The new Governor was now the forcible instrument of this unsympathetic power. With an undue sense of the importance of the vice-royalty, the _ipse dixit_ of "the little king" dissolved Parliament on more than one occasion. On the other side, _Le Canadien_, the journal of the French party, rhetorically stood for liberty, fraternity, and equality as against arbitrary government. Moderate men, wavering for a time, were at last scandalised by its editorial violence, and rallied to the side of the Governor. The situation quickly became acute, and stringent measures of repression were adopted by Sir James Craig and his councillors. The offending journal was suppressed; five recalcitrant officers of militia were relieved of their command; and, finally, the city guards were strengthened to meet the peril of a possible insurrection. Soon a new element of danger appeared in the threatened war between England and the United States, offering to the aggrieved party a tempting occasion for redress. Fortunately, however, neither the unwisdom of the English Government nor the neighbourhood of a hostile power availed to drive or lure the Canadians into the crooked path of rebellion. As the past had already proved, their country's peril was sufficient to unite in hearty concord all parties, French and English, in the defence of the common heritage; the experience of half a century of British rule having convinced even the survivors of the _Ancien Régime_ that however haughty or aloof officials might be, security, order, and justice prevailed under the British flag. [Illustration: Lord Sydenham. Governor General of Canada 1839-1841.]