A View of 
 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe 3 
 Government of Canada 
 
 By 
 Edward Gibbon Wakef ield
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 A VIEW 
 
 OF 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. 
 
 of ti)t -Pro&umal parliament. 
 
 I 
 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO. 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1844.
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, 
 Old Bailey.
 
 F 
 
 
 A VIEW, 
 
 THE present existence in regard to Canada of the indifference 
 with which Colonial affairs are usually regarded, has discouraged 
 me from publishing these remarks on Sir Charles Metcalfe's 
 Government. But, on the other hand, I believe that an extraor- 
 dinary and very admirable man is greatly wronged by misconcep- 
 tions of his conduct and policy which I can help to remove. 
 I am persuaded also, that unless the misrepresentations on which 
 these errors of opinion are founded, be corrected without delay, 
 the peace of Canada, which involves the interests and honour of 
 the empire, will ere long be seriously disturbed. If the peace of 
 Canada should be disturbed, the state of the Colony would ob- 
 tain plenty of notice by means of furnishing parties at home with 
 weapons of attack upon each other : I am in hopes of being able 
 to draw some attention to the subject while party spirit is asleep 
 with regard to it, so that a removal of the false impressions which 
 prevail may take place in time to be of service. Such are the 
 considerations, outweighing a consciousness of the unpopularity 
 of the topic, which induce me to send these pages to the 
 press. 
 
 In speaking, however, of opinions from which I differ, as mis- 
 conceptions or errors, I only mean to say that the impressions 
 made on my own mind by personal observation on the spot, 
 differ so materially from general opinion on the subject, that the 
 latter necessarily appears to me erroneous. My object in this 
 
 B 2 
 
 377165
 
 publication is merely to state how my own opinion was formed, 
 and the grounds on which it rests. 
 
 It appears to me then, that two very different classes of per- 
 sons share in what I have ventured to term misconceptions of Sir 
 Charles Metcalfe's conduct and policy. The first class consists 
 of all whom the assertions of others have led to believe, that a 
 theory of government is the true subject of difference between 
 the Governor General of Canada and the late members of his 
 Executive Council. Amongst these I must include the bulk of the 
 Colonists, several writers in the newspaper press here, and those 
 members of the House of Commons, not excepting Lord Stanley 
 or Sir Robert Peel, who took part in the recent debate on this 
 subject. The other class consists of the ex-Councillors themselves, 
 who have, it appears to me, so entirely misapprehended the cha- 
 racter of Sir Charles Metcalfe as to be incapable of justly appre- 
 ciating his acts, and who therefore believe in some measure those 
 misrepresentations of the difference between him and them, which 
 theyhave diligently circulated, and which have been the means of 
 wholly misleading the former class. I think it will appear pre- 
 sently, that Sir Charles Metcalfe is not quite free from the re- 
 proach of having unwittingly contributed to the formation of 
 erroneous opinions about himself and his position. 
 
 The result of all the misrepresentation and misconception put 
 together, is that we have a great disturbance, apparently about 
 nothing. Neither in the debates of the Provincial Assembly, 
 nor in those of the House of Commons, nor in the newspapers of 
 this country or of the Colony, can one find a specific intelligible 
 statement of the grounds of difference between Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe and his Councillors. In looking for such a statement 
 we meet with nothing but controversy upon theories of govern- 
 ment, and get ourselves involved in a labyrinth of abstractions 
 and self-contradictions. The Big and Little Eudians seem to 
 have had a definite and practical view of their subject, when we 
 compare them with some talkers and writers about Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe's proceedings. On what point did he differ with his 
 Councillors ? Ask whom you will, and the answer is it was 
 about responsible government. But what is responsible govern- 
 ment ? Oh, it signifies government carried on through a Provin-
 
 cial Administration, enjoying the confidence of the representative 
 body. But that is precisely what Sir Charles Metcalfe and the 
 ex-Councillors agree in saying that they mean by it. Upon re- 
 sponsible government they agree ; about what is it they differ ? 
 They differ, it has been said, about the interpretation of the 
 words " government carried on through a Provincial Administra- 
 tion enjoying the confidence of the representative body " which 
 is their joint interpretation of the words " responsible govern- 
 ment." And yet, if we examine what both parties have written 
 by way of interpretation of the interpretation, we shall find 
 them agreeing again as completely as before. In like manner, 
 the House of Assembly, when by one paragraph of a resolution 
 it expressed its confidence in the ex-Councillors for having re- 
 tired from office because the Governor General refused to enter 
 into an engagement with them respecting the future exercise of 
 a prerogative of the Crown, by another paragraph of the same 
 resolution emphatically declared its approval of that very refusal 
 of the Governor General which the ex-Councillors had assigned 
 as the cause of their resignation. It is thus all through the 
 chapter of controversy. Nobody can tell, so as to make himself 
 intelligible to any body else, what the dispute was really about. 
 The only inference to be drawn from the subsequent discussions 
 is, that it was not about responsible government. It is, however, 
 a step in the enquiry to have arrived at this negation. 
 
 In one of Sir Charles Metcalfe's answers to addresses from 
 the Assembly, he speaks of a certain " antagonism " between 
 himself and the members of his Council, which he intimates had 
 existed throughout their intercourse with him. This is all he 
 says on the subject. I am not myself acquainted with the 
 whole subject ; but what I do know shall now be related. 
 
 The first and a very large portion of the story must consist of 
 some account of the singular character of Sir Charles Metcalfe. 
 
 It is a common saying in Canada that the Governor General 
 works like a slave. His work, however, differs from that of the 
 slave inasmuch as he seems to take great pleasure in it. I have 
 never known any body in public or private life, who appeared so 
 to love labor for its own sake. It is not that he indulges in but 
 little relaxation ; for he is unceasingly at work except when eat-
 
 6 
 
 ing or asleep. The heaps of papers which most men in high 
 office look at with ill-concealed dismay, and never intend to read 
 through if they can help it, he grasps with evident satisfaction, 
 and surely reads every word of their contents. Of the countless 
 applications for interviews on business, most of which common 
 Governors evade if they can, he never refuses, still less evades, a 
 single one. Nor does tiresomeness fatigue him : it is said that 
 he hears every story to the end, and never attempts to close an 
 interview except by occasionally wearing out importunity by 
 silence. How he finds the time is a problem : I know only that 
 he is never in a hurry. 
 
 The public often hears of Sir Charles Metcalfe's munificence. 
 That might be, to a person of his fortune, an easy mode of self- 
 gratification. But if his unknown charities may be measured by 
 reference to the small proportion of such acts of mere benevolence 
 which usually becomes known, he gives more away secretly than 
 in public. Nor is his kindness of heart alone displayed in help- 
 ing people who want money. It appears in the forms of a ready 
 sympathy with every case of suffering, and still more agreeably 
 in a never-failing and most delicate consideration for the feelings 
 of others. That generosity which has been called politeness of 
 the heart, is especially his. 
 
 And this reminds me to speak of another kind of charity 
 which seems to be one of his habits. I mean the spirit of 
 toleration ; the predisposition to think well of every body ; the 
 unwillingness to condemn ; the love of favourable construction 
 of the opinions and acts of others ; the total absence of the bad 
 part of what the phrenologists call combativeness. 
 
 A strong love of justice generally accompanies the quality 
 last described. In Sir Charles Metcalfe it appears to be always 
 active. I believe it to be the governing motive of every one of 
 his decisions on two-sided matters. On several occasions I have 
 advised applicants to him for the redress of an injury, to be 
 sure and explain the injustice they had suffered ; and the result 
 always answered my expectations. I fancy that I could with 
 certainty foretell his determination in any case involving a ques- 
 tion of justice. 
 
 The kindred qualities of sincerity and honesty have their
 
 natural place in this large family of virtues. But they are more 
 than commonly vigorous in Sir Charles Metcalfe. Not merely 
 is he, as the reader would take for granted, incapable of saying 
 the thing which is not, but he will say out the full plain 
 truth, to his own great disadvantage, whenever his silence 
 about it would be apt to leave a wrong impression on any- 
 body's mind. And as for honesty, it is not enough to say that 
 nothing would persuade him to take an unfair advantage : he 
 can hardly bring himself to take a fair one. It may be ques- 
 tioned whether he would train his own horse for a race if he 
 thought that the other horses would not be trained : he would 
 hesitate about engaging counsel to manage his cause, if the 
 other party were too poor or silly to employ counsel. Some 
 may think I am describing a goose ; but such is the man ; and 
 it will be seen in the sequel, that a description of this man's 
 peculiar character is a necessary part of my explanation. 
 
 For the direct purpose of stating the fact, it were needless to 
 say that Sir Charles Metcalfe dislikes in others every species of 
 deceit and overreaching. I say it for the indirect purpose of 
 exhibiting a very different trait in his character. Trickery ex- 
 cites in him a feeling very like anger. And yet it is not anger ; 
 for instead of having great command of temper, or an excellent 
 temper, he is really without a temper. I never witnessed such 
 patience under provocation. I am speaking now of what I saw 
 myself, and could not have believed without seeing. It was 
 not merely quiet endurance, but a constant, good-humoured, 
 cheerfulness and lightness of heart, in the midst of trouble 
 enough to provoke a saint or make a strong man ill. To those 
 who, like me, have seen three Governors of Canada literally 
 worried to death, this was a glorious spectacle. 
 
 In self reliance few are equal to Sir Charles Metcalfe, none 
 superior. He never turns to his neighbour to ask what he 
 thinks or what ought to be done. Like a spider its web out 
 of its own body, he spins his opinions out of his own brain ; and 
 then, as their formation was not affected, so are they unchange- 
 able by any external influence. 
 
 This is a dangerous quality unless accompanied by abundance 
 of caution. His caution may be termed a wariness that never
 
 8 
 
 sleeps. He is slow of decision. When examining questions^ 
 whether for judgment or action, he casts about so long in search 
 of all the pros and cons, that you imagine he hesitates to decide. 
 It is not hesitation, but a deliberate circumspection. He won't 
 be hurried. The only fear I ever observed in him was the fear 
 of making a mistake from ignorance or inadvertence. The time 
 which he bestowed on enquiry or deliberation was not always in 
 proportion to the seeming importance or complication of the 
 case ; but still it was plain that he went by some rule which 
 procured for all cases a great deal of consideration, and for each 
 as much as sufficed to make him master of the whole case; not 
 the general features only, but even the minutest particulars. It 
 is again a puzzle to know how he found the time. 
 
