Sir James Craig was the first who occupied it {91} after its restoration. It was in October, 1807, that this veteran officer arrived in Canada as governor-general and commander-in-chief. He was then about fifty-eight years of age, and had been constantly on service since the age of fifteen, when he entered the army. He had served in Canada in 1775 during the invasion of Montgomery and Arnold, and had been in command of the troops that had pursued the Americans in their disastrous retreat. He had been engaged afterwards under Burgoyne throughout his unfortunate campaign, and in the after events of the Revolutionary War. In 1794 he became a major-general, and was, the following year, at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope. He then did good service in India, and was promoted to be lieutenant-general in 1801. In 1802 he was placed in charge of the eastern district in England, and in 1805 was sent to the Mediterranean, where his health broke down. Believing that he had recovered he accepted the position of governor-general of Canada. In many respects it was an unfortunate appointment, for, experienced as he was in military affairs, he was lacking in tact and political knowledge, and he came to the country prejudiced to an unreasonable extent against the majority of the people he had come to govern. He had an utter disbelief in the loyalty of the French Canadians, and his treatment of them bore bitter fruit in after years. It was owing partly to his mistaken policy that the misunderstandings and ill-feeling arose {92} which led ultimately to the rebellion of 1837. His views were strengthened by the hitherto veiled opinions of most of the official class in Quebec, and the constant daily machinations of Ryland, who filled again, as in preceding administrations, the post of private secretary to the governor, and clerk of the council. Ryland was certainly not a very suitable secretary for the governor of a country whose inhabitants were largely French and Catholic. In one of his letters the secretary wrote that he despised and hated the Catholic religion, for it degraded and embruted human reason, and became the curse of every country wherein it existed. His pet scheme, to which he tried to commit the governor, was to break the power of the Roman Catholic church by taking away its endowments, and by making the priesthood dependent on executive authority. [Sidenote: The newspapers]