"Your Excellency's explanation of the policy which you had determined on adopting with regard to the prisoners convicted at Niagara does not immediately strike me as indicating a course so obviously correct that I can dispense with the information which I required in my despatch of the 16th instant. I cannot quite admit the propriety of selecting some one subject of Her Majesty to share the fate of Morreau, the leader of the expedition, who happened to be a citizen of the United States. The fate of Her Majesty's subjects should be determined on a view of their own conduct, and of the circumstances which have led the juries to accompany their verdict of guilty, in every case, with a recommendation to mercy." A further despatch of Lord Durham to Arthur on September 18th went into the case of Jacob Beamer in some detail. Beamer had been singled out by the Executive Council as the scape goat and was alone to suffer the death penalty. To this Durham would not agree but requested that the case be referred to Lord Glenelg. This despatch is interesting since it shows that the Executive Council of Upper Canada was at this time none too friendly towards Lord Durham and was quite willing to stir up strife between the Governor-General and the Lieutenant-Governor. In the meantime the correspondence between Arthur and Durham had continued at some length and not always with the best of feeling. But no actual breach seems to have occurred and at length the vexed problem of the political prisoners seemed likely of solution. A general amnesty was to be proclaimed for all except a certain few who were to be named in the proclamation. But by this time Lord Durham was preparing to return to England.