In his reply Sir George Arthur regretted that "any portion of the inhabitants of this city should have felt it necessary at the moment to present themselves under the character of reformers, as a distinct class of the people of this Province." Such a statement was not likely to secure for Sir George Arthur the whole-hearted support of all the well-disposed citizens of Toronto. The execution of Lount and Matthews further alienated the more moderate men in the Province. When Sir Francis Head arrived in Toronto he was greeted by placards which designated him as "a Tried Reformer."[2] When Sir George Arthur was appointed to succeed him the London _Atlas_, on March 3rd, 1838, enquired, "What will the inhabitants of Upper Canada think of the appointment of the Governor of a penal Colony to rule over a province of freemen?"[3] As a matter of fact, Arthur was an improvement on Head but he was never able to shake off his past traditions or to obtain as Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham did, a real insight into Upper Canadian conditions. Durham, it is true, in his Report is not nearly so successful when he deals with the upper province as when he portrays the miseries of Lower Canada, but he understood the situation there better than Head or Arthur ever did. Sydenham's ideas as to the workings of Responsible Government did not harmonize with those of Lord Elgin, but he never would have argued against it, as Arthur did, on the grounds that it was demanded by the Reformers. From start to finish of his term of office in Upper Canada Sir George Arthur was unable to forget his experience in British Honduras where he quelled a negro insurrection and in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, where he was called upon to rule a convict settlement. Above all he was a military officer, and as such was none too ready to season justice with mercy. He was the last of that series of Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada who were also military officers and he possessed the defects of his qualities. Stern, unbending, narrow-minded, but entirely honest he was totally unable to see his opponent's point of view.