Every measure will have been triumphantly carried. Though I could not get the bank through, it must succeed another year. The House of Assembly wished to defer it for the session; but in the mean time they have taxed the issues of private banks, which will insure its passing. My successor, therefore, will have little of legislation even left for him. "I wish I had managed my own matters as well. But a week ago my horse fell with me, broke the bone of my leg, and made a large hole above the knee. The accident is very painful, especially as the gout, which coward-like always takes one at a disadvantage, has stepped in to add to my sufferings; and, under any circumstances, I fear that I must have three weeks or a month of bed. The doctors, however, tell me I am sure to be in a state to be moved by water to Quebec in time to get off this autumn. You will understand from this account of myself why I write, or rather dictate, to you as little as possible. Believe me yours, &c. SYDENHAM. He wrote likewise to Lord Falkland, at Halifax, at the same time, requesting him, if possible, to send the Pique to Quebec to take him home.

"I should very much like (he said) to have that frigate sent for me. She brought me out, and I should rather like to go home in her. Besides which I shall probably be able to do Captain Boxer a service, if he manages to come to Quebec, which I should be desirous of doing.

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My parliament will be finished next week. They have done all their business, and only missed one thing I wanted them to do-a bank of issue; but that will come.

"Adieu, my dear Lord Falkland. I am at my sixth day, and neither fracture nor wound improve upon acquaintancewhich you must receive as my apology for not writing to you more fully. Yours very truly, SYDENHAM."

The anticipations of his return home contained in these letters were not destined to be fulfilled. Indeed, in the shattered state of his constitution, fears might reasonably have been entertained from the first that his system had not strength sufficient to bear the shock, or to repair the internal mischief occasioned by it. Gout, too, as we have seen, supervened, adding to the sufferings and weakness of the patient, and diminishing the chances in his favour.

On the ninth day it became evident that no progress had been made towards the knitting of the fractured bone, and alarming symptoms began to manifest themselves in cramps, commencing in the leg and extending gradually to the stomach and throat-yet still the medical men considered him in no immediate danger. The prorogation of the legislature had

been fixed for Wednesday the 15th of September, but at the request of the assembly had been postponed to Friday the 17th. Up to Thursday night there was no apprehension of a fatal result; and during the whole of that day Lord Sydenham was occupied in deciding on the bills sent up to him by the legislature, and in dictating the speech with which he proposed to close the session. On Friday morning he corrected his speech, and continued to transact public business; but he was evidently worse, and the prorogation was therefore postponed-in the afternoon of that day his medical attendants fearing that delirium might come on, he was advised to depute General Clitherow, the senior military officer on the spot, to prorogue the houses. In the night between Friday and Saturday the 18th a change took place, which for the first time thoroughly aroused his family to his imminent danger, and shewed that his sufferings were fast approaching to a fatal termination; all his symptoms were in those few short hours fearfully aggravated-the spasms by which for several days he had been tortured became more frequent and intense, and his strength was evidently fast failing. Those who had hoped most were now forced to allow that hope was no longer reasonable; and the only question was, how many hours he might still linger in agony.

He became very soon aware of his own state; yet even in those trying moments, when all worldly prospects were fast fading from his sight-when the reward of success and the discredit of failure were becoming alike indifferent, his sense of duty still kept alive his interest in public matters. With a calmness and tranquillity most astonishing to those who witnessed it, he continued between the paroxysms of pain to devote his attention to such public matters as required immediate decision. His faculties remained unimpaired; and early in the day he executed his will, in which, among other legacies, was one "in token of his friendship and esteem" to Lord John Russell. When this part of his will was subse quently read over to him, he repeated twice in a firm and emphatic tone, "He was the noblest man it was ever my good fortune to know." Among the many testimonies which during his public life Lord John Russell may have received, none can have borne more deeply the stamp of sincere attachment and admiration than these few words from the dying lips of his friend and fellow-statesman.

In the afternoon Lord Sydenham invited all the members of his family to unite with him in receiving the holy sacrament. After the administration of that sacred ordinance he took leave of them individually, addressing to each some words of

kind remembrance, accompanied by some token of his regard. He then desired to be left alone with his chaplain; and during the night he continued constant and fervent in prayer, and in preparation for the awful change about to take place. No murmur at his untimely fate ever escaped his lips, but in his death he evinced the same firmness and strength of mind which in life had been his distinguishing characteristic. Throughout the night his sufferings continued unabated, and repeatedly those who watched thought that his last moment was come; but it was not until seven o'clock of Sunday the 19th that he breathed his last.

