secretary of state for the Colonies, made what seemed a whimsical choice in Sir Charles Bagot. For Bagot belonged to an age and world very different from those of his Canadian subjects. He had been one of Canning's men, filling in succession the positions of minister plenipotentiary at Washington, St Petersburg and The Hague. His years of service had included those in which Canning made his reputation as the greatest foreign minister of Britain since William III and Marlborough; and the greatness of the minister overshadowed the performances of his colleagues. In the history of diplomacy Bagot remains noteworthy as the negotiator of the Rush-Bagot treaty, the ambassador at St Petersburg when the definition of the north-west boundary of British North America was being arranged with Russia,1 and the recipient of Canning's famous rhyming dispatch of January 31, 1826. In the caprice of imperial statesmanship he had been chosen to fill the governor-generalship of India, and through the same caprice he was deprived of the opportunity, which he had barely had time to refuse, because his brother had voted against Canning on a vital question.

In his voluminous correspondence before and after 1842 he presents himself as an admirable representative of the old and fading world of the eighteenth century and the Georges -witty and cultured, knowing the whimsies and foibles of men, and a little suspicious of their enthusiasms and their serious moods. Belonging to Canning's set, he was a man rather enlightened than of fixed political principle, and more at home with 'men' than with 'measures.' He might have formed a bright and kindly figure in Thackeray's Vanity Fair; and they were sending him to Canada, the antipodes of the world in and for which he had been bred.

At first sight he seemed hardly the man to mollify political bitterness. Doubts were expressed as to his fitness for facing an unusually troublesome popular temper, and the unrelenting tories, whose support was a very doubtful gift to any governor-general, looked to the member of an ancient English family, who was also the nominee of a great tory ministry,

He has therefore a secondary interest for Canadians as being indirectly responsible for the facts connected with the Alaska Boundary Award.

to exalt them over the heads of their rivals. Stanley, too, had his clear-cut opinion of the proper course for Canada. 'You cannot,' he had written in his instructions, 'too early, and too distinctly give it to be understood that you enter the province with the determination to know no distinctions of natural origin or religious creed '—an admirable sentiment, but one which rather overshot the mark. His desire to extinguish hatreds and divisions and proscriptions went farther than English usage permitted, and planned some such administrative despotism as Bismarck imposed on Germany, or George III attempted to create in England. If the people were not to be permitted to elect their rulers through the operations of party distinctions and prejudices, then the phrase 'Responsible Government,' to which government had consented in the declarations passed under Sydenham, was meaningless.

But by a whimsical chance the tory nominee of a great Conservative government proved the means by which Canada won her first substantial victory for self-government. Bagot had been chosen, partly with an eye to more amicable diplomatic relations with the United States, but also because he had never committed himself to any violent political position, and could conduct himself with firmness, discretion and temper. But the British ministry was hardly prepared to find their nominee force their hand, and precipitate a condition of self-government far beyond anything that even their moderate men could concede.

Bagot's actual administration lasted only from January 12, 1842, when he arrived in Kingston, until, on March 29, 1843, he was able to write, from his death-bed, 'The new Governor-general is this moment arrived in the town-I am to see him at 4 o'clock.' Yet in these fourteen months he had accomplished what not all the efforts of his successor, backed by a powerful English ministry, could check, and prepared Canada for the self-government which she received at the hands of the Earl of Elgin.

There is really only one central political situation during the administration, and even important secondary details must give place to the main issue. The need of Canada was

efficient administration, yet Sydenham had left, as a means to that end, a ministry which had ignored the entire FrenchCanadian element, a majority which had disappeared, and a theory of state which contradicted the known desires of all the progressive elements in the land. To defeat the policy of the party of government, tories, French Canadians, and radical 'ultras' were in the habit of uniting and obstructing. Questions concerning the civil list, the new municipal council and the clergy reserves, to mention no others, gave the opposition ground for attack whenever they cared to advance.

After a short hesitation-parliament would not meet until autumn-Bagot saw his policy, and acted with a resolution the more admirable because he was by no means sure of British backing. It was a case of the man with genuine local information and sympathy changing the instructions which had been composed in remote ignorance. He began by appointing a distinguished French Canadian, Vallières de St Real, to the chief justiceship of Montreal; and a moderate reformer, Francis Hincks, who was thoroughly trusted by the reform party, to be inspector-general of accounts.

In both cases he was met with an encouraging loyalty, which compensated for minor disappointments in his FrenchCanadian experiments.1 Then he advanced to the main attack. His council had, fortunately for him, most sympathetic interest in the situation, and, while one or two of the more negligible were absent, men of keen mind among the moderate conservatives, of whom W. H. Draper was the most notable, not only urged him to act, but offered to make necessary changes possible by resignation. The key of the situation lay in the French party, although matters were somewhat complicated by the fact that the French could not in honour accept office without stipulating that Robert Baldwin, the conscientious, intractable and pragmatic minister, whose resignation had threatened to destroy the

1 Of Hincks he writes: 'He has accepted the office, and accepted it in a manner which I think does him much credit, making no exception to any one of his future colleagues in the cabinet, nor any stipulations for himself of any kind.' Bagot to Stanley, June 12, 1842.

VOL. V