to the lieutenant-governor, that if the council were once to be permitted to assume the latter, they would immediately as their right demand the former.' On March 12 the executive council resigned in a body, and Head lost no time in forming a new council of four, which was immediately met with a resolution in the assembly maintaining the principle of a responsible executive council to advise the lieutenant-governor on the affairs of the province'. Ten days later the assembly passed a vote of no confidence in the new council. Head talked louder and less guardedly than ever, and the assembly finally refused supplies. In the issue the lieutenant-governor harangued the house for over an hour and finally dissolved it. Writs were issued for an election in June.

Head entered the fray with Francis Gore's experiment behind him. He became a political leader with all the patronage of the province at his disposal. He entered it, too, at issue with the colonial office. Glenelg would not grant his request to obtain the repeal of the revenue Act of 1831, and sent him a dispatch, which had already been forwarded to New Brunswick, instructing him to introduce into the executive council men having the confidence of the people. Head ran the elections on his own plans: hemade a personal appeal and placed the choice between himself and the reformers. The old bogy of disloyalty was brought out of the campaign cupboards. The tories rallied round it as in the days of Maitland. Their opponents organized to obtain an elective legislative council, an executive responsible to public opinion, the surrender and control of all provincial revenue and the elimination of the imperial cabinet from the internal affairs of the colony. Head swept the country, and the reformers were virtually wiped out. The disloyalty cry undoubtedly worked wonders in the mouth of a lieutenantgovernor, and personal influence-and perhaps more-turned many votes. But the controlling force in the election was the Methodists under the direction of Egerton Ryerson. Ryerson

feared the future, and there must have been a strong sense of impending danger when he led his followers into the tory and Anglican camp.1

The lieutenant-governor now lost all sense of proportion. He informed Glenelg that, after a single-handed combat in the severest moral issue in colonial history, he had saved the Canadas'. Glenelg could not withhold congratulations, but he pointed out that mere transient results or temporary triumphs were not looked for by the government. After a tour of the province, Head summoned the legislature. The outstanding difficulties remained. It is true that the erection of rectories was ratified, but the clergy reserves could not be settled, as the Methodists wavered between a religious or an educational application of the funds. Supplies, however, were granted in profusion, and large votes were made for improvements in spite of a huge debt and of a grave financial situation among the banks of the United States. The promised economic reform' which had figured so largely in the election campaign did not make its appearance, and before long Head's triumph had lost whatever significance it may have had. The colonial office grew tired of his conceit, especially as he had broken away from the theory of government which he so gladly accepted from his instructions. He dismissed officials on suspicion and refused to restore them when ordered by the cabinet. He also declared his unwillingness to promote Bidwell to the next vacant judgeship at the bidding of the colonial office. Glenelg could only fall back on his theory of responsibility and recall the almost independent lieutenant-governor.

6

Before the recall reached Toronto, armed rebellion had し broken out, and it was due in no small measure to Head's foolish self-confidence in denuding the province of troops. The details of the rebellion lie outside this history, but when the

1 Ryerson, Story of my Life, ch. xviii ff. (edited J. G. Hodgins, Toronto, 1883).

6

mingled blood of Upper Canadian and Lower Canadian was drained to a common earth, Canadians gained the first constitutional step towards political liberty. On the surface the family compact' had triumphed ; but the rebellion was symptomatic. Small in itself, it was enough to convince the imperial cabinet that the constitution was worn out. When a British province took up arms against the administration it was high time to seek the fundamental causes. The Canadian rebellions brought Lord Durham to Canada. Sir Francis Head, however, did not pass out of Canadian history without memorials for which students may be grateful. His legislative council and his 'bread and butter' assembly1 drew up reports on the state of the provinces, which are in many respects remarkable documents. Naturally the theories of the old colonial system colour the criticism, and there is much praise for Head and ‘loyal men'. On the other hand, there is insight and restraint. The summary of Lower Canadian history is of the greatest value, and imperial policy in that province is subjected to an examination which cannot be overlooked. Both reports attacked severely the colonial office for its imperfect knowledge of colonial affairs, for its want of stability and firmness, and for its absence of constructive continuity. Indeed, the dissatisfaction was so strong that a board of empire was suggested which should have Canadian members. There was a dawning vision of a united British North America expressing itself in representation of all the American colonies in the imperial parliament. However hard history has been forced to deal with the political faith and the administrative practice of the tory group in

