during 1852, and then, when in 1853 news came of the Imperial Act, it did not seem right either to Elgin or to his ministers to complete legislation on so vexed a question until the new machinery of government had been brought into operation. A failing ministry is certain to find new occasions for discredit, and now chance co-operated with more normal factors.

Gavazzi, an Italian enthusiast, with that unfortunate desire to expose the evils of a church in which he had previously served which has always proved so fruitful a source of trouble, arrived in Canada in June 1853, prepared to expose what his class terms the errors of Rome.' The natural

consequences followed. First at Quebec and then at Montreal there were furious riots, and at Montreal shots were fired at the crowd. Occasion was at once taken by Brown and his anti-Romanist following to describe the incident as one of awful murders' and 'Roman Catholic violence.' When Hincks, for reasons which may only be guessed at, protected the Mayor of Montreal, and did not push forward an inquiry into the facts concerning the order to fire which public opinion attributed to the mayor, he was preparing trouble for himself in Upper Canada; and, in any case, the relations between Upper Canadian reform and the French party became more strained than ever. In June the government lost its attorney-general, William Buell Richards, and in September its commissioner of Public Works-the former to the bench, the latter because the free trade principles which he professed were violated by the talk in which the ministry now indulged, of retaliation as a means of securing reciprocity with the United States.

The end came in 1854. Broken in their credit with the public, drawn towards violent contradictory policies, on the one hand by moderates and French Canadians, on the other by reformers and anti-church men, blasted with the effective rhetoric of Brown and his newspaper, incapable of quick action in the church question, where nothing but quick action would satisfy the radicals, the party deserved to die, and die it did. It had ceased to be capable of real service to Canada, and the happiest fate must be a quick decease.

Brown had now determined to wreck the government, and Macdonald, the power behind the throne among the conservatives, saw his way, through a consolidation of the moderates and an alliance with the French, to a new government. I believe,' he wrote in February 1854, 'that there must be a change of ministry after the election, and, from my friendly relations with the French, I am inclined to believe my assistance would be sought.'

The end came more dramatically than was expected. When parliament met on June 13 the ministry were at one with the governor-general as to the procedure they must follow. Two great measures were impending, on the clergy reserves and on seigneurial tenure. The cabinet, and, more decidedly, Elgin himself, argued that, on the threshold of a complete reorganization of the legislative assembly, they could not force on measures so drastic in their operation. Dissolution seemed necessary, but, before dissolution, legislation must be introduced to hasten the changes which at present could not come into operation until 1855. Their policy therefore resolved itself into a combination of delay and haste. The bills must be postponed; parliament must be asked to antedate the new system of registration; and an immediate dissolution must fling the responsibility of further legislation on the revised electorate. Unfortunately for their calculations, the opposition was too strong. After bearing the brunt of an attack on their postponement of the session, the ministry found itself in a minority of twenty-nine votes to forty-two; for an amendment by Louis Victor Sicotte, to a previous amendment by Joseph Edouard Cauchon, expressing regret that His Excellency's government do not intend to submit to the legislature during the present session a bill for the immediate settlement of the Clergy Reserves,' enabled all shades of the opposition to unite on the clergy reserves delay. An adjournment, a quickly and secretly planned dissolution, a furious scene in the house, and a constitutional challenge from the speaker on a session barren of even a single legal measure, preceded the summons to hear Elgin's word of dismissal.

In a sense the speaker's criticism was the last stroke.

discrediting an already discredited ministry. The election, which found 'Clear Grits' and tories fighting side by side against the government, saw the ministry maintain a gallant fight; but the combination was too strong, and the definitive defeat occurred over the speakership, on September 5. The remainder of a great session belongs to the history of the fortunes of liberal-conservatism.

RECIPROCITY WITH THE UNITED STATES

But before liberal-conservatism came into full power, Elgin had gone. His last year of office had been, perhaps, his most illustrious. Already he had proved himself an infallible constitutionalist. He had wooed and won the French into ways of quiet government and confidence in British administration. He had refused to give way to tory violence, and not a little of the confidence which, even after 1851, the country placed in their government, was due to his astute moderation. He was to complete the tale of a successful rule by bringing to Canada the measure of reciprocity with the United States for which Canadians had so long been calling.

