r influences. Like Mr. Baby, he had been
strenuous in his opposition to the Bill, and had even gone so far as to
speak harshly of some of those who promoted it. But he was speedily made
to know his place, and the tenure by which he held it. During a portion
of the two hours when the business of the Legislative Council was
suspended he was in secret conference with Major Hillier and one or more
members of the Executive Council.[139] When he took his seat upon the
resumption of the business of the day, it was noticeable that he, as
well as Baby, was labouring under undue embarrassment and agitation. It
was beyond any reasonable doubt that they had been shamelessly coerced,
and had been compelled to choose between voting as they were commanded
or being dismissed from their respective offices. Upon being questioned
by Mr. Dickson, Powell admitted that he had changed his opinion, and
added, in seeming sincerity, that he had received new light on the
matter within the last ten minutes. Such an exchange of an old lamp for
a new one must surely have been the work of some malignant and monstrous
genie at the Council Board.

It should be mentioned that Dickson's evidence, so far as "extraordinary
and undue influence by the Local Government" is concerned, is fully
confirmed by the evidence of the Hon. Thomas Clark, who was also a
member of the Upper House, and was present at the proceedings above
described.

There could not well be any more conclusive proof of the
unconstitutional and corrupt manner in which the Government was carried
on during Sir Peregrine Maitland's time than is afforded by the
circumstances just narrated. They read like a chapter out of the
political history of England during the last century. The methods
employed by Walpole exhibit nothing baser or more repulsive than these.
His aphorism about "every one of them" having his price might well have
been echoed by Sir Peregrine, so far as the Legislative Council was
concerned, with the addition that the price in Upper Canada was
sometimes ridiculously low. The persons who were guilty of these gross
violations of the constitution, to say nothing of the commonest
principles of honesty, were incessantly prating of their devoted loyalty
to the Crown. Yet it is plain enough that their fealty was always
subservient to what they deemed to be their personal interests. This was
as clearly apparent in 1837 as it had been in 1828. When, a few years
later,[140] a crisis ar