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fierce light of publicity, and gave to responsible government its final security within the empire.

[AUTHORITIES.-The chief authority for Bagot's government is contained in the Bagot Papers and Correspondence (Canadian Archives), which has been used throughout. The contemporary newspapers are invaluable, especially the Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Transcript, the New York Albion, the Toronto Herald, the Kingston Chronicle and Gazette. Baldwin's Correspondence (the Reference Library, Toronto) begins to be of importance. F. Hincks, The Political History of Canada between 1840 and 1855 (Montreal, 1877), and Reminiscences of his Public Life (Montreal, 1884) are of first-rate importance. J. L. Morison, British Supremacy and Canadian Self-government, 1839–54 (Glasgow, 1919), contains an excellent study of Bagot's régime. Consult also the same author's Sir Charles Bagot: An Incident in Canadian Parliamentary History (Bulletins, History and Economics, No. 4. Kingston, 1912).]

CHAPTER XV

SELF-GOVERNING OR CROWN COLONY

It is impossible to read Sir Charles Metcalfe's life or to study his dispatches without regretting that he came to Canada. It is true that in making the last attempt by a representative of the crown actually to govern, he proved the impossibility of doing so, but he hurt a magnificent reputation in the service of the empire. He stands among the foremost men in history in disinterested duty and in noble conceptions of responsibility. The Metcalfe crisis' owed its origin to these virtues. He believed that the royal prerogative was in danger, and rather than betray a definite trust committed to him by his sovereign, he almost precipitated another rebellion which might have lost the Canadas to the empire to which the devotion of a lifetime had been given. He had no desire to govern contrary to public opinion, or to act the petty tyrant or the arbitrary autocrat. He was willing to go as far as possible with Bagot's experiment. He regretted it and expressed his regret in clear-cut terms. If driven to its full logic, he could see only separation and independence ahead. He created a dilemma for himself-how to work responsible government in such a way as to secure governing powers of a real nature to the governor. There came a point in actual affairs when a choice was forced upon him, and he made it deliberately and honestly because he believed that he could not surrender what he considered the patronage of the crown. He refused to accept the full implications of responsible government. He would not grant that there was a cabinet' or a 'ministry' in Canada, and he endured untold physical and mental suffering in sheer devotion to his duty as he saw it, in order to hand over to his successor

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a colony to which he had taught a lesson on behalf of the crown's rights. The issue was for him a moral one, and never for a moment did he deviate from the path of his duty. It is well that a consideration of his government in Canada should be prefaced with a tribute to his character. In the most trying moments, when the noise of battle was deafening, when uncontrolled forces of invective were let loose in a rugged, ill-trained, uncultured, and uncouth province, he never once forgot that the position which he filled demanded gentlemanly dignity. In the fierceness of the most bitter election in Canadian history, and one in which he felt called on to take part, he did not descend for a moment to the levels of vulgar abuse. There is not a malignant word in his dispatches, not a sharp innuendo in all his recorded writings. His political experience never hardened his kindly generous heart. It was an excellent object lesson, both for tactless friends and for unbridled foes, to come into contact with a man who never allowed his official life to warp the private social amenities. In the darkest days, when even his terrible disease aroused hopes for his quick removal either by death or by resignation, he bore himself with calm courtesy and continued his wide and generous charity. His kindness was boundless and his goodwill knew neither friend nor foe. In the cold analysis of history, the man is liable to be obscured. For Metcalfe reasserted the claim that the governor had the power to govern, and could exercise it if he wished; that executive government depended not on public sanction, but on his private favour. The claim was such a challenge to constitutional evolution that it has overshadowed all that was best in Metcalfe, leaving little place for that necessary consideration of circumstances which alone gives to historical judgements any validity.

His rigidity of mind has already been pointed out, as well as his unsuitability in a government such as the Canadas. But he had another defect for his new position which at once

appeared. His conception of the empire made him incapable of seeing things in their true character, and his devotion to the imperial idea was so much like that of an uncritical lover that it obscured his judgement and numbed his sense of political values. He was the greatest United Empire loyalist in Canadian history. His loyalty, however, drove him to think of unity in terms of uniformity and obscured differences and developments in the constitutional parts. He had scarcely been a week in the province before he was deploring the fact that he had not the same material to work on that he had in Jamaica,1 and when he contemplated the executive council and the house of assembly bequeathed to him by Bagot, he compared his task to that of a governor in India with a Mohammedan council and a Mohammedan popular chamber. He had no intention of submitting in a challenge: 'I cannot... surrender the queen's government into the hands of rebels and . . . become myself their ignominious tool. I know not what the end will be. The only thing certain is that I cannot yield.' 2

Within a month, he had apparently weighed the Canadian situation in a balance with which he was most familiar, but which unfortunately was perhaps the most dangerous possible for the Canadas-that of loyalty to the mother country. To Metcalfe this meant the loyalty of childhood, and to the tory group it meant social status, privilege, places, and patronage. He deplored that the republicans' were in power and that he was condemned . . . to carry on the government to the utter exclusion of those on whom the mother country might confidently rely in the hour of need'. He saw no remedy without setting at defiance the operation of responsible administration which has been introduced into this colony '.3

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1 Metcalfe to his sister, April 9, 1843, J. W. Kaye, Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe, vol. ii, p. 471 (2 vols., London, 1854).

2 Metcalfe to Colonel Stokes, ibid., p. 528.

* Metcalfe to Stanley, April 25, 1843, J. W. Kaye, Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe, pp. 407 ff. (London, 1855).

If Metcalfe had not fallen already into the hands of the family compact', it is only possible to conclude that Stanley had biased his outlook, which is strangely like that of the colonial secretary's dispatches to Bagot. In trying to analyse public opinion, he was forced to believe that in the coercion of his predecessor party government had been set up. Bagot completed Sydenham's work: the events were regarded by all parties in the country as establishing in full force the system of responsible government, of which the practical execution had been before incomplete.' As a result the tone of the public voice regarding responsible government has been greatly exalted. The council are now spoken of by themselves and others generally as "the ministers", "the administration ", "the cabinet", "the government ", and so forth. Their pretensions are according to this new nomenclature. They regard themselves as a responsible ministry and expect that the policy and conduct of the governor shall be subservient to their views and party purposes.' Durham might theorize at leisure; Sydenham might risk an idea which for the greater part of his administration had no existence and was only coming into operation when he died; Bagot might be forced into a position which he did not live to dispute: 'now comes the tug-of-war. The governor saw that a struggle was inevitable and he formulated at once his policy: the general purpose which I purpose to pursue towards the council is to treat them with the confidence and cordiality due to the station which they occupy; to consult them not only whenever the law or established usage requires that process, but also whenever the importance of the occasion recommends it, and whenever I conceive that the public service will be benefited by their aid and advice.' He was prepared to treat his executive with more than constitutional confidence, but at the

1 Metcalfe to Stanley, April 24, 1843, Kaye, Life, vol. ii, p. 477.
* Same to same, May 12, 1843, ibid., p. 479.

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