 Such circumspection or wariness is naturally uncommuni- 
 cative. Sir Charles Metcalfe must have a great bump of secre- 
 tiveness. Though chatty, (I would say jolly if it were not inde- 
 corous,) out of business, on business he never speaks unnecessarily. 
 Even on occasions of the utmost interest to him, no word or 
 look betrays his thoughts unless he chooses to disclose them ; 
 and then he speaks with absolute unreserve. I was often 
 amused by hearing of the total failure of attempts by old hands 
 at Governor-pumping to get at his intention, or opinion, or im_ 
 pression, when he had a mind to keep it to himself; and the 
 cases were frequent in which a listener, accustomed to official 
 mystification, doubted the truth of his communication because it 
 was so complete and unmistakeable. 
 
 His courage is of the highest order, comprising both sorts of 
 fearlessness; both the physical boldness which depends on 
 nervous organization, and that much rarer, that far more admir- 
 able moral valour, which resides in a powerful conscience. It 
 has been said that conscience in most men is an anticipation of 
 the opinions of others. Of this sort of conscience, Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe is curiously destitute. For example, the ordinary 
 Governor of a Colony, whose enjoyment of pay and authority is 
 a great personal object to him, but whose Government is not of 
 sufficient importance to attract party notice at home, ever keeps 
 in view as the guide of his conduct the purpose of doing what he 
 thinks will be agreeable to the Colonial Office and recommend
 
 9 
 
 him to the favor of that Department ; whilst a Governor of 
 higher social position at home, such as the ex-Cabinet-Ministers 
 and ex-Ambassador whom the rebellions in Canada have recently 
 induced the Home Government to send thither as chief rulers, 
 is commonly apt to think a great deal about the manner in 
 which his acts as Governor of the Colony will affect his reputa- 
 tion and after- position at home to consult much less " the still 
 small voice " than the opinion of the side of St. James's Street 
 which happens to be that of his party club. Whereas God 
 made Sir Charles Metcalfe greater than the Colonial Office ; 
 and sure I am he never dreams, nor would care for it if he did, 
 about what people may say of him at White's or Brookes's. His 
 own sense of right is his conscience. 
 
 In official and even professional life most consciences are 
 double, being composed of two senses, a public and a private 
 one : wherefore officials and lawyers often defend without shame 
 what they would blush to think of doing in private life. But 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe 's is a single conscience, and of the private 
 kind : his whole public life accordingly is regulated by the obli- 
 gations of honor or religion. Whether it is religion, or that 
 honor which chivalry has handed down to us from a religious 
 source, I cannot determine because I have had no sufficient 
 means of observing. But why not both in one, as with the true 
 knight of old ? Taking this view, along with Sir Charles Met- 
 calfe's intimate friends, we should call him a Christian gentle- 
 man. The point, however, which I wish to impress, is that the 
 conscience of the man, let us describe it how we may, is the con- 
 science of the Governor. 
 
 This moral instinct, combined with total disregard of personal 
 consequences and the opinion of others, amounts to originality. 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe accordingly does things that startle one. 
 He squanders his own money, and saves that of the Colony : 
 he exalts the reputation of his immediate predecessor : being 
 told that any pardon of a French-Canadian rebel for which he 
 should ask specifically, would be at once granted and sent out 
 to New South Wales, he asked a pardon for every one of those 
 poor exiles, and then contributed handsomely to a subscription 
 for enabling them to return to their country.
 
 10 
 
 Fine as this character is, it is not without defects, or rather 
 deficiencies. These must not be left out of a portrait, the object 
 of which is to show how the qualities of an individual have in- 
 fluenced public affairs. 
 
 It appeared to me that in Sir Charles Metcalfe, the greatness 
 of the moral qualities have left too little room for intellectual 
 activity on the same grand scale. A dulness of the faculty of 
 perception was obvious, and a consequent slowness in esti- 
 mating the character and discovering the motives of k other men. 
 In powers of expression and argumentation, and consequently in 
 the power of persuading or convincing, there is a striking de- 
 ficiency in comparison with the greatness of the virtues before 
 enumerated. Neither his pen nor his voicej therefore, ever 
 properly expresses the noble sentiments of his heart, or the wise 
 conclusions of his judgment. It follows that other peopleare 
 apt to misconceive his aims and motives, and form an erroneous 
 estimate of his character. I have imagined, also, that his mind 
 is not accustomed to laying down plans for the attainment of 
 definite ends ; that his only plan is from time to time, as events 
 occur, to do whatever the sense of duty tells him is right at the 
 time and for the occasion ; that he always relies for success, 
 not enough on the careful adaptation of means to the end in 
 view, nor even on a very clear conception of any end, but too 
 much on some belief in the sufficient efficacy of goodness and 
 devotion to the public welfare. If, for example, the gaining of 
 an election were of great importance to him, and he were urged 
 to make or withhold some appointment with a view of inducing 
 a majority of voters to support the Government candidate, he 
 would stare, smile, thank you with much good-humour and 
 politeness for the friendly suggestion, and let you go away ex- 
 claiming This man has no notion of governing except by 
 means of truth and justice. In this way partisans are dis- 
 couraged. It may be grand, but is wholly at variance with the 
 practice of representative government. The very magnificence 
 of such a character has an overawing, even a depressing effect 
 on others, wounds their self-love, and breeds hatred in little 
 minds. 
 
 In order to describe the state of Government which Sir
 
 11 
 
 Charles Metcalfe found on his arrival, it is necessary to take a 
 brief retrospect of the affairs of the Province from the time of 
 Lord Durham's mission. 
 
 The enquiries of Lord Durham, the result of which has been 
 given to the public in his celebrated Report, established beyond 
 all manner of doubt, that the disorders of the two Provinces, 
 which he was betrayed while attempting to remedy, had been 
 chiefly occasioned by giving representation to the people and 
 withholding from their representatives all control over the execu- 
 tive Government. In both Provinces, the Governor and the 
 members of his Executive Council were generally at open war 
 with the Assembly. In Lower Canada, for many a year, the 
 Government party in the Assembly numbered about an eighth of 
 the whole ; and this small minority was led by the principal 
 officer of the Government through an uninterrupted course of 
 defeat from the first to the last day of the session. It was as if 
 Sir Robert Peel at this time governed England with the support 
 of about a hundred members of the House of Commons, the 
 remaining five hundred and fifty -eight being of course outrage- 
 ously opposed to him. Here an attempt to govern under the re- 
 presentative system according to the pleasure of the minority 
 would produce instant revolution ; or rather the proposer of such 
 a scheme would be sent to Bedlam. In Canada the system was 
 long maintained by means of the Imperial power, but at last, as 
 was sooner or later inevitable, it exploded in rebellion. 
 
 When Lord Durham proposed the Union of the Canadasasa 
 means of putting an end to the war of races which had grown 
 up in the Lower Province, he also urgently recommended that 
 the explosive plan of giving power to the minority should be for 
 ever abandoned ; and when the first Parliament of the United 
 Province met, his successor, Lord Sydenham, carried the recom- 
 mendation into effect. 
 
 The circumstances and the manner, however, in which Lord 
 Sydenham adopted what Lord Durham had termed " responsible 
 government," requires a particular explanation. 
 
 When the British Act for uniting the Provinces gave back 
 representation to the Lower Canadians, the great majority of 
 them, who were of French origin, and who had suffered every
 
 12 
 
 species of injustice while the Constitution was suspended, were 
 totally estranged from the Government. Not one executive 
 office of political consequence was filled by a person of their 
 race. The Union was hateful to them ; because described by 
 the other race as intended to deprive them, by force, of their 
 peculiar language and institutions, and because the mode of 
 governing them while the Constitution was suspended gave a 
 colour of truth to the threat. At the general election, therefore, 
 for the first Parliament under the Union, the whole population 
 of French origin sought to return members who were opposed to 
 the Union and Lord Sydenham. Their purpose was frustrated 
 in some measure, partly by the exercise of a power given to 
 the Governor by the Union Act, of disfranchising many of the 
 French-Canadian electors of Quebec and Montreal, and partly 
 by Government interference with the elections for several counties, 
 whereby the minority was enabled to prevail over the majority. 
 The first Assembly therefore, under the Union was not a fair 
 representation of the constituencies. It was only in harmony 
 with the majority of the Assembly so composed, that Lord Syden- 
 ham undertook to govern under the new constitution. But, 
 allowing for this irregularity in the composition of the repre- 
 sentativ ebody, he fully adopted the principle of responsible 
 government : as regards the local affairs of the Province, what- 
 ever he did was to be approved by a majority of the Assembly, 
 and he was to do whatever they recommended. 
 
 Such government requires a machinery of Executive Officers 
 having seats in the Assembly, and carrying on the business of 
 the Executive as Ministers do in the House of Commons. Lord 
 Sydenham, therefore, formed a Provincial Administration or 
 Ministry. It consisted of the members of his Executive Coun- 
 cil, who, with the exception of the President, were Law Officers, 
 or Heads of Departments. The President had a seat in the 
 Legislative Council or Upper House of Parliament ; and all the 
 others were members of the Assembly. 
 
 But this Ministry differed from that of " the Old Country '' 
 in a very material point. Here the Administration consists 
 of the leading men of the party which happens to be most nu- 
 merous in the House of Commons ; of men who, on that
 
 13 
 
 account alone, are appointed to office by the Sovereign. Lord 
 Sydenham's Ministers would have been perfectly helpless in 
 the Assembly without his constant aid. In fact, he was his 
 own Minister ; the Prime-Minister of his Cabinet and more ; for 
 his Executive Councillors were mere instruments in his hand 
 for the purpose of carrying on the Executive government, 
 and managing the Assembly under his incessant teaching 
 and drilling. His system more resembled that of the pre- 
 sent King of the French than of the British Sovereign at all 
 times. 
 
