The Imperial Parliament was summoned to meet on January 16, 1838, to consider the Canadian situation. A Bill was introduced suspending the Constitution of Lower Canada, and empowering the Queen to appoint a Governor and Special Council, who should assume for the time all the functions of the legislature in that Province. The Duke of Wellington, as leader of the Opposition in the Lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, supported the Government, and the only opposition was offered by the Radicals. Brougham attacked the Bill in a speech of which Melbourne complained as "a most laboured and extreme concentration of bitterness." In the other House the chief point of interest to readers of the debate at this day lies in a speech by Mr. W. E. Gladstone, the Tory Member for Newark, who taunted Mr. Joseph Hume and the Radicals with their failure to perform in session their boastful promises during the recess. [Illustration: THE QUEEN'S SALOON CARRIAGE ON THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY. This is the carriage which has been used by Her Majesty for many years on her journeys to and from Scotland. It contains sitting and sleeping compartments (the former having padded walls and ceiling, lined with watered silk), and accommodation for Her Majesty's personal attendants. It is about 60 feet long.] [Sidenote: The Earl of Durham.] The Governor appointed under the Act was the Earl of Durham, a man of remarkable ability, who had embraced Radical principles with great ardour. This, however, did not prevent him interpreting his office as that of a practical dictator--he far exceeded the powers vested in him by the Act. In dealing with offenders he would not stoop to the only way of obtaining convictions--that of packing juries--and adopted the arbitrary course of ordering into exile those connected with the late rebellion, on pain of death if they returned. Looking back to the existing state of things, it is impossible to question the real clemency and wisdom of the new Governor's ordinances; nevertheless, they were at once attacked in the Imperial Parliament, and vigorously denounced as tyrannical and unconstitutional. Lord Durham had made many enemies in both Houses. Lord Lyndhurst and the Tories joined forces with Lord Brougham and the Radicals in pressing Ministers to disallow the ordinances of which they had already approved. Brougham perceived the opportunity of discomfiting the hated Melbourne, and he pressed it. The Ministry were not strong enough to resist. Lord Durham was recalled, and, though his recommendations were ultimately carried into effect by making Canada a self-governing colony, he never recovered the unmerited disgrace he had suffered. Proud, impetuous, and sensitive, he fell into ill-health, and died in 1840 at the age of forty-eight. His end must ever be regarded as one of those misfortunes arising out of Party government, for his policy has been amply vindicated since, lying as it