The Canadian difficulties were now so notorious that the king determined to send an extraordinary commissioner. Lord Gosford was finally appointed and with him were associated Sir Charles Grey and Sir George Gibbs. These arrived at Quebec on August 23d. On September 17th Lord Aylmer with his family left for England. His term of office had been stormy but while vituperation fell upon him on one hand, he was otherwise sustained by the strong minority. Lord Gosford came with a policy of conciliation openly manifested and openly rejected. He met his parliament within two months after his arrival. His opening speech as governor general, the longest on record on such an occasion, was delivered on October 27, 1835. He unfolded his theory of conciliation and promises of redresses of grievances. The house, however, was tuned up only for extremes and showed no readiness for compromise. This lesson has been since well learned, experience of the failure of any other course having been abundant. The concluding words of Lord Gosford’s speech are noteworthy and impressive. “To the Canadians, both of French and British origin, and every class and description, I would say, consider the blessings you might enjoy and the favoured situation in which but for your own dissensions you would find yourselves to be placed. The offsprings of the two foremost nations of mankind, you hold a vast and beautiful country, a fertile soil, a healthy climate and the noblest river in the world makes your most remote city a port for the ships of the sea. Your revenue is triple the amount of your expenditure for the ordinary purposes of government. You have no direct taxes, no public debt, no poor who require any aid more than the natural impulses of charity. If you extend your views beyond the land in which you dwell you find that you are joint inheritors of the splendid patrimony of the British empire which constitutes you in the best sense of the term citizens of the world and gives you a home on every continent and in every ocean on the globe. There are two paths open to you. By the one you will advance to the enjoyment of all the advantages which lie in prospect before you. By the other I will say no more than you will stop short of these, and will engage yourselves and those who have no other object than your prosperity in darker and more difficult courses.”