The election of a Member of the Provincial Parliament for
the city of Montreal, to which so much importance has been Justly attached, has been decided in favour of the party opposed to Sir Charles Met- calfe. It is a very untoward event for the Governor-General and the colony. The violence by which this triumph of the Opposition was unquestionably obtained rather augments than diminishes the evil tendency of the event; for it shows weakness in the Executive, and a neglect of proper precautions by the party of the Government in Montreal ; and is calculated to promote a main object of the leaders of the Opposition, which is to stir up angry passions and draw their fol- lowers into extreme courses. Our private letters describe the state of feeling in the district of Montreal, the seat of the rebellion of 1837, as resembling what was exhibited in that unfortunate year. It is a common opinion, that if this election had gone the other way, Sir Charles Metcalfe would have been sure of a majority in the present House of Assembly ; as it is, another vote against him and a dissolution of the Parliament are deemed inevitable : while a correspondent, on whose judgment we have the best ground for relying, asserts that in the pre- sent state of feeling throughout Canada a general election would be next thing to a civil war. People here, and the Colonial Office most of all, will neither care nor know anything about all this till the mischief shall be done.—Colonial Gazette, May 18.
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