I do not, as you may suppose, often speak of these matters; but the subject was alluded to the other day by a person (now out of politics, but who knew what was going on at the time, one of our ablest men), and he said to me, 'Yes; I see it all now. You were right--a thousand times right--though I thought otherwise then. I own that I would have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured half what you did; and,' he added, 'I should have been justified, too.' 'Yes,' I answered, 'you would have been justified, because your course would have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the _best course_. Mine was a _better one_.' And shall I tell you what was the deep conviction on my mind, which, apart from the reluctance which I naturally felt to shed blood (particularly in a cause in which many who opposed the Government were actuated by motives which, though much alloyed with baser metal, had claims on my sympathy), confirmed me in that course? I perceived that the mind of the British population of the province, in Upper Canada especially, was at that time the prey of opposing impulses. On the one hand, as a question of blood and sensibility, they were inclined to go with the anti-French party of Lower Canada; on the other, as a question of constitutional principle, they felt that I was right, and that I deserved support. Depend upon it, if we had looked to bayonets instead of to reason for a triumph, the _sensibilities_ of the great body of which I speak would soon have carried the day against their _judgment_. And what is the result? 700,000 French reconciled to England--not because they are getting _rebel money_--I believe, indeed, that no _rebels_ will get a farthing; but because they believe that the British Governor is just. 'Yes;' but you may say 'this is purchased by the alienation of the British.' Far from it; I took the whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that the Canadian British never were so loyal as they are at this hour; and, what is more remarkable still, and more directly traceable to this policy of forbearance, never, since Canada existed, has party-spirit been more moderate, and the British and French races on better terms than they are now; and this, in spite of the withdrawal of protection, and of the proposal to throw on the colony many charges which the Imperial Government has hitherto borne. Pardon me for saying so much on this point; but _'magna est veritas.'_ [1] _I.e._ one of the rebels of 1837, who had been banished to Bermuda by Lord Durham.