 So long, however, as a majority of the Assembly was content, 
 the conditions of responsible government were observed, and 
 there was harmony between the representative body and the 
 Executive. Lord Sydenham kept on good terms with the As- 
 sembly, partly by means of what he has called " my wand," 
 and partly by yielding to them whenever they insisted on any 
 point in opposition to his views. His skill in using the wand 
 was much admired, but less remarkable, it struck many, than 
 the adroitness with which he averted the appearance of defeat 
 by yielding with the air of having his own way. Of his pro- 
 ficiency in the latter art a good example is furnished by what 
 occurred with respect to the Resolutions of the House of Assem- 
 bly of September 1841, declaratory of responsible government, 
 of which so much use has been made in the present controversy. 
 These resolutions were proposed by Mr. Baldwin, an Opposition 
 leader. Lord Sydenham's strong dislike to them is unquestion- 
 able. When he found that the Assembly was disposed to adopt 
 them, he sent one of his Councillors down to the House with 
 orders to move as an amendment Resolutions somewhat dif- 
 ferent in form and words, but precisely the same in substance. 
 Responsible government was affirmed by acclamation, the 
 Representative of the Crown shouting aye with the loudest of 
 them. 
 
 The passing of these Resolutions by the Assembly was an act 
 out of the course of ordinary government. It was a revolu- 
 tionary act, like the establishment of Magna Charta or the Bill 
 of Rights. The passing of such Resolutions, moreover, was an 
 act at variance with the British Constitution, which nowhere
 
 14 
 
 declares the responsibility of Ministers, but secures it by a tacit 
 understanding between the Crown and the House of Commons. 
 
 o 
 
 If, therefore, those Resolutions had been opposed by Lord Syden- 
 ham, and passed by the Assembly notwithstanding, Canada 
 would have been in a revolutionary state, and the Union would 
 have been deemed a failure. Lord Sydenham's whole policy at 
 the time may be described as consisting of a determination to 
 make the Union succeed, or appear successful. Hence his 
 ready and apparently self-satisfied assent to what he would have 
 resolutely opposed, if successful opposition had been possible. 
 
 It was impossible. The favour of a majority towards these 
 Resolutions was owing to a monstrous injustice then exist- 
 ing in the composition of the Executive Government. The 
 whole of the French-Canadian members, (that is, members, 
 whether of French or English origin, representing constituencies 
 of French origin) were excluded from office were the repre- 
 sentatives of a people still proscribed by the Executive, though 
 now re-admitted to the enjoyment of representation; and they 
 accordingly formed a compact and unmanageable Opposition. 
 Their own strength in the Assembly was insufficient to carry 
 the Resolutions against Lord Sydenham's wish ; but there was 
 plenty of support in store for them. On this question every 
 member would have voted with them, who dared to express his 
 sense of the injustice of a continued proscription of their race. 
 The passing of the Resolutions was a sort of notice to Lord 
 Sydenham, that this proscription would not be much longer 
 tolerated ; and by accepting the notice, he acknowledged the 
 impossibility of continuing for ever to exclude the French- 
 Canadians from all share in the Executive government of their 
 country. 
 
 By means of such concessions as this, added to the other 
 means before named, Lord Sydenham got through the session 
 in triumph. His brother and Secretary have made known his 
 exultation at the difficult success. But it was fortunate for his 
 Councillors or Ministers that the session ended with his life. If 
 they had continued to meet the Assembly unsupported by his 
 wits and will, their majority would soon have disappeared ; and 
 responsible government, as set forth by the Resolutions of Sep-
 
 15 
 
 tcmber 1841, would have been brought to a practical test. As 
 it was, the Ministry which Lord Sydenham bequeathed to 
 his successor, had only the easy task of conducting the business 
 of the Departments during a long recess of Parliament. 
 
 Sir Charles Bagot, on his arrival in Canada, adopted Lord 
 Sydenham's Ministry as he found it. But shortly before the 
 second meeting of the first United Parliament, it became plain 
 to careful observers, that a majority of the Assembly would 
 oppose the Government as then constituted. Sir Charles Bagot 
 therefore had to choose between making some important change 
 in the composition of his Council, and falling into collision with 
 the Assembly according to custom before the Union. He wisely 
 preferred the former. I am bound to add, that this kind, true, and 
 honourable Governor was shocked at the injustice of the exclusion 
 of the French-Canadians from all part in the Government, and is 
 believed to have rejoiced at the opportunity of taking some of their 
 leaders into his Council of advisers. It was much easier, however, 
 to wish this than to do it. Some of the difficulties and the means 
 by which they were overcome, are set forth in a letter, appended 
 to these remarks, which expressed my sentiments at the time. 
 After the failure of various negociations in consequence of 
 Mr. Lafontaine's natural suspicion that the Governor General's 
 offer of so large a share of power to his hitherto proscribed 
 countrymen was not sincere, and also in consequence of Mr. 
 Baldwin's wish to oust Lord Sydenham's Ministry en bloc with 
 a view of being " sent for " himself and desired to form a new 
 Ministry, an arrangement was made by which about half of 
 Lord Sydenham's Councillors retired, and were replaced by as 
 many members of the Opposition. The Assembly which would 
 have voted against an echo-address in answer to the Governor's 
 speech by about 2 to 1, now warmly expressed its confidence in 
 the Government by a majority of 10 to 1 of the Members pre- 
 sent. The working of responsible government had preserved 
 harmony between the Crown and the Representative body. The 
 modification or change of Ministry in 1842 crowned the resolu- 
 tions of September 1841, by giving them full effect in practice. 
 
 The letter in the Appendix shows that the Lafontaine-Baldwin 
 Ministry was really formed with no other view than that of
 
 16 
 
 doing justice to the French Canadians ; and that Mr. Baldwin 
 was brought into power merely as the nominee of the French- 
 Canadian leaders, who thus paid him a debt of gratitude which 
 they had contracted when he resigned office under Lord Syden- 
 ham on account of their exclusion from power. When the French 
 Canadians made Mr. Baldwin a Minister under Sir Charles 
 Bagot, he was the leader of a section of the Opposition in the 
 Assembly composed of four Upper Canada Members, himself 
 included. This is a point to be carefully borne in mind. 
 
 The Resolutions of September 1841 determined those relations 
 between a Ministry and the Representative body, for which usage 
 is the sole guarantee in this country ; but they leave wholly 
 untouched that other part of the machinery of Parliamentary 
 government which consists of the relations between a Ministry 
 and the Crown. In this country, these latter relations are settled 
 like the former, by usage, and depend on the good sense of the 
 parties. They were in no way settled in Canada under Sir 
 Charles Bagot. His Excellency fell into severe illness almost 
 immediately after the formation of the Lafontaine-Baldwin 
 Council, and became incapable of exercising the functions of 
 Governor. The New Council or Ministry, therefore, had in 
 truth no relations with the Governor, but ruled the Province 
 executively without the participation or knowledge of any 
 representative of the Crown. This state of things lasted until 
 the arrival of Sir Charles Metcalfe. 
 
 When it was seen that the good sense of the French-Canadian 
 leaders of the Assembly would force Mr. Lafontaine to accept Sir 
 Charles Bagot's offer, after he had refused it once, and notwith- 
 standing Mr. Baldwin's wish that he should continue to refuse 
 it, the latter expressed his anger in as bitter a speech as was 
 ever heard in a public assembly. That anger was attributed to 
 a fear on his part, that if he were only introduced into a 
 Ministry, not allowed to form one, his influence with his 
 colleagues would be insufficient to satisfy his extravagant self- 
 esteem. The fear, if it existed, was without foundation. The 
 apparent modification of the Council, under Sir Charles Bagot, 
 was really a change of Ministry. The Council acknowledged 
 Mr. Lafontaine and Mr. Baldwin as its masters from the moment
 
 17 
 
 of their introduction ; and they divided between them the exer- 
 cise of all power, according to the old divisions of the Province ; 
 Mr. Lafontaine doing what he pleased in Lower, and Mr. Bald- 
 win in Upper Canada. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin cared little about Lower Canada. His 
 influence with respect to measures affecting Upper Canada 
 only, was as great as if the Council had been formed by him ; 
 and then, with respect to general measures that is, measures 
 affecting the whole Province without distinction there can be 
 no doubt that his superior will and stronger party-spirit enabled 
 him to gain an ascendancy over Mr. Lafontaine, which made 
 him the leader of the Council, though it bore their joint names 
 and Mr. Lafontaine's was pronounced first. 
 
 It is here necessary for me to state, that having taken a very 
 active part in promoting that change under Sir Charles Bagot 
 which admitted French-Canadians to a share of power, I was 
 elected a Member of the Assembly by an important county of 
 Lower Canada, in which the two races are mixed in nearly equal 
 proportions, for the purpose of showing to the Colonial Office, as 
 well as a single election could show it, that Sir Charles Bagot's 
 policy of "justice to the French-Canadians" was approved by 
 the constituencies as well as by the Assembly. 
 
 Upon Sir Charles Metcalfe's arrival, he followed the example 
 of Sir Charles Bagot, by adopting the Council as he found it. 
 
 I was not in Canada at the time, and cannot speak with confi- 
 dence of anything that happened there until the meeting of the 
 Provincial Parliament at the end of September last, when I 
 reached Kingston for the purpose of taking my seat in the 
 Assembly, and voting in support of the Provincial Ministry which, 
 as the Letter in the Appendix partly shows, I had been much 
 concerned in forming. It is requisite to add, that all its members 
 were aware that I had come out to Canada with a very high 
 opinion of Sir Charles Metcalfe's character, though not so dis- 
 tinct a one as that which has been here expressed. 
 
 The session had lasted just a fortnight, when I sent the letter, 
 of which a copy follows, to an attached friend of Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe's, who had served under him in India and took a 
 warm interest in his personal success as Governor General of 
 Canada. c
 
 18 
 
 Kingston, llth October, 1843. 
 
 " My dear Mangles, A fortnight's stay here enables me 
 to keep my promise as to letting you know something of the 
 true state of affairs in Canada ; but I shall only have time to 
 speak in general terms. Learn also, that I know nothing 
 except as anybody else might pick it up, having had no com- 
 munication with Sir Charles on the subject of politics. I dined 
 with him the other day, when he asked very kindly after you. 
 
