His final settlement of the question came in 1849, and the introduction of that Rebellion Losses Bill which has been already mentioned. The measure was, in the main, an act of justice to French sufferers from the disturbances created by the Rebellion; for they had naturally shared but slightly {214} in earlier and partial schemes of compensation; and the opposition to the bill was directed quite frankly against the French inhabitants of Canada as traitors, who deserved, not recompense, but punishment. Now there were many cases of real hardship, like that of the inhabitants of St. Benoit, a village which Sir John Colborne had pledged himself to protect when he occupied it for military purposes, but which, in his absence, the loyalist volunteers had set on fire and destroyed. The inhabitants might be disloyal, but in the eyes of an equal justice a wrong had been done, and must be righted. The idea of the bill was not new--it was not Elgin's bill; and if his predecessors had been right, then the French politicians were justified in claiming that the system of compensation already initiated must be followed till all legitimate claims had been met. It would be disingenuous to deny that Elgin calculated on the pacific influence which his support of the bill would exert in Lower Canada. "I was aware of two facts," he told Grey in 1852: "Firstly, that M. La Fontaine would be unable to retain the support of his countrymen if he failed to introduce a measure of this description; and secondly, that my refusal would be taken by him and his friends {215} as a proof that they had not my confidence." But his chief concern was to hold the balance level, to redress an actual grievance, and to repress the fury of Canadian Tories whose unrestrained action would have flung Canada into a new and complicated struggle of races and parties. "I am firmly convinced," he told Grey in June, speaking of American election movements at this time, "that the only thing which prevented an invasion of Canada was the political contentment prevailing among the French Canadians and Irish Catholics"; and that political contentment was the result of Elgin's action in supporting his ministers. A happy chance, utilized to the full by Elgin's cautious wisdom, had enabled him to do the French what they counted a considerable service; and the rage and disorder of the opposition only played the more surely into the hands of the governor-general, and established, beyond any risk of alteration, French loyalty to him personally.[29]