On the 29th of May, 1838, his lordship arrived at Quebec, where he was received in the most cordial manner, for all parties seemed to unite in expecting from him a settlement of those dissensions which had so greatly distracted the country. In his subsequent progress to other districts, and to Upper Canada, as far as Niagara, he met similar expressions of confidence and congratulation. He was soon, however, called to decide upon a delicate and difficult question, which Sir John Colborne had thought it expedient to reserve for his determination. Wolfred, Neilson, Bouchette, Viger, and other individuals of some distinction, were lying in the jail of Montreal, charged with high treason. Some strong punishment was necessary to mark their crime, and deter from its repetition; yet an impartial jury could not be expected for their trial, which besides would have reopened all those party animosities which it was the object of his lordship to appease. Under this view, he adopted the following course: the prisoners, having been induced to make a confession of guilt, were sentenced to be deported to Bermuda, and to be there kept in strict surveillance. If they should ever return to Canada, without leave from the governor, they were to suffer the penalty of death. The same was awarded to Papineau and others implicated in the late rebellion, but who, after its disastrous issue, had fled the country. As soon as this ordinance was known in Britain, it created an unusual excitement in the legislature. Lord Brougham, in the House of Peers, made a motion, declaring it illegal, as condemning to death without trial, and to transportation to a colony which was not within the jurisdiction of the governor-general; but, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, he proposed a grant of indemnity. This vote, though strenuously opposed by Lord Melbourne, was carried in the Upper House by a considerable majority. Ministers then, having received from the law-officers of the crown an unfavourable report, at least as to the last particular, considered it impossible to make any farther resistance. They annulled the ordinance, but at the same time conveyed to Lord Durham expressions of their regret, of their general approbation of his measures, and of the unaltered confidence with which they regarded his administration.