rvative party. Sir Alexander Galt also
announced his withdrawal from the party, and there was dissatisfaction
in other quarters. Respecting Galt's defection Sir John Macdonald
wrote:

Galt came out, I am glad to say, formally in opposition and relieved me
of the difficulty connected with him. His warm alliance with the Lower
Canadian French rendered it necessary for me to put up with a good
deal, as you know. But he is now finally dead as a Canadian
politician. The correspondence between Cartier and himself, in which
he comes squarely out {85} for independence, has rung his death-knell,
and I shall take precious good care to keep him where he is. He has
seduced Cartwright away, and I have found out how it was managed.
Cartwright and he formed at the Club last session a sort of mutual
admiration society, and they agreed that they were the two men fit to
govern Canada. Galt rubbed it in pretty strong, as I have occasion to
know that he told him that I ought to have selected him (Cartwright) as
your successor.[7]

Despite Sir John's jaunty attitude at the time, the appointment of Sir
Francis Hincks could not be said to have fulfilled expectations. While
it disappointed Tory ambitions, it failed to strengthen the Reform
section supporting the Administration. Moreover, I infer from Sir
John's confidential letters of the time that Sir Francis was not quite
the square peg for the square hole.

Hincks [wrote Sir John to his friend Rose in January 1872] is as
suggestive as ever in financial matters, but his rashness (always, as
you know, the defect of his character) seems to increase with his
years, {86} and, strange to say, he is quite a stranger to the popular
opinion of Canada as it is. His Canada is the Canada of 1850. For all
that he is a worthy good fellow and has been successful in finance.

Upon the whole, I am inclined to view the taking up of Sir Francis
Hincks in 1869 as one of Sir John Macdonald's very few mistakes. I do
not go as far as to say he would have done better to have chosen Sir
Richard Cartwright, who was only thirty-three years of age at the time,
and who, as the president of the Commercial Bank, which had failed only
two years before, was just then an impossibility.[8] Moreover, to be
quite just to Sir Richard Cartwright, I must say that I have never seen
evidence to satisfy me that he expected to succeed Sir John Rose.
There is nothing in his letters preserved by Sir John Macdon