which waves the British flag on American ground may not be
that of a French Canadian?"[8]

Lord Elgin had a strong antipathy to Papineau--"Guy Fawkes Papineau,"
as he called him in one of his letters--who was, he considered,
"actuated by the most malignant passions, irritated vanity,
disappointed ambition and national hatred," always ready to wave "a
lighted torch among combustibles." Holding such opinions, he seized
every practical opportunity of thwarting Papineau's persistent efforts
to create a dangerous agitation among his impulsive countrymen. He
shared fully the great desire of the bishops and clergy to stem the
immigration of large numbers of French Canadians into the United
States by the establishment of an association for colonization
purposes. Papineau endeavoured to attribute this exodus to the effects
of the policy of the imperial government, and to gain control of this
association with the object of using it as a means of stimulating a
feeling against England, and strengthening himself in French Canada by
such insidious methods. Lord Elgin, with that intuitive sagacity which
he applied to practical politics, recognized the importance of
identifying himself with the movement initiated by the bishops and
their friends, of putting himself "in so far as he could at its head,"
of imparting to it "as salutary a direction as possible, and thus
wresting from Papineau's hands a potent instrument of agitation." This
policy of conciliating the French population, and anticipating the
great agitator in his design, was quite successful. To use Lord
Elgin's own language, "Papineau retired to solitude and reflection at
his seigniory, 'La Petite Nation,'" and the governor-general was able
at the same time to call the attention of the colonial secretary to a
presentment of the grand jury of Montreal, "in which that body adverts
to the singularly tranquil, contented state of the province."