John George Lambton, the first Earl of {105} Durham, was a wealthy and powerful Whig nobleman, of decided Liberal, if not Radical, leanings. He had taken no small part in the framing of the Reform Bill of 1832, and at one time he had been hailed by the English Radicals or Chartists as their coming leader. It was therefore expected that he would be decently sympathetic with the Reform movements in the Canadas. At the same time, Melbourne and his ministers were only too glad to ship him out of the country. There was no question of his great ability and statesmanlike outlook. But his advanced Radical views were distasteful to many of his former colleagues; and his arrogant manners, his lack of tact, and his love of pomp and circumstance made him unpopular even in his own party. The truth is that he was an excellent leader to work under, but a bad colleague to work with. The Melbourne government had first got rid of him by sending him to St Petersburg as ambassador extraordinary; and then, on his return from St Petersburg, they got him out of the way by sending him to Canada. He was at first loath to go, mainly on the ground of ill health; but at the personal intercession of the young queen he accepted the commission offered him. It was {106} an evil day for himself, but a good day for Canada, when he did so. Durham arrived in Quebec, with an almost regal retinue, on May 28, 1838. Gosford, who had remained in Canada throughout the rebellion, had gone home at the end of February; and the administration had been taken over by Sir John Colborne, the commander-in-chief of the forces. As soon as the news of the suspension of the constitution reached Lower Canada, Sir John Colborne appointed a provisional special council of twenty-two members, half of them French and half of them English, to administer the affairs of the province until Lord Durham should arrive. The first official act of Lord Durham in the colony swept this council out of existence. 'His Excellency believes,' the members of the council were told, 'that it is as much the interest of you all, as for the advantage of his own mission, that his administrative conduct should be free from all suspicions of political influence or party feeling; that it should rest on his own undivided responsibility, and that when he quits the Province, he should leave none of its permanent residents in any way committed by the acts which his Government may have {107} found it necessary to perform, during the temporary suspension of the Constitution.' In its place he appointed a small council of five members, all but one from his own staff. The one Canadian called to this council was Dominick Daly, the provincial secretary, whom Colborne recommended as being unidentified with any political party.