 " In what may be called my time, Canada has never been so 
 tranquil as now. Sir Charles Bagot's policy has proved com- 
 pletely successful. The Government which he formed enjoys 
 the confidence of a large majority of the people and the 
 Assembly. In the House of Assembly, the Opposition consists 
 of twenty votes, at the most, out of eighty-four ; and the leaders 
 are reduced to mere fault-finding; having no plan, no policy, 
 either for the country or their party. Hitherto they have done 
 little more than harp on the worn-out strings of disaffection and 
 loyalty. The Government, on the other hand, has been dili- 
 gently occupied during the recess in preparing measures to be 
 submitted to the Assembly ; measures urgently required, likely 
 to be very popular, and framed, so far as I can judge at present, 
 with a view to sufficiency and lasting utility. This is the first 
 Government I have known in Canada, which might be called 
 constructive. Lord Sydenham was a great destroyer, but a 
 miserable builder. The attitude of the present Government 
 towards the country is also most respectable. I can observe no 
 lies, no tricks, no shuffling, but many indications of honesty of 
 purpose, to which they add a decorum and even dignity of man- 
 ner, unexampled in the class of men who have hitherto ruled in 
 both divisions of the Province. I am now speaking in particu- 
 lar of Messrs. Lafontaine and Baldwin, the leaders of the 
 Government party in the House of Assembly. The only ques- 
 tion, as far as t can see, at all likely to embarrass the Govern- 
 ment, is that of the Seat of' Government. Lord Stanley, instead 
 of making the Queen decide that prerogative question, as the 
 local Government and nearly the whole Province desired, has 
 submitted it to the decision of the local Legislature, and in such
 
 19 
 
 a form as to enable the Opposition to exert themselves with 
 effect in converting it into a question between the two Pro- 
 vinces, Upper and Lower Canada. The Government goes for 
 Montreal, and stakes its existence on carrying the point. If 
 you were aware of the extreme general inconveniences and gross 
 injustice towards the French-Canadians, of keeping the Govern- 
 ment in a sort of banishment at this village, you would see that 
 they have only done their duty in committing themselves as 
 they have done on the subject. I have no doubt that they will 
 carry their point, if other things go well. 
 
 " But now as to other things, there are, I fancy, some black 
 clouds a-head. The chief Executive Councillors are very silent, 
 and I can learn little or nothing from them ; but my experience in 
 these matters enables me to observe indications of a tendency 
 (I speak only of a tendency) in Sir Charles Metcalfe's views, 
 which may prove most injurious to this country and fatal to his 
 own great reputation. I gather that he is as truly conscien- 
 tious and noble-hearted, as capable and industrious in adminis- 
 tration, as single-minded and courageous, as worthy of love and 
 admiration, as you ever told me he was ; but that the long habit 
 of exercising a paternal despotism makes it difficult for him to 
 comprehend the nature and consequences of the representative 
 system. If this notion of mine should be correct, of course he is 
 in great danger. I imagine it is this habit, combined with a 
 strong sense of duty, which leads him to work like a slave at all 
 sorts of matters of detail ; as if it were necessary that his know- 
 ledge of what is going on should be as full and minute as that 
 of all the heads of departments and all the clerks put together. 
 After all, he might as well try to drink Ontario dry. But fancy 
 the terrible delay of business which ensues from this attempt of 
 one person to review and redecide every question which has 
 been already examined and decided by those whom the repre- 
 sentatives of the people hold alone responsible. It must neces- 
 sarily happen too, under this system, that differences of opinion 
 will arise between the Governor and his Council ; when, if his 
 opinion prevails, they must either resign or abandon some point 
 as to which their judgment has been formed with a view to the 
 feelings of the country and the Assembly. I cannot learn 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 whether any differences of such importance have yet arisen 
 between the Governor and his Council. But I feel certain, if 
 they should occur, the present ' Ministers,' so to speak, will 
 choose to rely rather on the country than on the temporary 
 Governor; and that, if he should force them to retire on a 
 question of this sort, he will be unable to replace them without 
 getting into violent collision with the representative body, 
 whether it be the present Assembly or one returned by a 
 general election. I suspect that the Beauharnois police question 
 is a case in point, fancying (though I am by no means sure) that 
 it is the Governor who has removed the troops against the 
 opinion of the Council. If it be so, they will have to be 
 dragged through the dirt of bearing heavy blame which they do 
 not deserve. Such a state of relations between the Governor 
 and his Council (if it really exist) cannot last long. I hope 
 that my apprehensions may be ill-founded, but cannot help 
 entertaining them. 
 
 At the same time, it is hard to believe that a man of Sir 
 Charles Metcalfe's wisdom will not find out the true nature of 
 his mission, as Governor of a Parliamented country. He may 
 do so slowly (for I suspect that in his mind, the faculty of quick, 
 rough-and-ready penetration the clever attorney's faculty has 
 been absorbed in the nobler qualities) but sooner or later he 
 must discover the truth. It is, therefore, only the pressure of 
 time which makes me seriously afraid. I long to go and plead 
 to him on the subject, but dare not. I had set my mind on his 
 being the man to establish constitutional government in this 
 country, and shall be bitterly disappointed if he break down in 
 attempting to rule with his own hand. I have a profound con- 
 viction that such an attempt must utterly fail. 
 
 " Ever your's most truly, 
 
 "E. G. WAKEFIELD. 
 " R. D. Mangles, Esq., M.P." 
 
 These impressions with respect to Sir Charles Metcalfe were 
 derived from the town-talk of Kingston, and from a marked 
 unwillingness of the leading members of the Council to speak 
 of him to me. The town-talk, which only repeated the conver-
 
 21 
 
 sations of some Members of the Council with various persons 
 then at the seat of Government, alleged that Messrs. Lafontaine 
 and Baldwin were somehow or other on bad terms with the 
 Governor General ; that they represented him as being either 
 stupid or cunning, and at any rate disposed to take the whole 
 administration of government into his own hands, leaving them 
 
 o / o 
 
 no share at all ; that they called him " Square-toes," to intimate 
 that they deemed him an old-fashioned person of very inferior 
 capacity. And the marked reserve of the leaders towards me 
 with respect to their opinion of Sir Charles Metcalfe, satisfied 
 me that the town-talk concerning that opinion was not un- 
 founded. It was clear that some antagonism had grown up 
 between him and them ; and as it seemed impossible that their 
 complaints against him should be wholly unfounded, whilst not 
 a word had reached me of any complaint from him against 
 them, I could discover no feasible explanation of the mischief, 
 save that which appears in the above letter. 
 
 However, a fortnight later, on the 27th October, I wrote as 
 follows. 
 
 " Kingston, 27th October, 1843. 
 " Another fortnio-ht's observation induces me to correct a 
 
 D 
 
 material part of my first letter, or rather to add materially to that 
 report. 
 
 " I am now inclined to think that Messrs. Lafontaine and 
 Baldwin, the real leaders in the Executive Council, have very 
 much overlooked that principle of responsible government, 
 which in my former letter I said that perhaps the Governor 
 General was not sufficiently inclined to admit. I can speak 
 with no certainty, but gather from one indication or another, 
 that, as respects the Governor General and his Council, the 
 manner of the principal Councillors has been not a little offen- 
 sive. I do not mean personal manners, but the mode in which 
 these gentlemen have conducted their intercourse with the 
 Head of the Government. To describe this in a few words, I 
 guess that they have denied to the Governor General that degree 
 of participation in public affairs which belongs to every Coun- 
 cillor; that they have not only, not treated the Governor General
 
 22 
 
 as the head of the Council, but have also denied him the equal 
 position of a Councillor. For example, I imagine that they 
 never really consult him, but always make up their own minds 
 on a point before speaking to him, and then speak to him only 
 for the purpose of urging their own preconcerted notion. This 
 will never do ; this is not responsible government, but sheer folly 
 exhibiting itself in the form of vulgar assumption. I take the 
 state of the case to be about this He, from long habit, desires 
 to exercise his own mfnd upon every thing ; they, from stupidity, 
 desire to prevent him from having any voice in any thing : and 
 thus he is provoked into wishing for more control than would 
 satisfy him if they left him a reasonable share. The fault is 
 clearly all on their side. In a word, they must have been a 
 couple of geese thus to get on bad terms with so excellent a 
 man. I think that they will have to give way ; that is, provided 
 they should have sense enough. If not, he will probably quarrel 
 with them, and we shall have what is called a " Ministerial crisis." 
 I should have no objection even to that, could I but be sure that 
 the Governor General would pick well his ground of quarrel, and 
 would only quarrel with the men, not with the great majority 
 whom they represent for the time. What I fear is, that they 
 may manage to put the quarrel on some ground in which the 
 public may sympathize with them. Should this last happen, he 
 is a lost Governor. In the other case, that is, supposing that he 
 differs only with the men without offending the public, it will be 
 well and good for every body that these foolish fellows should be 
 replaced by men of more sense and conduct. I believe this 
 view of the case to be correct, but even now I am not quite sure. 
 Another fortnight will probably show. Should it be so, 1 shall 
 certainly take part with the Governor General, and do all I can 
 to sustain him." 
 
 The " indications " mentioned were, first, a tone of arrogance 
 and bitterness towards Sir Charles Metcalfe, in the language of 
 some of the Executive Councillors, who spoke freely about him 
 in their own society, and whose every word on the subject was, 
 of course, repeated to every body in a small town like Kingston ; 
 secondly, assertions made by them that he was wholly unfit for
 
 23 
 
 his post, and would not be able to keep it long ; and, thirdly, 
 proofs that the Governor's personal officers were ignorant of very 
 important determinations of the Executive Council, which had 
 not been kept secret from several members of the Assembly, 
 whence it was naturally inferred, that the Head of the Govern- 
 ment himself was kept in ignorance of such determinations. 
 This inference afterwaYds turned out to have been perfectly 
 correct. 
 
 On the llth of November, I wrote as follows : 
 
 "Kingston, llth November, 1843. 
 
 " It has turned out as I opined in my last, of the 27th ultimo. 
 I now know that Messrs. Lafontaine and Baldwin have got 
 thoroughly into the Governor General's bad graces. So they have 
 into mine, by reason of various follies, and above all, by a course 
 of treachery towards a colleague who greatly helped to bring 
 them into power. Until this came out, I spared no pains to 
 induce them to act prudently with respect to Sir Charles and 
 other matters ; but since then we have had no intercourse. An 
 accident constituted me the defender of the colleague (Daly) in 
 the Assembly, and they can never forgive it. 
 
