and polling was most unjustly discontinued for one
day.' Free fights between bands of rival voters armed with clubs,
swords, and firearms, injuries from which men were not expected to
recover, order restored by the intervention of the military--these were
no unusual incidents in an old-time Canadian election. The contest in
Hastings was of this description, and Baldwin was defeated. He stood
for election in the second riding of York, and he was again defeated.
Finally LaFontaine did for him what he had done for LaFontaine. The
French member for Rimouski resigned his seat, and Baldwin was returned
for it in January 1843. The French leader and the English leader had
thus given unmistakable proofs of their sincere desire to be friends
and to work together for the common weal. French and English were
found at last working in harmony, side by side. They had formed the
first colonial ministry on the approved constitutional model.

The new idea was fiercely assailed. To the British colonial partisan
of that day it {79} seemed the height of absurdity to entrust the
government of the country to men who had done their best to wreck that
government but a few years before. The Tories would have been more
than human if they were not exasperated to see actual rebels like
Girouard, who fought with rebels at St Eustache, offered a position in
the Cabinet. They could not, as yet, accept the hard saying of
Macaulay: 'There is only one cure for the evils which newly-acquired
freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.' How would they have
regarded Britain's three years' war with the Dutch republics of South
Africa and the entrusting of them immediately afterwards to the Boers
and General Louis Botha? For accepting the principle of popular
government, that the majority must rule, Bagot was assailed with an
inhuman vehemence, which astounds the reader of the present day by its
venom and its indecency. Because the governor was a just man and
loyally followed constitutional usage, he was abused as a fool and a
traitor not only in the colony but in England. It is small wonder that
his health began to give way under the strain.

That historical first session of 1842 was {80} very short; it lasted
only a month. Nor could it be said to have accomplished very much in
the way of actual legislation. The criticism of the opposition press
was not ill-founded--that there was much cry and little wool. That the
criticism was made at all