Mr. Jackson shows that he has misread my review when he accuses me of accepting the British version of the events of May 21, 1832. In fact, I state that his argument is a persuasive one: from the evidence he presents in his book, it seems likely that what took place in the Place d'Armes was not a riot at all but an instance of drastic and violent over-reaction by colonial officials. Perhaps I should have made my stance more clear by writing, in the second paragraph, that "Patriote supporters allegedly started a riot."

Mr. Jackson also objects to my comment that context is lacking from his study, pointing to the background information he provides in his opening chapters. Yet even in these chapters, he steps back only far enough to provide biographies of the protagonists of his story, rather than describing the emergence of the Patriote movement and situating its struggle within the context of colonial oppression.

Did the grand jury and its aftermath amount to a cover-up? "Cover-up" denotes the deliberate concealment of a situation from the public, which does not seem to be an accurate description here. As Mr. Jackson himself points out in his introduction, the documents on which he bases his study have been in the public domain since 1834. The incident might be better framed as an illustration of the injustices and prejudices inherent in a colonial system. The British minority that held power in Quebec viewed the French-speaking majority with suspicion and condescension and preserved their dominance in part through their control of the court system. In his eagerness to accuse the colonial powers (and all historians) of a cover-up, Mr. Jackson misses the opportunity for a more nuanced exploration of the tensions that came to the surface on May 21, 1832, and that may well have contributed to subsequent political developments.