 I cannot doubt any longer that Sir Charles will come to an 
 open rupture with them ere long ; and my only fear is, that they, 
 who must be expecting this, may manage either to put the rup- 
 ture on some ground in which the majority of the Assembly will 
 sympathise with them, or to put it off till I shall be gone. If 
 the Governor chooses his ground well, and acts promptly, I shall 
 be able to serve him. Your friend behaves with entire propriety 
 towards them, having even abstained from giving any answer to 
 an offer which I made him the other day, to render him any ser- 
 vice in my power. I expected that he would so receive it, but 
 thought myself not the less bound to make the offer. It was 
 limited to the brief space of my stay here. 
 
 " It is a great satisfaction to me to be able to take part with 
 rather than against him." 
 
 The knowledge here mentioned, was obtained through the 
 following circumstances:
 
 24 
 
 I was in the House of Assembly when a regular supporter of 
 the Government, but not holding any office, made a speech 
 suggesting the impeachment of an Executive Councillor, Mr. 
 Daly, the Secretary of the Province, for having advised Lord 
 Sydenham to make, in favour of the said Mr. Daly, an unlawful 
 appropriation of the Colonial Revenue. So little had such an 
 attack been expected, that the person accused was not present, 
 and the Members generally were in total ignorance of the subject. 
 When the accuser sat down, it was, of course, supposed that the 
 Ministers present would defend their absent colleague. Instead 
 of this, two members of the Executive Council, Mr. Hincks, 
 Inspector General of Accounts, and Mr. Aylwin, Solicitor Gene- 
 ral for Lower Canada, one of them being a dependent of Mr. 
 Baldwin's, and the other of Mr. Lafontaine's, made speeches ad- 
 mitting the guilt of their colleague, but deprecating inquiry into 
 a matter which was already so plain. Mr. Lafontaine and Mr. 
 Baldwin were present, but said nothing-. Shocked at their 
 treachery to Mr. Daly, I upbraided them with it, and insisted 
 on a full inquiry into the subject. The whole House, with the 
 exception of the " Treasury Bench," where disappointment and 
 confusion were manifest, took my view ; a select committee was 
 appointed by acclamation, the greatest number of votes being 
 given for me in choosing its members ; and this Committee in a 
 few hours reported (the accuser being chairman and drawing the 
 report) that not a shadow of ground had ever existed for any 
 charge against Mr. Daly. During the inquiry by the Com- 
 mittee, Mr. Daly necessarily made me acquainted with all the 
 circumstances of the case ; and I then learned that a very serious 
 difference with respect to it had for some time existed between 
 the Governor General and all his Councillors except Mr. Daly. 
 
 About this time Mr. Hincks, the Inspector General, announced 
 in the House of Assembly that his colleague, Mr. Killaly, Chair- 
 man of the Board of Works, an Executive Councillor, and a 
 Member of the Assembly, was about, with the full concurrence 
 of his colleagues, to retire from the Council and the Assembly for 
 the purpose of devoting himself to the business of his depart- 
 ment. It was as if Mr. Goulburn were now to announce in the 
 House of Commons that Lord Stanley was about to retire from
 
 26 
 
 the Cabinet and Parliament, with a view of giving more attention 
 to the Colonies, and that henceforth the office of Colonial Minister 
 would not be political. In doing so, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer would not fail to say, that such was Her Majesty's 
 pleasure. But the Canadian Mr. Goulburn did not mention the 
 Head of the Government in his announcement ; and, what is of 
 rather more consequence, the first intimation that the Governor 
 General received of the intended change, was from one of his 
 Aides-de-camp who chanced to be present whilst Mr. Hincks 
 was speaking. 
 
 Another case in which the Councillors treated the Head of the 
 Government as a mere cipher, came under my own observation. 
 Although at that time I had not exchanged two words with His 
 Excellency on any political matter whatever, I thought myself 
 justified in waiting upon him for the purpose of learning his 
 opinion on a measure of great importance to both races in the 
 Colony, but especially to the French race, and to the success of 
 which the aid of the Imperial Government was indispensable. 
 I began by alluding to a negotiation on the subject which had 
 taken place between the Government and certain members of the 
 Assembly, and had ended in the assent of the Government, sub- 
 ject to conditions, to the appointment of a Committee of the 
 Assembly to examine the question. I had mentioned the nego- 
 tiation and was speaking of the conditions, when the Governor 
 General said that he had not before heard of either. I could 
 not help replying " this is not responsible government accord- 
 ing to my notions." Nothing more passed ; but I may as well 
 add here, that on no other occasion, until after the Governor 
 General had accepted the resignation of his Councillors, did he 
 intimate to me that he had any reason to complain of them. 
 
 Amongst the " follies" alluded to in the preceding letter,,was the 
 mismanagement in the Legislative Council of the " Seat of Go- 
 vernment" question, to such an extent that nearly all the Upper 
 Canada members of that body retired to their homes, and legis- 
 lation for the whole province was carried on in the Upper House 
 almost solely by Lower Canada members, most of them being of 
 French origin ; whilst the number of members who remained
 
 26 
 
 scarcely exceeded a quorum, so that the absence of two or three 
 members, from any cause, would have put a stop to the session. 
 On the 25th and 26th November I wrote thus : 
 
 Kingston, 25th November, 1843. 
 
 " I only write to you on that portion of Canada politics which 
 is interesting to you. 
 
 "The Governor General's position has not improved since my 
 last. He has had, I think, the opportunity of breaking with his 
 Ministers on tenable ground, but seems to have let it slip. 
 Perhaps not; I speak only of appearances. This, however, is 
 certain ; that if the Ministers pursue their heedless course with 
 respect to Upper Canada, the country will soon be in a mess as 
 well as the Governor General. I am so apprehensive of danger 
 from this kind of impolicy, that I should have spoken out against 
 the Government ere now, on the subject of Upper Canada, were 
 it not that I am unwilling to do him the bad turn of shooting 
 the bird which I suppose him to be aiming at from behind the 
 hedge of reserve which conceals him from vulgar eyes. But if 
 he don't fire soon, I must. Nor is this the only subject on 
 which I feel at variance with the Ministers. The rigid and 
 exacting spirit in which they administer power (I speak of them 
 as a whole, for there are among them men of both races whom I 
 greatly respect and regard) has become intolerable, and will be 
 their ruin ; and of the responsibility for this, I am determined 
 not to bear that share which belongs to a supporting Member of 
 the Assembly. It will annoy me to declare publicly that I can 
 no longer support Sir Charles Metcalfe's Administration; because 
 I am sure that he differs quite as much as I do with his Minis- 
 ters with respect to their presumptuous and intolerant spirit 
 (nay, is probably himself its victim); but come what may, I 
 must so far speak out as to escape the responsibility of appear- 
 ing to support what I cordially disapprove. A few days will 
 tell us all where we are. You will see, of course, that if Sir 
 Charles should break with his Ministers before I do, he will have 
 a zealous supporter in me. The balance of my opinion is, that 
 he will ; but I have no specific facts to judge by only general 
 indications, and the looseness of tongue of a Minister or two who
 
 27 
 
 can retain nothing. I have, however, thought it a duty to let 
 him know what I intend to do ; and this is all the communica- 
 tion that has passed between us. 
 
 The Session will probably last into next year ; but I shall stay 
 no longer than may be requisite for setting myself right in one 
 or other of the two ways which I have pointed out." 
 
 " P.S. Sunday, 26th. 
 
 " I was just going to seal this, when information reached 
 me to the effect that all the Ministers, with the exception of 
 Daly, after a Council held this morning, have resigned their 
 offices; the ground of resignation being that Sir Charles refused 
 to comply with a demand of theirs that no appointment should 
 be made by him without first submitting to them his intention 
 to make it, or, in fact, getting their assent. The ground is not 
 good for him, speaking generally ; nor for them in the particular 
 case, because there can be no doubt that it is not true ground, 
 but a pretext made for the occasion when they found that he 
 was resolved to get rid of them at all events. There will be 
 " explanations" in the Assembly to-morrow. I am very glad to 
 be here." 
 
 The above allusion to the heedless course of the Ministers 
 with respect to Upper Canada requires explanation. 
 
 The inhabitants of the two Provinces, though now under one 
 legislature, widely differ in laws, customs, and even habits of 
 thought. Much legislation that would be good for the English 
 or French race, would, at present assuredly, be fatal to the 
 happiness of the other. It is of the greatest importance to 
 both, therefore, that the United Parliament should adopt a 
 federal principle of legislation ; in which case it would make 
 different laws for the two divisions of the province, as the 
 Parliament of Gruat Britain has legislated for England and 
 Scotland since the Union.* Admitting this principle, and keep- 
 
 * Perhaps a wiser application of the federal principle would be to disre- 
 gard the old Provincial Divisions, and, as would be very easy by reference 
 to an existing distinction of Parishes and Townships, divide Canada into 
 French and English, applying to each race the mode of government most 
 suitable and agreeable to it.
 
 28 
 
 ing in mind the principle of responsible government, a capable 
 Executive in Canada would frame its measures for each division 
 of the province so as to please a majority of the members of 
 Assembly representing that division. Instead of observing this 
 rule, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Hincks, both of them pertaining to 
 Upper Canada, sought to carry in the Assembly measures 
 relating exclusively to Upper Canada, and not agreeable to 
 a majority of the Upper Canada Members, by means of the 
 votes of French-Canadian Members. Mr. Baldwin who, as 
 before stated, had been brought into power, not on account of 
 his own influence in Upper Canada, but really as one of the 
 French-Canadian party, and who was then Member for a 
 French- Canadian county, having failed after his appointment to 
 office in his attempts to get returned for an Upper Canada 
 county, had the folly (I can call it by no other name) to rely on 
 Mr. Lafontaine for carrying into effect his, Mr. Baldwin's, views 
 of policy with respect to Upper Canada ; and Mr. Lafontaine 
 had not the wisdom to withhold the assistance which his col- 
 league required for this purpose. The consequence was a loud 
 outcry from the Upper Canada Members against " French do- 
 mination." When it is recollected that the members of the 
 Upper House then present were mostly from Lower Canada, and 
 gentlemen of French origin, the jealousy and anger of the 
 Upper Canada members of the Assembly will be fully under- 
 stood. These feelings were expressed without reserve. The 
 course of the Government in this respect appeared to me so 
 pregnant with future danger to Lower, or rather French Ca- 
 nada, from its tendency to provoke English interference with 
 French institutions, that I, representing a constituency largely 
 composed of French-Canadians, should, on that ground alone, 
 have ceased to support Mr. Lafontaine if he had not resigned. 
 Nor was my opinion a solitary one among the Members from 
 Lower Canada. So many of them saw the impolicy of their 
 voting at all on questions relating solely to Upper Canada, that 
 if Mr. Baldwin had not resigned, some of his favourite measures 
 would probably have been defeated ; and in that case, not only 
 must he have resigned as having lost the support of the Assem- 
 bly, but he would have been ruined and deeply mortified as a 
 party leader.
 
