When Papineau entered public life the political situation in Lower Canada was beginning to be complicated. The French-Canadian members of the Assembly, having taken great pains to acquaint themselves with the law and custom of the British constitution, had awakened to the fact that they were not enjoying the position or the power which the members of the House of Commons in England were enjoying. In the first place, the measures which they passed were being continually thrown out by the upper chamber, the Legislative Council, and they were powerless to prevent it; and in the second place, they had no control of the government, for the governor and his Executive Council were appointed by and responsible to the Colonial Office alone. The members of the two councils were in the main of English birth, and they constituted a local oligarchy--known as the 'Bureaucrats' or the 'Chateau Clique'--which {23} held the reins of government. They were as a rule able to snap their fingers at the majority in the Assembly. In England the remedy for a similar state of affairs had been found to lie in the control of the purse exercised by the House of Commons. In order to bring the Executive to its will, it was only necessary for that House to threaten the withholding of supplies. In Lower Canada, however, such a remedy was at first impossible, for the simple reason that the House of Assembly did not vote all the supplies necessary for carrying on the government. In other words, the expenditure far exceeded the revenue; and the deficiency had to be met out of the Imperial exchequer. Under these circumstances it was impossible for the Lower Canada Assembly to attempt to exercise the full power of the purse. In 1810, it is true, the Assembly had passed a resolution avowing its ability and willingness to vote 'the necessary sums for defraying the Civil Expenses of the Government of the Province.' But Sir James Craig had declined on a technicality to forward the resolution to the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, realizing fully that if the offer were accepted, the Assembly would be able to exert complete {24} power over the Executive. 'The new Trojan horse' was not to gain admission to the walls through him.