rly days of the session of 1858 a motion
was carried in the Assembly to the effect that 'in the opinion of this
House, the city of Ottawa ought not to be the permanent seat of
government of this province.' Thereupon the Ministry promptly
resigned, construing the vote as a slight upon Her Majesty, who had
been asked to make the selection. The governor-general then sent for
Brown and invited him to form a new Administration. What followed
affords an admirable illustration of the character of George Brown.
Though in an undoubted minority in a House fresh from the people, with
Lower Canada almost unitedly opposed to him, Brown accepted the
invitation of the governor-general. His only hope could have lain in a
dissolution, and Sir Edmund Head {58} gave him to understand at the
outset, both verbally and in writing, that on this he must not count.
There are several examples in British political history, notably that
of Lord Derby in 1858 and Disraeli in 1873, where statesmen in
opposition, feeling that the occasion was not ripe for their purposes,
have refused to take advantage of the defeat of the Ministry to which
they were opposed. George Brown was not so constituted. Without
attempting to weigh the chances of being able to maintain himself in
power for a single week, he eagerly grasped the prize. Two days after
his summons he and his colleagues were sworn into office and had
assumed the functions of advisers of the crown. How accurately does
this headlong impetuosity bear out Sir John Macdonald's estimate of the
man![3]

The inevitable happened, and that speedily. Within a few hours the
Assembly passed a vote of want of confidence in the new Ministry, and
Brown and his colleagues, having been refused a dissolution, were
compelled to resign. The governor-general sent for A. T. Galt, then
{59} the able and popular member of the House from Sherbrooke in Lower
Canada. But Galt declined the honour. The formation of a new
Administration was then entrusted to Cartier, who, with the assistance
of Macdonald, soon accomplished the task. Thus came into power the
former Macdonald-Cartier Government, under the changed name of the
Cartier-Macdonald Government, with personnel very slightly altered.
Even this did not fill up the cup of Brown's humiliation. By their
acceptance of office he and his colleagues had vacated their seats in
the Assembly, and so found themselves outside the legislature for the
remainder of the sess