Meanwhile addresses numerously signed came pouring in to the Governor from all quarters, expressing entire confidence in the Administration, and unbounded regret for the indignities to which he had been subjected. Lord Elgin, however, felt bound to tender his resignation to the Home Government. Meanwhile the Bill which had caused such an explosion in the colony, was running the gauntlet of the British Parliament. On June 14th it was vehemently attacked in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone himself describing it as a "measure for rewarding rebels." The strongest pressure had already been put upon Lord Elgin to induce him to refuse the Royal Assent to the Bill. To do so would have been to place himself in direct collision with his Parliament, and this he steadily refused to do. The Home Government, represented by Lord Grey, firmly supported him, approved his policy, and shortly afterwards conferred upon him a British peerage as an acknowledgment of the unshaken confidence of the Queen. Being urgently pressed to remain in office as Governor-General he consented, and the more readily because the agitation soon quieted down. From this time we hear no more of such disgraceful scenes, but it was long before the old "Family Compact" party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity. And as the members of this party, though they had lost their monopoly of political power, still remained the dominant class in society, the disparaging tone which they set was taken up not only in the colony itself, but also by travellers who visited it, and by them carried back to infect opinion in England. The result was that persons at home, who had the highest appreciation of Lord Elgin's capacity as a statesman, sincerely believed him to be deficient in nerve and vigour; and as the misapprehension was one which he could not have corrected, even if he had been aware how widely it was spread, it continued to exist in many quarters until dispelled by the singular energy and boldness, amounting almost to rashness, which he displayed in China. Since the session of 1849 no Parliament has ever sat, nor is any ever again likely to sit, at Montreal. In view of the riot and the burning of the Parliament Buildings it was determined to remove the Legislature, which met at Toronto for the next two years. Subsequently it met alternately at Quebec and Toronto until 1866, since which time Ottawa has been the permanent capital of the Dominion.