A visit to York
He had just returned in February from York, where he had spent ten days with the lieutenant-governor, whom he pronounces "as generous and honest a being as ever existed." He found Mrs. Gore perfectly well and very agreeable. Their society, he said, was ample compensation for travelling over the worst roads he had ever met with. He and the governor, who had formerly been quartered with the 44th in Guernsey, had talked over old days in the Channel Islands, and had recalled with pleasure the simple hospitality that reigned there, and the charming society of Guernsey and Jersey, "where, although there was little communication with England, there were always officers in the garrison to be entertained."
Brock writes of the reports from New York as to the many failures there, and says, "Merchants there are in a state of great confusion and dismay. A dreadful crash is not far off."
The news he had received from Quebec was that Sir James had triumphed completely over the French faction in the Lower Province, and that the House of Assembly had passed every bill required of it, among others, one authorizing the governor-general and three councillors to imprison any one without assigning a cause.
The House of Assembly at Quebec had met on December 10th, 1810, and the inaugural address had been very conciliatory. The governor did not allude to any vexed questions, but protested that he had never doubted the loyalty and zeal of the previous assemblies he had convoked. In reply, the assembly observed, "We shall earnestly concur in all that is done tending to the maintenance of unbroken tranquillity, a state all the more difficult to preserve in this province as those who inhabit it cherish a diversity of ideas, habitudes and prejudices, not easy to reconcile."
The governor justified the acts committed as to imprisonment of members, and said that only those who had too much reason to dread the law inclined to object to its potency, and the united clamour of such might have deceived the assembly as to their real number.
In the meantime the vexatious Bédard still remained in prison. The assembly drew up an address on his behalf, and the elder Papineau had an interview on the subject with the governor at the Castle. The latter in his reply to M. Papineau, said: "It is the common discourse of the assembly that they intend to oblige me to release M. Bédard. I think, therefore, that it is time the people should be made to understand the rightful limits of the several powers in the state, and that the House, while it represents, yet has no right to directly govern the country."
Bédard's release