Lord Sydenham's death naturally created the most intense feeling throughout the province. Until within the last twentyfour hours, no one had contemplated the probability of a fatal result; and the news of it came therefore on the public with the force of an unlooked-for and sudden shock. Nor could any one fail to be struck with the peculiar and melancholy circumstances which marked this event. He had just reached the term proposed by himself to his labours; he had accomplished every object for which he had been sent out; he had struggled against and overcome difficulties by which a less resolute and persevering character would have been vanquished; and he had received from the hands of his sovereign the most distinguished tokens of her approbation and confidence. His fame was at its zenith, and he was on the point of returning to his native land to enjoy the honours which he had so laboriously won, when the prize was snatched from his hands, and his career brought to an untimely close.

While to Lord Sydenham's immediate friends, his death was a cause of poignant grief, to the great majority of the people of Canada, it came in the light of a public misfortune. The great complaint which had been on the lips of all, the source to which they attributed the misgovernment of former years, was the ignorance which, whether rightly or wrongly, they considered to prevail in the home government as to their wants and wishes. They had looked to Lord Sydenham to supply this deficiency; and had trusted that in his place in the House of Lords, his personal experience and local knowledge would prevail with whatever party might for the time be in power. Every man, whether his supporter or opponent, was willing to acknowledge his energy, his talents, his peculiar aptitude for business, his quick apprehension, his indefatigable industry. Nor, when they saw him toiling day and night in the public service, through good repute and evil repute, in sickness and pain no less than in health, could any refuse to give him credit for the interest which he ever expressed in

the welfare of the country. To all who had looked to his future career with such hopes and feelings, his death appeared like another link in that fatal chain of accidents which had constantly deprived Canada of its ablest friends at the moment when their advocacy would have been most effective.

These sentiments naturally found an echo in the public press, which from one end of the province to the other gave utterance to expressions of sincere regret over the untimely fate of their late governor. With scarcely a single exception, the public journals exhibited on this sad occasion the most creditable feeling-they laid aside for the moment their personal and party politics, and united in one general testimony to the services which Lord Sydenham had rendered, and to the loss which the province had suffered.

SECT. IX.-SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE C. POULETT THOMSON ON THE CORN LAWS, MARCH 2, 1834.

Of the many luminous orations of Mr Poulett Thomson, in the House of Commons, we select that of 1834, on Mr Hume's motion for a fixed duty on foreign corn, instead of the sliding scale of 1823. Manchester, peopled by the sons of those who had burned the Prime Minister, Pitt, in effigy, because of his free trade measures of 1785, had changed its commercial creed. It was no longer the stronghold of the monopolists. Yet it made few signs of sympathy, and gave an acquiescence, rather than an active support, to its illustrious representative, while he, a member of a hostile cabinet, with a hostile House of Commons before him, contended for the principles, and scattered upon political society those seeds, which afterwards took such vigorous root in Manchester.

Often as it had fallen to his lot to address the house, which he always did with feelings of great anxiety, yet he could unfeignedly assure it, that he never rose to address it under stronger feelings of trepidation than those which he experienced at that moment. He had the misfortune to differ in opinion upon this subject from many of those friends with whom he was in the habit of acting, and, above all, he had the misfortune to differ from his right honourable friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty. It would, however, be unworthy of the little character which he trusted that he had

*

* Sir James Graham.

been enabled to obtain-and he should be unworthy of representing that great constituency which, unsolicited, had done him the honour of sending him as its representative to the House of Commons-he should be a traitor to the opinions which he had always expressed, and the votes which he had always given upon this subject, if he did not, unhesitatingly, but still with great diffidence, proclaim the views which he entertained upon it. "I must first," said the right honourable member," correct a statement made by the noble lord who had just sat down.* That noble lord has stated, if I understood him correctly, that he had withdrawn his amendment, because it was the desire of the government that the motion of the honourable member for Middlesex should be lost in as small a minority as possible." I deny that. The circumstance of my being here as a member of the government, and yet voting with the honourable member for Middlesex, is at once an answer to the statement which the noble lord has made.

The Earl of Darlington: On what authority does the right honourable member deny my statement?

Mr Poulett Thomson: The authority upon which I deny the statement is this-that it is an open question in the government, for the truth of which I appeal to my noble friend sitting near me, and it is on this ground that I am here as a member of his Majesty's government, though not in the cabinet, advocating the opinion, and voting for the motion of the honourable member for Middlesex.

The Earl of Darlington: What I said was this: I said that a communication, sent as an appeal to me to withdraw my amendment, came from a high quarter in his Majesty's government. I had it, in point of fact, in writing from one who is not only a member of the government, but also a member of the cabinet.

Mr Poulett Thomson: If that be all the statement of the noble lord, it does not at all impugn my assertion. What may be the opinions of the individual members of the government, be it the head of that government, or any other member of the cabinet, is a different question; but if I misunderstood the noble earl in supposing him to say, that it was the wish of his Majesty's government, taken collectively, to leave my honourable friend, the member for Middlesex, in as small a minority as possible, then I hope he will excuse me for such an unintentional misinterpretation of his meaning; but if I did not misunderstand him, then the very fact that I am here,

* Earl of Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland.