No serious trouble resulted, however, from the policy of _Le Canadien_ until after the arrival of Sir James Craig in Canada, and the inauguration of what some historians have named 'the Reign of Terror.' Sir James Craig, who became governor of Canada in 1807, was a distinguished soldier. He had seen service in the American Revolutionary {16} War, in South Africa, and in India. He was, however, inexperienced in civil government and apt to carry his ideas of military discipline into the conduct of civil affairs. Moreover, he was prejudiced against the inhabitants and had doubts of their loyalty. In Canada he surrounded himself with such men as Herman W. Ryland, the governor's secretary, and John Sewell, the attorney-general, men who were actually in favour of repressing the French Canadians and of crushing the power of their Church. 'I have long since laid it down as a principle (which in my judgment no Governor of this Province ought to lose sight of for a moment),' wrote Ryland in 1804, 'by every possible means which prudence can suggest, gradually to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman Catholic Priest.' 'The Province must be converted into an English Colony,' declared Sewell, 'or it will ultimately be lost to England.' The opinion these men held of the French Canadians was most uncomplimentary. 'In the ministerial dictionary,' complained _Le Canadien_, 'a bad fellow, anti-ministerialist, democrat, _sans culotte_, and damned Canadian, mean the same thing.' [Illustration: Sir James Craig. From a portrait in the Dominion Archives.] Surrounded by such advisers, it is not {17} surprising that Sir James Craig soon took umbrage at the language and policy of _Le Canadien_. At first he made his displeasure felt in a somewhat roundabout way. In the summer of 1808 he dismissed from the militia five officers who were reputed to have a connection with that newspaper, on the ground that they were helping a 'seditious and defamatory journal.' One of these officers was Colonel Panet, who had fought in the defence of Quebec in 1775 and had been speaker of the House of Assembly since 1792; another was Pierre Bedard. This action did not, however, curb the temper of the paper; and a year or more later Craig went further. In May 1810 he took the extreme step of suppressing _Le Canadien_, and arresting the printer and three of the proprietors, Taschereau, Blanchet, and Bedard. The ostensible pretext for this measure was the publication in the paper of some notes of a somewhat academic character with regard to the conflict which had arisen between the governor and the House of Assembly in Jamaica; the real reason, of course, went deeper.