1 'If you choose to dispute with me and to live on bad terms with the mother country, you will to use a homely phrase-only quarrel with your bread and butter': Head to the electors of the District of Newcastle.

2 Journals of the Legislative Council, February 13, 1838; Journals of the Assembly, Appendix, 1837-8, pp. 257 ff. The latter is partially printed in Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 448 ff. Both reports were published in pamphlet form in 1838.

Upper Canada, it is impossible to question the intellectual vigour of writings such as these, and the uncanny skill with which they distributed praise and blame.

[AUTHORITIES.—-The Journals of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly; A. G. Doughty and D. A. McArthur, Documents of the Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818 (Ottawa, 1914); Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development (Toronto, 1907); Kennedy, Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759-1915 (Oxford, 1918); The State Papers, Q. 278-Q. 358, Q. 374-Q. 395 (Canadian Archives); Series of Origina Dispatches, Upper Canada, G. 53-G. 107 (Canadian Archives); Canadian Archives Report, 1891, Note E: Marriage Law in Upper Canada '; 1892, 'Note D: Political State of Upper Canada, 1806–7'; 1896,‘Note C: Roman Catholic Church in Upper Canada '; 1897, Note A: Proposed Union, 1822 ' ; 1898, Note C: Naturalization Question'; 1899, Note A: The Clergy Reserves. The best general introduction is W. Stewart Wallace, The Family Compact (Toronto, 1915): this book is founded on careful and thorough research and has a useful bibliography. Charles Lindsey, The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie (2 vols., Toronto, 1862), is the official biography based on private papers. C. W. Robinson, Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson (Edinburgh and London, 1904), is valuable but is formal and uninspiring. All Gourlay's publications are valuable, especially the Banished Briton and Neptunian (Boston, 1843) and Statistical Account of Upper Canada (2 vols., London, 1822), which contains many documents. A. N. Bethune, Memoir of the Right Rev. John Strachan (Toronto, 1870), is useful but inadequate. The Seventh Report from the Select Committee of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada on Grievances (Toronto, 1835), Sir Francis Bond Head, A Narrative (London, 1839), and Glenelg's Dispatches (London, 1839) are essentials, as well as Mackenzie's Colonial Advocate and the New York Albion. In the last can be found the contemporary family compact' point of view.]

CHAPTER XI

THE FAILURE OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN THE CANADAS

LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S ten resolutions did more than lay down principles of colonial government and precipitate rebellions. In Lower Canada they transformed a sentiment into a dangerous hushed melancholy, and in Upper Canada they intensified an aspiration. For the failure of representative government had distinct characteristics in each province, and the different effects of the resolutions on the psychology of Lower Canadians and of Upper Canadians were due to definite causes. Common causes there were, and these will appear later, but the failure can best be considered by beginning with the different backgrounds.

From the fall of Canada Great Britain treated the FrenchCanadians as a distinct group. In the earlier years the treatment was more or less tentative. It lacked definiteness and insight and never assumed the clearness of a concrete political purpose. There was a good deal of floating sentiment, of kindliness, and of generosity which carried French-Canadians across the rough places in British law and the more difficult rough places in British traditions. The beginnings of the colonial troubles, as we have seen, transformed all this. They lifted the whole position out of the realms of emotion into those of practical conceptions. With the Quebec Act the FrenchCanadian race was given a statutory charter of privileges, and the distinct group life of a distinct nationalism was recognized by law within the empire. The application of this charter to the actual life of the province fell to the hands of Carleton and Haldimand, who, for reasons which have already been