Church was still influential in the councils of the province, and the
Baptists had now the support of Mr. Johnston, the able attorney-general,
who had seceded from the Church of England. This able lawyer and
politician had won the favour of the aristocratic governor, and
persuaded him to dissolve the assembly, during the absence of Mr. Howe
in the country, though it had continuously supported the government, and
the people had given no signs of a want of confidence in the house as
then constituted. The fact was, Mr. Johnston and his friends in the
council thought it necessary to lose no time in arousing the feelings of
the supporters of denominational colleges against Mr. Howe and other
Liberals, who had commenced to hold meetings throughout the country in
favour of a non-sectarian University. The two parties came back from
the electors almost evenly divided, and Mr. Howe had an interview with
Lord Falkland. He consented to remain in the cabinet until the assembly
had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the question at issue,
when the governor himself precipitated a crisis by appointing to the
executive and legislative councils Mr. M.B. Almon, a wealthy banker, and
a brother-in-law of the attorney-general. Mr. Howe and Mr. MacNab at
once resigned their seats in the government on the ground that Mr.
Almon's appointment was a violation of the compact by which two Liberals
had been induced to join the ministry, and was most unjust to the forty
or fifty gentlemen who, in both branches, had sustained the
administration for several years. Instead of authorising Mr. Johnston to
fill the two vacancies and justify the course taken by the governor, the
latter actually published a letter in a newspaper, in which he boldly
stated that he was entirely opposed to the formation of a government
composed of individuals of one political party, that he would steadily
resist any invasion of the royal prerogatives with respect to
appointments, and that he had chosen Mr. Almon, not simply on the ground
that he had not been previously engaged in political life to any extent,
but chiefly because he wished to show his own confidence in Mr.
Johnston, Mr. Almon's brother-in-law. Lord Falkland had obviously thrown
himself into the arms of the astute attorney-general and his political
friends.

It was now a political war _a outrance_ between Lord Falkland and Mr.
Howe, from 1842 until the governor left the province in 1846. Lord
Falkland