 29 
 
 The postscript to the foregoing Letter speaks of the ground on 
 which the Councillors resigned as a " pretext made for the occa- 
 sion;" and the correctness of the statement is rendered probable 
 by some considerations which have yet to be stated. 
 
 Mr. Baldwin was the leading member of the Ministry. Mr. 
 Baldwin, everybody in Upper Canada knows it, is as remarkable 
 for a blind self-esteem in public, as for respectability of character 
 in private life. It was impossible for him to appreciate Sir 
 Charles Metcalfe's public character ; perhaps impossible for him 
 to avoid regarding such a Governor with jealousy and dis- 
 like. The habit too which he had acquired during Sir Charles 
 Bagot's long and severe illness, of himself doing the part of Go- 
 vernor, must have had a tendency to make Sir Charles Met- 
 calfe's assiduity in business very disagreeable to him. Mr. La- 
 fontaine's closest friends admit that his temper is suspicious, 
 haughty and overbearing, while even his foes give him credit for 
 patriotism and honesty. To him, Sir Charles Metcalfe's won- 
 derful patience must have looked like submissiveness j and per- 
 haps the Governor's uncommunicativeness, together with his 
 good humour under provocation, may have seemed duplicity. 
 It may be doubted, moreover, whether Sir Charles Metcalfe's 
 perfect candour when he does express himself, may not have 
 passed for craft with men, whom a life in opposition to Govern- 
 ment, and much experience of injustice and deceit from power, 
 have rendered suspicious and fearful of being duped. 
 
 On the Governor General's side, the facts which I have 
 stated suffice to show, that he could not have reposed much 
 confidence in the leaders of his Council, though he appears to 
 have behaved towards them with the strictest honour by keeping 
 his ill opinion of them to himself so long as they were in office. 
 The " antagonism " which he afterwards mentioned, was perhaps 
 unavoidable. 
 
 On these grounds alone, I should have concluded that it was 
 incompatibility of character, together with a strange forgetful- 
 ness on the part of the Councillors of what was due from them 
 to the Queen's Representative, which produced the rupture, and 
 not any difference of opinion on the theory of government. But 
 many other facts support this view of the subject. The resig-
 
 30 
 
 nation took place at a time when nothing but a most urgent 
 necessity should have induced the Councillors to take a step, of 
 which the unavoidable consequence was to put a sudden end to 
 the session, and to deprive the country of very important and 
 much-desired measures then nearly completed. There was no 
 occasion at the time for any dispute between the parties ; since 
 the written statement by the ex-Councillors of the dispute 
 which took place, alleges no one case of inconvenience to them- 
 selves as arising from the Governor's refusal to enter into the en- 
 gagement required from him. Loose verbal statements about ap- 
 pointments made without their advice, subsequently put forth 
 by some of the ex-Councillors, when the Governor was wholly 
 without the means of contradicting them, deserve no attention. 
 On their own showing at the time of the dispute, it was a quarrel 
 about nothing of the least practical importance : it was a differ- 
 ence of mere opinion as to whether the Governor ought to enter 
 into an engagement with his Councillors with respect to the 
 future exercise of a prerogative of the Crown. Furthermore, 
 the engagement which they required is at variance with respon- 
 sible or constitutional government, which acknowledges no po- 
 pular check on any exercise of the prerogative, save one only ; 
 namely, the resignation of Ministers whenever they please the 
 leaving of the Crown without advisers whenever it has done or 
 contemplates doing some act for which no Ministers can be found 
 willing to hold themselves responsible. If Sir Robert Peel came 
 down to the House of Commons and said that he had resigned 
 because Her Majesty differed with him in some matter of 
 opinion, he would be deemed out of his mind. And finally, the 
 means used in the Assembly to obtain a vote of confidence in 
 Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine after their resignation the 
 tales about appointments to office told after the Ministerial 
 " explanations " were concluded, and when contradiction of 
 even such of them as are now known to be unfounded was 
 impossible* the pains taken to excite a belief in the Assem- 
 
 * These tales have been circulated here by means of letters from Mr. 
 Hincks to the Morning Chronicle. Not a word about any of them is to be 
 found in the written statements by Sir Charles Metcalfe and the ex- 
 Councillors of the grounds of their dispute ; not a word about them was
 
 31 
 
 bly that Sir Charles Metcalfe's solemn written declaration of 
 his purpose to govern in accordance with the Resolutions 
 of September 1841, was unworthy of credit the urgency 
 with which it was suggested to the Assembly that the pre- 
 servation of responsible government depended on their forcing 
 the Governor General to take the ex-Councillors back into 
 office and, though last not least, the diligent assertion by 
 the very persons who were supposed to be best acquainted with 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe, that he was a weak timid man, incapable 
 of resisting the Assembly if they but pressed him hard; all 
 these things convinced me at the time, and have left me with a 
 firm belief, that the whole dispute was got up by the Councillors 
 as a means of saving themselves from discomfiture as party 
 leaders. They were on bad terms with the Governor General ; 
 on such terms with the Legislative Council that it was quite 
 doubtful whether they would be able to hold a quorum in that 
 branch of the Legislature for another week ; and on terms 
 with the Assembly which had been growing worse for some 
 time, and which actually threatened the defeat of some of Mr. 
 Baldwin's favourite measures for Upper Canada. Their resig- 
 nation then, on the popular ground of their deep attachment to 
 
 uttered by Mr. Baldwin in the formal " explanation" which he gave to the 
 Assembly of the cause of his own and his colleagues' resignation. They 
 were all told in the course of other debates, when, as is remarked in the 
 text, it was out of Sir Charles Metcalfe's power to deny or admit their truth. 
 One such tale, however, was contradicted in the Assembly. Mr. Hincks 
 there led his hearers to suppose, that the appointment of a gentleman, 
 named Stanton, to the Collectorship of Customs at Toronto, had been 
 made by the Governor General against or without the advice of his 
 Council. I called on the ex-Inspector-General to state distinctly that it 
 was so. He held his tongue. But after consulting with some of his late 
 colleagues, he told the Assembly that he had been misapprehended ; for 
 that, in fact, Mr. Stanton had been appointed on the express recommen- 
 dation of the Council. It was by mere chance that in this case the truth 
 was drawn out after a false impression had been made ; but I am now 
 satisfied, from subsequent enquiries, that all the other tales (with the 
 exception perhaps of one relating to the appointment of a clerk, with a 
 salary of 150 a-year, which took place long before the resignation), are 
 as little founded in fact as the impression which Mr. Hincks made on the 
 Assembly with respect to Mr. Stan ton's appointment.
 
 32 
 
 responsible government, was a clever stroke of party policy. 
 They had a right to expect its success : for it would have suc- 
 ceeded with a Governor of less firmness ; and they had mistaken 
 Sir Charles Metcalfe's really astonishing patience for feebleness 
 of will. 
 
 His goodness led him into the trap. It is evident from his 
 subsequent messages to the Assembly that he had a very strong 
 repugnance to an interruption of the business of the Session. 
 Had he cared less for the Colony and more for himself, he would 
 have begged the Councillors to retire before they resigned. He 
 might have done so with safety on the ground of their unwise 
 conduct in seeking to legislate for English Canada by means of 
 a majority composed chiefly of French-Canadians ; on the ground 
 of their behaviour to himself; or even on the ground of their 
 treatment of Mr. Daly. He chose rather to bear and forbear, 
 than run a risk of stopping the business of the session. And then, 
 when the unconstitutional engagement was demanded from him, 
 instead of merely refusing to discuss the point without giving 
 any reasons for the refusal, his candour, I suppose it was, induced 
 him to listen and reply to a statement of Mr. Baldwin's peculiar 
 theory of responsible government. It was by consenting to dis- 
 cuss the false issue, that he contributed to the prevalence of 
 misconception with respect to the causes of the rupture. 
 
 But there is far more evil in the case than abundance of mis- 
 conception on this point. Whatever may have given occasion to 
 the dispute, the dispute itself is one which the ordinary course of 
 responsible or constitutional government cannot settle. The de- 
 mand which the Governor General has refused, is beyond the 
 constitution is a revolutionary demand ; and if it were repeated 
 a thousand times, Sir Charles Metcalf would refuse it as often. 
 In this course he must be sustained by the Imperial Government 
 and Parliament, unless England make up her mind, not only to 
 lose Canada, but to lose it disgracefully. To govern it, after 
 sacrificing Sir Charles Metcalfe in the right, to Messrs. Baldwin 
 and Lafontaine in the wrong, would be impossible. The present 
 Governor General therefore, will be sustained by the Imperial 
 power. It follows that if Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine should
 
 33 
 
 be supported by the Province, Canada must take the consequences 
 of a revolutionary struggle. 
 
