in Canada, he found this party in the situation of masses of threatening, but scattered clouds. Some had voluntarily withdrawn to the States; others were there, either to escape arrest, or from consciousness of their guilt in the rebellion. The great body of the party remained in the province, with all those feelings towards England and her loyalists, that humbled pride, many sufferings, a contemptible struggle, and a mortifying defeat, were likely to engender. But though the storm had passed over, the clouds were nearly all left. The party had, in reality, gained by experience much more than it had lost in numbers. It had come to the understanding that England's great right arm could not be so easily broken. It had learned, and its friends in the States had learned--what was most useful to both under the circumstances--that if England's institutions were to be destroyed in America, it must be done by some other means than by blows and bayonets.