Not slowly, but surely, Elgin had been winning his way into the good graces of the United States. As early as 1849 he had found the republican government willing to protect his province against improper interference along the border-line. In the following year a rapprochement between the citizens of Buffalo and Toronto had found Elgin the real centre of attraction. By Heaven,' one of the visitors had declared, if he were on our side, we'd make him President.' A year later he had met and dominated, by his diplomatic friendliness, all sections of American society at Boston. And now, during the last months of his tenure of office, he turned all this general popularity to very definite account. Since the commercial revolution in Britain in 1846 the great object before Canadian commerce had been to restore the balance lost through the disappearance of the British preference, and to create freer trafficking with the United States. Reciprocity was mentioned in

Elgin's earliest speech to parliament, and he saw from the first that the cry for annexation, being really commercial and not political, could best be met by gaining without annexation all the fruits which Canadian merchants looked for as the consequences of annexation. The idea had been flung back and forward between the two states in the intervening years.

The Committee on Commerce, in the House of Representatives, had been instructed, as early as December 1846, to inquire into the question. Two years later a bill passed through the House of Representatives only to die a natural death thereafter, and between that date and 1854 the balance swung up and down, the desire to complete negotiations being as absent among the Americans as the power to complete was lacking in Canada. The commercial settlement has been traced elsewhere.1 The political interest lies in the final proof which it gave of Elgin's diplomatic skill. Happily the story of the whole affair, not too whimsically humorous, remains behind in the writings and letters of that eccentric genius Laurence Oliphant, who served with Elgin throughout the short campaign.

On May 23, 1854, Elgin arrived in New York, and hurried on to Washington. In the next two weeks his assiduous friendliness and seeming absence of reserve had won the democratic votes, which might have wrecked his work; and on June 5 there was concluded, in exactly a fortnight, a treaty, to negotiate which had taxed the inventive genius of the Foreign Office and all the conventional methods of diplomacy for the previous seven years.' To appraise the value of his labours it is unnecessary to attribute to Elgin any great genius in economic theory, or even to claim unusual subtlety in what Europe called statecraft. But he understood the genius of the people with whom he had to cope; and where his reason refused acquiescence in their political methods, he was courtier enough to seem friendlier even than he was. 'He is the most thorough diplomat possible,' wrote Oliphant with an admiration which was not entirely lacking in wonder, 'never loses sight of his object, and while he is chaffing Yankees, and slapping them on the 1 See 'Economic History, 1840-1867' in this volume.

back, he is systematically pursuing that object. The consequence is, he is the most popular Englishman that ever visited the United States.'

THE CLOSE OF ELGIN'S RULE

Apart from the few rude moments of party change, the last months of office, from June to December, gave the departing governor a peculiarly benign ending to his strenuous period of rule. His latest report was able to point to progress, alike in commerce, education and general civilization; and its closing paragraph-a postscript-gave news of the assent of Nova Scotia to the Fishing and Reciprocity Treaty. His last official dispatch announced the settlement of the two outstanding exciting issues, seigneurial tenure and clergy reserves. Before that date he had proved his freedom from personal bias by calling into power a party, many of whom had systematically refused either to call at Government House or to recognize His Excellency in the street. In estimating greatness we are accustomed to consider not merely the man, but the occasion, and to include the grandeur of the whirlwind and the fire in our estimate of the spirit which could direct them. Elgin had nothing in him of this dæmonic and contentious glory. He was a plain man, seeking normal and peaceful ends in a province not yet free from its parochial limitations. On only one occasion, during his time of office, did an opportunity come for what the crowd calls heroism, and Elgin chose then to avoid the glory of resolute folly, and to seek quietness and law and unity instead. They keep the Abbey and St Paul's for the warriors and men of crises; but the British Empire stands because there have been men wise enough to avoid crises, great enough to prepare a way for democratic triumphs by subordinating their personal energies to suit the public good. Chief among these stands Elgin.