 Those consequences would be so fatal to the people of Canada, 
 and especially to the French-Canadians, whose position in 
 English America subjects them to dangers as a peculiar people 
 which nothing but British protection can avert, that it is to be 
 hoped the Colonists in general, and those of French origin in 
 particular, will look before they leap into such disasters. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, they cannot see plainly across the Atlantic. 
 They are very liable to be again cruelly deceived, as they were 
 once before, with respect to opinion in this country about 
 Canada. Unless some pains be taken here to show them how 
 very minute is the quantity of sympathy with Messrs. Baldwin 
 and Lafontaine existing in the United Kingdom, they may 
 believe the tales to the contrary which a machinery of intrigue 
 industriously circulates in Canada. It would be easy for the 
 leaders of parties here to furnish proof to the Colonists, that Sir 
 Charles Metcalfe will be thoroughly supported by Great Bri- 
 tain. And if that should be done without delay, prevention may 
 obviate the necessity of cure ; time may be gained for ena- 
 bling the people of Canada to find out the true character of 
 their Governor ; and then, a country which stands as much in 
 need of good laws and improved administration as any in the 
 world, may reap in peace the natural effects of having such a 
 man as Sir Charles Metcalfe at the head of its constitutional 
 government. 
 
 }8lhJune, 1844.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER FROM MR. WAKEFIELD TO MR. GIROUARD. 
 
 Confidential. Beauharnois, 20th August, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE subject of our last conversation, at St. Eustache, is so 
 very important, and my view of it was so inadequately expressed 
 in French I am so afraid of being misunderstood, and so de- 
 sirous of placing my opinions clearly before you that I need 
 scarcely make any further apology for writing to you in my own 
 language what I said so imperfectly in yours. 
 
 There may be this further advantage in writing after speak- 
 ing on the subject, that, if you should think my opinions worth 
 attention, they may be the more easily communicated to those 
 of your friends whose part in politics is more active and respon- 
 sible than your own. 
 
 For meddling at all with matters in which I have apparently 
 no personal interest or concern, I must offer what will be 
 deemed a sufficient excuse. You are aware of my active, 
 though obscure and humble, part in Lord Durham's mission 
 and its results for Canada. Well, I come here and find that, in 
 the manner of establishing the Union, Lord Durham's recom- 
 mendations have been disregarded to the extent of adopting 
 measures of injustice towards the Canadians, which he men- 
 tioned only to condemn ; and I find, moreover, that in the 
 working of the Union the Canadians are ill-treated in a way 
 and to an extent that would have been as revolting to his 
 sense of justice as they are contrary to his notions of policy. 
 That is enough. Upon my sentiments with respect to the 
 manner of establishing and working the Union unjustly to- 
 wards the Canadians, I have acted for more than a twelve- 
 month past, never missing an opportunity either here or in 
 England of expressing those opinions, or of urging in the most 
 influential quarters to which I could get access the necessity 
 
 D2
 
 36 
 
 of a change of policy towards your countrymen. In doing this, 
 I only endeavour to pay a sort of debt towards the Canadians, 
 which has been imposed upon me by the disregard, or the per- 
 version, of some of Lord Durham's recommendations. Mr. 
 Charles Buller, whose position and abilities give him far more 
 influence than I can pretend to, thinks and acts in the same 
 way. It is a satisfaction to know that our efforts have not been 
 wholly fruitless. 
 
 But it yet remains for me to apologise for intruding upon you 
 anything in the shape of suggestion or advice. I would do 
 this by reminding you, that as a watchful observer in Upper 
 Canada and in England, as well as in Lower Canada, of what- 
 ever may affect the condition of this country, I have had better 
 opportunities than most men of forming a just opinion as to 
 the probable course of events. That I am a disinterested ob- 
 server also, you will perceive when I add, that I declined the 
 offer of valuable appointments under Government, both from 
 Lord Durham and Lord Sydendam; that circumstances exist 
 which entirely preclude me from incurring any obligation to the 
 Government, either in England or in this province ; and that I 
 shall certainly return home in November next, with but little 
 prospect of ever seeing Canada again. It is on this complete 
 personal independence, that I chiefly rest a claim to your 
 attention. 
 
 It appears to me that in less than a month from the present 
 time, the representatives of your countrymen in the Provincial 
 Parliament will have a choice presented them not less im- 
 portant than that which the Canadian leaders made, when they 
 refused Lord Gosford a Civil List in return for the concession 
 of nearly all their demands, or when they virtually declined 
 Lord Durham's proposal of a Federal Government for British 
 North America. 
 
 The first session of the United Parliament was a non-political 
 session. The bulk of Upper Canada Reformers would not let it 
 be a political session. They thought that there had been for some 
 years before enough of politics for one while, and they wanted 
 to get as much practical good as possible out of the occasion. 
 It was on this account, that, though they insisted at the very 
 commencement of the session on a declaration from men in office 
 in favour of their favourite object responsible government they 
 were yet content with a bare and even reluctant concession of the 
 mere principle: it was for this that they prevented any purely 
 political vote by which the Government might have been broken 
 up. They wanted municipal institutions, a law of elections, a 
 provision for education, and the 1,500,000/. for debt and public 
 improvements; and these things they got, though some of them not
 
 37 
 
 in perfection most assuredly, by means of keeping principles in 
 abeyance. Nor must we forget how Lord Sydenham, with his 
 Parliamentary skill, helped to keep principles out of sight, and to 
 make the session non-political, by yielding whenever he could no 
 longer resist successfully, and in a manner which took away the 
 appearance of defeat. But the case is now quite altered. The 
 coming session cannot be one of measures, if we except the pro- 
 posal of measures of amendment or repeal which would bring 
 political principles into the most lively action. Of merely prac- 
 tical measures calculated to occupy the House, and hold political 
 principles asleep, there are scarcely any to propose. With the 
 exception of the seignioral tenure commutation, I know of none. 
 But the House will not remain unoccupied. The Upper Canada 
 Reformers are too restless for that. Having got all* that was 
 possible in the shape of practical measures out of the last session, 
 they will be apt to make amends for their political lethargy then 
 by great political activity now. Probably, too, the political 
 grievances of the Canadians will come prominently before the 
 house this year; partly because the Upper Canada Reformers 
 will be more ready to listen to representations on that subject, 
 and partly because there are now men in the House more capable 
 of making such representations with effect. And, lastly, 
 it appears to me inevitable, that, as things are now, the 
 Government will not have a working majority this year, but will 
 be subject to such a number of adverse votes from a variegated 
 opposition as to bring the principle of responsibility into action, 
 and necessitate some important change in the policy and com- 
 position of the Executive Council. The prospect of this last 
 event should almost suffice for its own realization ; for the sup- 
 posed feebleness of a Government discourages supporters, and 
 incites opposition from all who, however they may differ among 
 themselves, are not satisfied with the present, and think that a 
 break-up may give them a chance of being better pleased. I 
 cannot help, therefore, fully expecting that there will be a good 
 deal of confusion at the opening of this session, and then a new 
 ranging or settlement of parties, which will determine the charac- 
 ter of the Government for years to come. I say ''years to come," 
 because the permanent settlement of parties which ought to have 
 taken place when the United Parliament first met, was staved off 
 by the determination of the bulk of the Upper Canada Reformers 
 to put political principles aside for the time. Considerations of 
 minor weight lead to the same conclusion, such as the change 
 of Government in England, which may alarm the Upper Canada 
 Reformers (though without the least cause, I believe), the ad- 
 vances of the Government under Sir Charles Bagot towards the 
 French Canadians, which, however slow and hesitating, have 
 
 D 3 
 
 ^77165
 
 alarmed the more violent of the Lower Canada British, arid 
 promise to place them in opposition ; and the timidity of the 
 Government, as shown in the absurd balancing of a Sherwood 
 against a Hincks. May we not then safely conclude, that this 
 session will bring about a new casting of parties, according to 
 their respective influences in the Legislature of United Canada? 
 There are four parties in the Assembly the Canadians, the 
 Lower Canada British or Tories, the Upper Canada Reformers, 
 and the Upper Canada Tories. Not one of these parties by itself 
 approaches the majority. But there is one of them, which from 
 its numbers and compactness, can give a majority in the Assem- 
 bly to any other considerable party. I mean the French Cana- 
 dians,. who, notwithstanding the inequality of representation under 
 the Unioff, have obviously got what may be termed the casting 
 vote in the representation of United Canada. This would be more 
 plain, if there were a general election now, uninfluenced by 
 executive interference; when the number of French Canadians, 
 and Upper Canada Tory members, would be considerably 
 increased. Even as it is, there can, I think, be no doubt, that the 
 French Canadian party have the power to upset a Government, 
 when they act in conjunction with the Upper Canada Tories, 
 and either to upset or maintain one in conjunction with the Up- 
 per Canada Reformers. This is an immense power. If judi- 
 ciously exerted, this power cannot fail to obtain justice for the 
 Canadians, notwithstanding that great act of State necessity 
 and injustice, the forcible Union of the provinces. The inline/- 
 -diate question is, what would be the most judicious use by the 
 Canadians of their power of the casting vote ? 
 
 The choice which they will soon have to make, is between a 
 junction with the Upper Canada Tories, and a junction with the 
 Upper Canada Reformers. 
 
 With respect to the former course, I have two confessions to 
 make. In the first place, my own opinions and feelings are all 
 engaged against a union of the Canadians with that party in 
 Upper Canada which caused the rebellion there by its mode of 
 governing against the wishes of the majority; and, secondly, J 
 think that the gross and cruel injustice under which the Cana- 
 dians labour would excuse them, if they could find relief in no 
 other way, for allying themselves with their old enemies of the 
 Family Compact, or with the Enemy of Mankind. And, further, 
 it appears to rne, that such an alliance holds out temptations to 
 the Canadians, which it will require great manliness and sobriety 
 of judgment to resist. It is a practicable alliance ; for if the Go- 
 vernor-General were to adopt this project as cordially as it is 
 entertained by some of the most able of the Upper Canada Tory 
 leaders, a general election would give the combined parties it
 
 39 
 
 working majority in the Assembly. It is for many reasons a 
 tempting alliance for both parties ; because, first, it would lead 
 to a Government policy exactly the reverse of that of Lord Sy- 
 denham, whose very name both parties hate; secondly, because 
 the new policy must be founded on a bargain between the two 
 parties according to which each of them would have its own way 
 in its own division of the province ; and, lastly, because this bar- 
 gain would virtually almost set aside the Union, which the Upper 
 Canada Tories dislike, as having deprived them of power, and 
 which the French Canadians dislike still more on account of the 
 injustice which they suffer under it. As respects the Canadians 
 alone, this alliance would admit them to more than an equal 
 share in the government of the only part of the province which 
 they deem their country, and would gratify in a high d-egree their 
 natural feelings of resentment. If they love power and revenge 
 as much as we Anglo-Saxons do, they must have a keen desire 
 for the Upper Canada Tory alliance. 
 
