The action of the military was approved by the grand jury, and by the commander in chief, the latter being further commended by Lord Fitzroy Somerset through Lord Aylmer, the governor general. An address of sympathetic citizens was presented to the two officers. La Minerve on the 24th of May, 1832, however, was implacable. “It is difficult,” it says, “not to be convinced that there was a desire to make a general massacre. It is clearly proved that the faction hostile to the Canadians has been preparing for this atrocity for a long time. The party that we have opposed for thirty years desired today to shoot us down. * * * They also wished to shoot Mr. Tracy. * * * Mr. Bagg’s partisans laughingly approached the corpses and saw with fierce joy the Canadian blood flowing down the street. They have been seen shaking hands congratulatingly and regretting that the number of the dead was not greater. * * * Let us never forget the massacre of our brethren. * * * Let the names of the wrongdoers who have planned, advised and executed this crime be inscribed in our annals handed down to infamy and execration.”[4] (History of Canada, page 109.) The funeral of the three Canadians was attended by about five thousand persons and following the bodies were Mr. Papineau, the speaker of the assembly, the leader of the French-Canadian party and his chief supporters. From this date the tone of the newspapers Le Spectateur at Quebec and La Minerve at Montreal is noticeably inflammatory in the demand for the redress of their grievances. On the other hand, the English papers representing the British party, especially the Gazette and Herald of Montreal, dealt no uncertain blows in return and Mr. Papineau fared ill. He was looked upon as a demagogue inciting dissension and making political capital from the late misfortune of May 21st. The memory of the riot was not allowed to die down in the neighbourhood of Montreal and elsewhere. At Longueuil on June 11th a resolution, provoked by the affair of May 21st, set forth that “the British government deceived by men who are our envenomed enemies, are following in a line of conduct leading to our destruction and slavery; that the fate of the Acadians is being prepared for us, that the neglect of the frequent demands of our rights on the part of England had tended to break the contract between her and us.” In these and other meetings there was generally a protest against granting to capitalists independently of the colonial legislature a large portion of the uncultivated lands of the crown. This was aimed at members of the British party.