y in the governor's mental attitude. He saw
with perfect clearness what had already been done. Durham had
enunciated a theory, which Sydenham had put into effect by being his
own minister, and Bagot had followed resolutely in Sydenham's
footsteps. The group of colonial officials known as the Executive
Council had in the meantime tasted power. They now ventured to speak
of themselves as 'ministers,' as a 'cabinet,' as the 'government,' as
the 'administration'; and these terms, with their corollaries and
implications, had met with general acceptance. But Metcalfe considered
them inadmissible, as limiting too much the power of the governor, and,
as a consequence, the authority he represented. He was determined not
to be a mere figurehead on the ship of state; he would {85} be captain,
in undisputed command. Theoretically, if he were to be guided solely
by the advice of the local ministry, he would be 'responsible' to them
instead of to his sovereign; his office would be a nullity, and the
difference between a colony and an independent state would have
disappeared. Theoretically Metcalfe and the Tory pamphleteers who
supported him were right in their contentions. Complete freedom to
manage its own affairs should, if logic were strictly followed,
separate the colony from the mother country; but the British genius for
compromise has met the difficulty in a thoroughly British way by
avoiding any precise and rigid definition of the relations existing
between the mother country and the daughter state. That 'mere
sentiment' should hold the two more firmly together than the most
deftly worded treaty or legal enactment is proved to the world in these
later days by the sacrifices of Canada to the common cause during the
Great War. But there was little reason for holding this belief in the
forties of the nineteenth century. Conflict between a masterful
governor like Metcalfe, accustomed to the old order, and political
leaders like Baldwin and LaFontaine, trying to {86} bring in a new
order, was inevitable; their modes of thought were diametrically
opposed; the only question was when the clash should come.

The third session of the first parliament of Canada opened towards the
end of September 1843. In an Assembly of eighty-four members the party
of Reform numbered sixty, an overwhelming majority; for the
_rapprochement_ between the sympathetic parties of the two provinces
was now complete. The leader of the opposition w