The rebellion of 1837 now belongs to the dead past. The _Patriotes_ and the 'Bureaucrats' of those days have passed away; and the present generation has forgotten, or should have forgotten, the passions which inspired them. The time has come when Canadians should take an impartial view of the events of that time, and should be willing to recognize the good and the bad on either side. It is absurd to pretend that many of the English in Lower Canada were not arrogant and brutal in their attitude toward the French Canadians, and lawless in their methods of crushing the rebellion; or that many of the _Patriote_ leaders were not hopelessly irreconcilable before the rebellion, and during it criminally careless of the interests of the poor habitants they had misled. On the other hand, no true Canadian can fail to be proud of the spirit of loyalty which in 1837 {129} actuated not only persons of British birth, but many faithful sons and daughters of the French-Canadian Church. Nor can one fail to admire the devotion to liberty, to 'the rights of the people,' which characterized rebels like Robert Bouchette. 'When I speak of the rights of the people,' wrote Bouchette, 'I do not mean those abstract or extravagant rights for which some contend, but which are not generally compatible with an organized state of society, but I mean those cardinal rights which are inherent to British subjects, and which, as such, ought not to be denied to the inhabitants of any section of the empire, however remote.' The people of Canada to-day are able to combine loyalty and liberty as the men of that day were not; and they should never forget that in some measure they owe to the one party the continuance of Canada in the Empire, and to the other party the freedom wherewith they have been made free. [Illustration: Denis Benjamin Viger. From a print in M'Gill University Library.] The later history of the _Patriotes_ falls outside the scope of this little book, but a few lines may be added to trace their varying fortunes. Some of them never returned to Canada. Robert Nelson took up his abode in New York, and there practised surgery until {130} his death in 1873. E. B. O'Callaghan went to Albany, and was there employed by the legislature of New York in preparing two series of volumes entitled _A Documentary History of New York_ and _Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York_, volumes which are edited in so scholarly a manner, and throw such light on Canadian history, that the Canadian historian would fain forgive him for his part in the unhappy rebellion of '37.