he painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

SIR LOUIS H. LAFONTAINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 108
After a photograph by Notman.

THE EARL OF ELGIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 136
From a daguerreotype.

{1}

CHAPTER I

DURHAM THE DICTATOR

And let him be dictator
For six months and no more.

The curious sightseer in modern Toronto, conducted through the
well-kept, endless avenues of handsome dwellings which are that city's
pride, might be surprised to learn that at the northern end of the
street which cuts the city in two halves, east and west, bands of armed
Canadians met in battle less than a century ago. If he continued his
travels to Montreal, he might be told, at a certain point, 'Here stood
the Parliament Buildings, when our city was the capital of the country;
and here a governor-general of Canada was mobbed, pelted with rotten
eggs and stones, and narrowly escaped with his life.' And if the
intelligent traveller asked the reason for such scenes, where now all
is peace, the answer might be given in one word--Politics.

To the young, politics seems rather a stupid {2} sort of game played by
the bald and obese middle-aged, for very high stakes, and governed by
no rules that any player is bound to respect. Between the rival teams
no difference is observable, save that one enjoys the sweets of office
and the mouth of the other is watering for them. But this is, of
course, the hasty judgment of uncharitable youth. The struggle between
political parties in Canada arose in the past from a difference in
political principles. It was a difference that could be defined; it
could be put into plain words. On the one side and the other the
guiding ideas could be formulated; they could be defended and they
could be attacked in logical debate. Sometimes it might pass the wit
of man to explain the difference between the Ins and the Outs.
Sometimes politics may be a game; but often it has been a battle. In
support of their political principles the strongest passions of men
have been aroused, and their deepest convictions of right and wrong.
The things by which men live, their religious creeds, their pride of
race, have been enlisted on the one side and the other. This is true
of Canadian politics.

That ominous date, 1837, marks a certain climax or culmination in the
political {3} development of Canada. The constitution of the country
now works with so little fricti