. It is true that I have always said to my advisers,
'while you continue my advisers you shall enjoy nay unreserved
confidence; and _en revanche_ you shall be responsible for all
acts of government.'

But it is no less certain that there is not one of them who does not
know that no inducement on earth would prevail with me to bring me to
acquiesce in any measures which seemed to me repugnant to public
morals, or Imperial interests; and I must say that, far from finding
in my advisers a desire to entrap me into proceedings of which 1 might
disapprove, I find a tendency constantly increasing to attach the
utmost value to my opinion on all questions, local or generals that
arise.

The deep sense which he entertained of the importance of a correct
understanding on this point is shown by his devoting to it the closing
words of the last official despatch which he wrote from Quebec, on December
18, 1854.

I readily admit that the maintenance of the position and due influence
of the Governor is one of the most critical problems that have to be
solved in the adaptation of Parliamentary Government to the Colonial
system; and that it is difficult to over-estimate the importance which
attaches to its satisfactory solution. As the Imperial Government and
Parliament gradually withdraw from legislative interference, and from
the exercise of patronage in Colonial affairs, the office of Governor
tends to become, in the most emphatic sense of the term, the link
which connects the Mother-country and the Colony, and his influence
the means by which harmony of action between the local and imperial
authorities is to be preserved. It is not, however, in my humble
judgment, by evincing an anxious desire to stretch to the utmost
constitutional principles in his favour, but, on the contrary, by the
frank acceptance of the conditions of the Parliamentary system, that
this influence can be most surely extended and confirmed. Placed by
his position above the strife of parties--holding office by a tenure
less precarious than the ministers who surround him--having no
political interests to serve but that of the community whose affairs
he is appointed to administer--his opinion cannot fail, when all cause
for suspicion and jealousy is removed, to have great weight in the
Colonial Councils, while he is set at liberty to cons