of the clergy, and civil list. The
English language alone was to be used in the legislative records. All
votes, resolutions or bills involving the expenditure of public money
were to be first recommended by the governor-general.

The first parliament of the United Canadas was opened on the 14th June,
1841, in the city of Kingston, by the governor-general, who had been
created Baron Sydenham of Sydenham and of Toronto. This session was the
commencement of a series of parliaments which lasted until the
confederation of all the provinces in 1867, and forcibly illustrated the
capacity of the people of Canada to manage their internal affairs. For
the moment, I propose to refer exclusively to those political conditions
which brought about responsible government, and the removal of
grievances which had so long perplexed the imperial state and distracted
the whole of British North America.

In Lord John Russell's despatches of 1839,--the sequence of Lord
Durham's report--we can clearly see the doubt in the minds of the
imperial authorities whether it was possible to work the system of
responsible government on the basis of a governor directly responsible
to the parent state, and at the same time acting under the advice of
ministers who would be responsible to a colonial legislature. But the
colonial secretary had obviously come to the opinion that it was
necessary to make a radical change which would insure greater harmony
between the executive and the popular bodies of the provinces. Her
Majesty, he stated emphatically, "had no desire to maintain any system
of policy among her North American subjects which opinion condemns", and
there was "no surer way of gaining the approbation of the Queen than by
maintaining the harmony of the executive with the legislative
authorities." The new governor-general was expressly appointed to carry
out this new policy. If he was extremely vain, at all events he was also
astute, practical, and well able to gauge the public sentiment by which
he should be guided at so critical a period of Canadian history. The
evidence is clear that he was not individually in favour of responsible
government, as it was understood by men like Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Howe,
when he arrived in Canada. He believed that the council should be one
"for the governor to consult and no more"; and voicing the doubts that
existed in the minds of imperial statesmen, he added, the governor
"cannot be responsible to the government