 But now come other considerations, which, as respects the 
 Canadians alone, are of a very deterring kind. This alliance 
 could not be entered into by the Canadians without throwing 
 over Mr. Robert Baldwin, whose sacrifices for them entitle him 
 to a very different treatment at their hands. In abandoning him 
 they would forfeit their political honour; and, while they have 
 more of that to lose than any other party in this country, the 
 loss of it would in the long run be more fatal to them, since it 
 is to their political honour that they mainly owe their com~ 
 pactness as a party, and their casting vote in the representation 
 of United Canada. But, above all, this alliance between the 
 French Canadians and the Upper Canada Tories, would give 
 instant occasion to an alliance between the Lower Canada 
 British and the Reformers of Upper Canada. Can you imagine 
 anything more formidable for the French-Canadians ? Can you 
 doubt that this latter alliance, going as it would, for " respon- 
 sible government" above, and " anglification " below, would 
 court and find the sympathy of the Americans ? Can you sup- 
 pose that the unnatural union between the French-Canadians 
 and the Family Compact could long withstand the desperate 
 efforts of the other combination ? And then think of the sweep 
 of everything French Canadian that would take place, when 
 the combined Lower Canada British and Upper Canada Re- 
 formers got into power. When that happened, after such a 
 struggle as must precede it, the Upper Canada Tories would be 
 no worse off than at present, but the French-Canadians would be 
 ruined for ever. In a game to be played by the French 
 Canadians in partnership with the Upper Canadian Tories, 
 against the Reformers above and the British below, your coun-
 
 40 
 
 trymen's share of the risk would be large out of all proportion 
 to that of their partners' share. Nor is this the only particular 
 in which they would make a childish bargain : the relief which 
 they should get by an alliance with the Upper Canada Tories 
 would be only a temporary gratification, obtained at the price 
 of greater suffering afterwards ; and such is the policy of 
 children. 
 
 A junction with the Upper Canada Reformers is not open to 
 any of these objections, but is recommended by every considera- 
 tion of honour and prudence. The two parties might agree 
 upon all subjects, and would form a majority of at least five- 
 eighths in the present Assembly ; perhaps six-eighths, if we 
 reckon those who would go with any majority, and some 
 members of the Lower Canada British party, whose first wish 
 is that Canada should be permanently tranquillized, and who 
 believe that permanent tranquillity is out of the question while 
 the Canadians are deprived of all share in the government of 
 their country. Against the wishes of six or even five-eighths of 
 the Assembly, depend upon it that no attempt will be made to 
 carry on the Government. 
 
 I am quite convinced that the old method of defying the 
 majority in the representative body has been abandoned for ever. 
 The rebellions and the Union have, at least, had this good effect. 
 I take for granted, therefore, that the combination in question 
 would be represented in the Executive Council. I should 
 expect to see leading Canadians in important offices. I should 
 consider such a combination to be a mere delusion or cheat, 
 unless it were based, among other principles, upon that of justice 
 for the Canadians; and I mean not merely nominal justice, 
 which under some circumstances is compatible with real 
 injustice, but that real practical justice which in the present 
 case could not exist without large allowances for the peculiar 
 language, laws, and customs of half the population of the Colony. 
 This is the condition of a union which I imagine the Canadians 
 to propose to the Upper Canada Reformers. The latter, on 
 the other hand, would have their condition to propose. In 
 proportion as they are indebted to the Union for their escape 
 from the harsh rule of the minority in Upper Canada, so are 
 they deeply attached to that measure. Their condition would be 
 the working of the Union, honestly and cordially, but not so as 
 to preclude the combined party from endeavouring, on all fit 
 occasions, and when there was a prospect of success, to get an 
 alteration of those parts of the Union Act which are obviously 
 unjust and foolish. 
 
 The two conditions together would form a policy for the 
 combined party ; and that policy would be expressed in these
 
 41 
 
 words the working of the Union with justice to the Canadians. 
 This party, with this policy, must have a majority in the 
 Assembly; and I feel equally confident that it would furnish 
 the members of the Government. In that case, of what would 
 the Opposition consist? of the more violent of the Lower 
 Canada British, who are very weakly represented in the Assem- 
 bly, and who would learn to subdue their anti-Canadian passions 
 when they saw the Imperial Government and a majority of the 
 Assembly of United Canada bent on a policy of justice and 
 humanity towards the Canadians ; and of the Upper Canada 
 Tories, who also are very weak in the Assembly, and whose 
 numbers would rapidly diminish when it was seen that all 
 chance was gone of establishing the ascendancy of the minority 
 in Upper Canada. So that to this latter scheme I attach the 
 further valuable quality of easy practicability. It is a scheme, 
 the execution of which would place the Imperial Government 
 and the Governor- General equally at their ease, by giving the 
 Governor-General a comfortable majority in the assembly, and 
 by attaching a vast majority of the Colonists to the British con- 
 nection. What is the objection to this scheme? There may 
 be objectors without a valid objection, objectors from motives 
 of personal interest, of jealousy, or of a love of opposition for its 
 own sake ; but if you were to put these few together, along with 
 the organs of the Upper Canada Tories and the violent among 
 the Lower Canada British, they would form but a poor minority 
 in the Assembly. This minority would be of no weight, pro- 
 vided the plan of a combination for the purpose of working the 
 Union with justice for the Canadians were fully explained and 
 resolutely pursued by the leaders of the two parties who would 
 be allies in that cause. This minority might be despised, if the 
 leaders of the majority had energy and courage enough. 
 
 In talking over this matter with another who has had good 
 experience of Provincial politics, it was suggested by him, that 
 the French Canadians might avoid an alliance with any party 
 for the purpose of sharing in the Government, and might just 
 remain in the state of dogged opposition to every thing into which 
 they were forced last session by the course of the Upper Cana- 
 da Reformers ; voting now with the Reformers and then with 
 the Tories, or even occasionally with the British, but always 
 against the Government, which would be like a shuttlecock 
 tossed about among the parties. I answered, No ; that is, No 
 as to the shuttlecock, if it were Yes as to the folly of the 
 Canadians. For in that case, inasmuch as under the Union 
 every Governor must get a majority somehow, the present 
 Governor-General would be driven to the necessity of inter- 
 preting " Responsible Government" into the purchase of more
 
 42 
 
 than half the assembly, and would very likely find more than 
 half the assembly ready to adopt that interpretation : for cor- 
 ruption begets corruption. But what a prospect for the Cana- 
 dians and for the country ! But has not the plan of buying for 
 a majority been carried too far already ? For my part, though 
 I can see that in the case supposed, the Governor could hardly 
 be blamed for getting his majority any how, and though I can 
 conceive that the plan of buying for a majority might be worked 
 successfully for some time longer, yet I do believe that public 
 opinion in the Province is growing sick of that demoralizing 
 and debasing method of government, and that its days are 
 numbered. If it lasted only for another session, the evil would 
 be great enough. Surely the Canadian leaders will not help to 
 preserve it, by refusing, under all circumstances, to co-operate 
 with any party with a view to office. I repeat that the Go- 
 vernor-General must try to get a majority by one means or 
 other : who would like to bear the responsibility of compelling 
 his reluctant resort to the worst of all means? 
 
 Recurring to the scheme of a union between the Canadians 
 and the Upper Canada Reformers, with a view to office for the 
 leaders of both parties, it becomes a question whether this should 
 be attempted before or after the opening of the session. My 
 own opinion inclines altogether to the earlier step. I am afraid, 
 that if Parliament should meet without some understanding be- 
 tween these parties and with the Governor-General, questions 
 may arise, and votes be given, that may prevent such an under- 
 standing thereafter. Considering in what mood the Assembly 
 will meet without such an understanding, it would be difficult 
 for most members to avoid committing themselves by taking 
 some line ; it is more than probable that an immediate fresh 
 casting of parties would be unavoidable. Besides, the Governor- 
 General cannot afford to wait for what might turn up from out 
 of the chapter of accidents ; he is bound to try hard for a majo- 
 rity before the time should come when he would perhaps be un- 
 able to get one; and he might, therefore, in the absence of the 
 supposed understanding, be driven to the buying process. The 
 circumstance which most recommends the plan of acting without 
 delay, is the Governor-General's freedom from pledges or any 
 sort of committal, which cannot well last beyond the day of 
 opening the session. I understand, of course, that it would be 
 necessary for the Canadian leaders to hold some communication 
 with his Excellency, and with the leaders of the Upper Canada 
 Reformers ; but this surely would not be difficult, considering 
 that not a few members of the Council possess the confidence of 
 a majority of the Upper Canada Reformers, and would enjoy 
 the confidence of the whole of them, if engaged in preparing for
 
 43 
 
 a Government whose policy was to be justice for the Canadians, 
 along with a working of the Union. If your friends can make up 
 their minds to go for office on the condition named, the sooner 
 they begin to act the better. 
 
 I will not conclude without one remark by way of precaution. 
 Let it not be supposed, that I would recommend the Canadian 
 leaders to trust any body blindly, or to remit any portion of their 
 attention to the work of sustaining the strength of their party 
 in the Assembly. On the contrary, I am sure that they ought, 
 even while negociating with the Upper Canada Reformers and 
 with the Government, to guard carefully against any possible 
 misunderstanding afterwards ; to insist on real justice for their 
 people, and if possible to strengthen their own hands in the 
 Assembly. In no case, nor for a moment, should they consent 
 to weaken their power of the casting vote. A wise exercise of 
 that power is the true policy of the Canadians. May they always 
 bear in mind, that no small part of the essence of the power of 
 the casting vote consists of wisdom in the application ! 
 Believe me to remain, 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 Yours faithfully and sincerely, 
 (Signed) E. G. WAKEFIELD. 
 
 P.S. In marking this letter confidential, I have been desirous 
 of guarding it from publication. It is intended for equally con- 
 fidential communication to any of your friends. 
 
 J. J. Girouard, Esq.
 
 London : 
 
 Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, 
 Old Bailey.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 THE UM' X "=:RSIT
 
 A 000886793 9