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Bedard was released just before the governor left the country, with the declaration that "his detention had been a matter of precaution and not of punishment" by no means a manly or graceful withdrawal from what was assuredly a most untenable position from the very first moment Mr. Bedard was thrown into prison.
Bedard, who had been returned to Parliament, as the representative of Surrey, was detained in the common gaol of Quebec, under the "Preservation Act," charged with treasonable practices. The House most politely thanked the Governor-in-Chief for the information. The House resolved that Mr. Bedard was in the common gaol of Quebec.
Craig, however, did not dare to bring him to trial, for no jury would have convicted him. Ultimately, since Bédard refused to leave the prison, he was ejected at the point of the bayonet. The situation was full of humour. Bédard was an excellent mathematician, and was in the habit of whiling away the hours of his imprisonment by solving mathematical problems.
He laid himself out to conciliate the French Canadians in every way possible; and he made amends to Bédard for the injustice which he had suffered by restoring him to his rank in the militia and by making him a judge. As a result, the bitterness of racial feeling abated; and when the War of 1812 broke out, there proved to be less disloyalty in Lower Canada than in Upper Canada.
Though some of these persons obtained their release by an expression of regret for their conduct, M. Bedard would not yield, and was not released until the Governor-General himself gave up the fight and retired to England where he died soon afterwards, with the consciousness that his conduct with respect to Bedard, and other members of the assembly, had not met with the approval of the Imperial authorities, although he had placed the whole case before them by the able agency of Mr.
Dame Bedard had shrewdly availed herself of the presence of Master Pothier, and in payment of a night's lodging at the Crown of France, to have him write out the contract of marriage in the absence of Dame La Chance, the mother of Antoine, who would, of course, object to the insertion of certain conditions in the contract which Dame Bedard was quite determined upon as the price of Zoe's hand and fortune.
Bedard, at the instance of the House of Assembly, either as a matter of right, or as a favor, nor will I now consent to his being enlarged on any terms during the sitting of the present session, and I will not hesitate to inform you of the motives by which I have been induced to come to this resolution.
As a result of its attacks on the government, the paper was seized, and the printer, as well as M. Bedard and several other members of the assembly who were understood to be contributors to its pages, or to control its opinions, were summarily arrested by the orders of Sir James Craig.
In the next year Elzéar Bédard, who had moved the Ninety-Two Resolutions, broke with Papineau. Another seceder was Étienne Parent, the editor of the revived Canadien, and one of the great figures in French-Canadian literature. Both Bédard and Parent were citizens of Quebec, and they carried with them the great body of public opinion in the provincial capital.
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 Bédard.
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