On May 29th Lord Durham arrived with his large staff. One of his early acts was to issue on the 28th of June an amnesty to all who had engaged in the late insurrection on giving security for their good behaviour applicable to those in custody or who had fled. There was an exception made for eight who were to be sent without trial to the convict station of Bermuda. These were Dr. Wolfred Nelson, R.S.M. Bouchette, Bonaventure Viger, Simeon Marchesseault, Godda, Dr. L.H. Masson, Gauvin, and Desirivières. Death penalties were to be awarded to L.J. Papineau, Doctor O’Sullivan, Thomas S. Brown, John Brown (father and son), George Etienne Cartier and others if they should return of their own accord. This was afterward annulled. On the 7th of July, Durham left Quebec for Montreal and the west. In Montreal he was well received. His stay in the country as a commissioner was, however, very short. For on September 25th, as the Imperial government disallowed these ordinances, Durham notified his resignation to the British government, remaining at his post till November 1st, when he sailed for Quebec.[4] Sir John Colborne assumed the administration on this day. On the 16th of January, 1839, he became governor general. [Illustration: LORD DURHAM] The second insurrection opened on November 4th, when Robert Nelson entered Napierville to declare himself President of the Republic of Canada. During the summer Nelson, Coté, Mailhot and others of the refugees on the Vermont and New York frontiers had been organizing the insurrection among the _habitants_ of the counties of the Richelieu extending west to Beauharnois. The district of the Two Mountains did not rise this time. Sir John Colborne was at Sorel when he heard of the Richelieu gatherings. Posting to Montreal he proclaimed martial law and by the 7th and 8th of November the military was dispatched from the city under Sir James Macdonell. The campaign was over by November 10th, when the resistance at Beauharnois was suppressed. Yet but for the decisive action of Colborne it might have been serious. Sir John wrote that no fewer than thirteen thousand habitants had assembled between the 3d and 8th of November expecting to be furnished arms by their Vermont and New York sympathizers.