not allow the French party to dictate the appointment of men tainted by charges, or vehement suspicion, of sedition or disaffection to British authority, to be ministers."1

As the winter drew on it was evident that Sir Charles could no longer adequately fulfil his duties. He was obliged to postpone the meeting of the parliament which was to have taken place in November. His physicians urgently recommended that he should relinquish his office, and the oncoming of a winter of unwonted severity still further taxed his failing strength. He forwarded to the home government a request for his recall. In view of his enfeebled condition, the government was able to grant his prayer without seeming to reflect upon the character of his administration. But Bagot was not destined to see England again. Though released from office on March 30th, 1843, the day on which he yielded place to Sir Charles Metcalfe, he was no longer in a condition to undertake the homeward voyage, and was compelled to remain at Alwington House, in Kingston. Six weeks later, (May 19th, 1843), his illness terminated in death. Before going out of office he had uttered a wish to his assembled ministers that they would be mindful to defend his memory. The prayer was not unnecessary, for the bitter invective of his foes was not hushed even in the presence of death.

1 C. S. Parker, Sir Robert Peel from his Private Papers (London, 1899), Vol. I., pp. 379 et seq.

DEATH OF BAGOT

"Even when Sir Charles Bagot breathed his last," says a chronicler of the time, himself a Tory and a disappointed place-hunter, "such was the exasperation of the public mind, that they (sic) scarcely accorded to him the common sentiments of regret which the departure of a human being from among his fellow-men occasions. . . . The Toronto Patriot in particular, the deadly and uncompromising enemy of the administration of the day, hesitated not to proclaim that the head of the government was an imbecile and a slave, while other journals, even less guarded in their language, boldly pronounced a wish that his death might free the country from the state of thraldom into which it was reduced." Every good cause has its martyrs. The governor-general had played his part honestly and without self-interest, and when the list of those is written who have upbuilt the fabric of British colonial government, the name of Bagot should find an honoured place among their number.

1 Major Richardson, Eight Years in Canada, p. 213. Chapters xiv. and xv. of Richardson's work may be consulted for characteristic abuse of Sir Charles Bagot.

ΟΝ

CHAPTER VI

THE COMING OF METCALFE

N March 29th, 1843, the little town of Kingston was once more astir with expectancy and interest over the arrival of a new governor-general. Sir Charles Metcalfe had sailed from Liverpool to Boston, and thence had journeyed overland to Kingston, the country being in that inclement season "one mass of snow." His journey terminated in a drive across the frozen lake and river, and a state entry, with no little pageantry, into his colonial capital. "He came," said a Kingston correspondent of the time, "from the American side, in a close-bodied sleigh drawn by four greys. He was received on arriving at the foot of Arthur Street by an immense concourse of people. The male population of the place turned out en masse to greet Sir Charles, which they did with great enthusiasm. The various branches of the fire department, the Mechanics' Institution and the national societies, turned out with their banners, which, with many sleighs decorated with flags, made quite a show. Sir Charles Metcalfe is a thorough-looking Englishman, with a jolly visage."

1 The winter was exceptionally severe. "Governor Metcalfe," said a New York official at Albany, "you'll admit, I think, that this is a clever body of snow for a young country."

In the drama of responsible government in Canada, it was the unfortunate lot of this "thoroughlooking Englishman with a jolly visage," to be cast for the part of villain. His attempt to strangle the infant Hercules in its cradle, to reassert the claim of the governor to the actual control of the administration, forms the most important and critical episode of the story before us and merits a treatment in some detail. Such a treatment may, perhaps, be best introduced by a discussion of the personality and personal opinions of the new governor, and in particular of his opinions on the vexed question of colonial administration. The word “villain" that has just been used, must be understood in a highly figurative sense. Metcalfe was a man of many admirers. Gibbon Wakefield has pronounced him a statesman "whom God made greater than the colonial office." Macaulay indicates for him a perhaps even higher range of distinction in calling him, "the ablest civil servant I ever knew in India." His enthusiastic biographer tells us that on his retiring from his administration of Jamaica, the "coloured population kneeled to bless him," while "all classes of society and all sects of Christians sorrowed for his departure, and the Jews set an example of Christian love by praying for him in their synagogues." In face of such a record it seems almost a pity that Sir Charles should have aban1 Fisher's Colonial Magazine, July, 1844.

2 J. W. Kaye, Life of Lord Metcalfe, 1859.