After 1830 signs began to multiply that the racial feud in Lower Canada was growing in intensity. In 1832 a by-election in the west ward of Montreal culminated in a riot. Troops were called out to preserve order. After showing some forbearance under a fusillade of stones, they fired into the rioters, killing three and wounding two men, all of them French Canadians. Immediately the _Patriote_ press became furious. The newspaper _La Minerve_ asserted that a 'general massacre' had been planned: the murderers, it said, had approached the corpses with laughter, and had seen with joy Canadian blood running down the street; they had shaken each other by the hand, and had regretted that there were not more dead. The blame for the 'massacre' was laid at the door of Lord Aylmer. Later, on the floor of the Assembly, Papineau remarked that 'Craig merely imprisoned his {34} victims, but Aylmer slaughters them.' The _Patriotes_ adopted the same bitter attitude toward the government when the Asiatic cholera swept the province in 1833. They actually accused Lord Aylmer of having 'enticed the sick immigrants into the country, in order to decimate the ranks of the French Canadians.' In the House Papineau became more and more violent and domineering. He did not scruple to use his majority either to expel from the House or to imprison those who incurred his wrath. Robert Christie, the member for Gaspe, was four times expelled for having obtained the dismissal of some partisan justices of the peace. The expulsion of Dominique Mondelet has already been mentioned. Ralph Taylor, one of the members for the Eastern Townships, was imprisoned in the common jail for using, in the Quebec _Mercury_, language about Papineau no more offensive than Papineau had used about many others. But perhaps the most striking evidence of Papineau's desire to dominate the Assembly was seen in his attitude toward a bill to secure the independence of judges introduced by F. A. Quesnel, one of the more moderate members {35} of the _Patriote_ party. Quesnel had accepted some amendments suggested by the colonial secretary. This awoke the wrath of Papineau, who assailed the bill in his usual vehement style, and concluded by threatening Quesnel with the loss of his seat. The threat proved not to be idle. Papineau possessed at this time a great ascendancy over the minds of his fellow-countrymen, and in the next elections he secured Quesnel's defeat.