The unenviable position of governor and chief royal commissioner was offered in turn to several English statesmen and declined by all of them. It was eventually accepted by Lord Gosford, an Irish peer without experience in public life. With him were associated as commissioners Sir Charles Grey, afterwards {46} governor of Jamaica, and Sir George Gipps, afterwards governor of New South Wales. These two men were evidently intended to offset each other: Grey was commonly rated as a Tory, while Gipps was a Liberal. Lord Gosford's appointment caused much surprise. He was a stranger in politics and in civil government. There is no doubt that his appointment was a last resource. But his Irish geniality and his facility in being all things to all men were no small recommendations for a governor who was to attempt to set things right in Canada. The policy of Lord Glenelg, the colonial secretary during Gosford's period of office, was to do everything in his power to conciliate the Canadian _Patriotes_, short of making any real constitutional concessions. By means of a conciliatory attitude he hoped to induce them to abate some of their demands. There is, indeed, evidence that he was personally willing to go further: he seems to have proposed to William IV that the French Canadians should be granted, as they desired, an elective Legislative Council; but the staunch old Tory king would not hear of the change. 'The king objects on principle,' the ministers were told, 'and upon what he {47} considers sound constitutional principle, to the adoption of the elective principle in the constitution of the legislative councils in the colonies.' In 1836 the king had not yet become a negligible factor in determining the policy of the government; and the idea was dropped. Lord Gosford arrived in Canada at the end of the summer of 1835 to find himself confronted with a discouraging state of affairs. A short session of the Assembly in the earlier part of the year had been marked by unprecedented violence. Papineau had attacked Lord Aylmer in language breathing passion; and had caused Lord Aylmer's reply to the address of the Assembly containing the Ninety-Two Resolutions to be expunged from the journals of the House as 'an insult cast at the whole nation.' Papineau had professed himself hopeless of any amendment of grievances by Great Britain. 'When Reform ministries, who called themselves our friends,' he said, 'have been deaf to our complaints, can we hope that a Tory ministry, the enemy of Reform, will give us a better hearing? We have nothing to expect from the Tories unless we can inspire them with fear or worry them by ceaseless importunity.' It {48} should be observed, however, that in 1835 Papineau explicitly disclaimed any intention of stirring up civil war. When Gugy, one of the English members of the Assembly,[1] accused him of such an intention, Papineau replied: