the Lieutenant-Governor instead of by the Speaker of the
Assembly, as in strictness it should have been. A new writ was issued,
and Mr. Baldwin again contested the seat, his opponent now being the
Sheriff of the County, William Botsford Jarvis. The Sheriff naturally
enjoyed many advantages in such a contest, but he was defeated by a
considerable majority, and on the opening of the session in the
following January, Robert Baldwin, then in his twenty-sixth year, took
his seat in Parliament for the first time. He however did not make any
conspicuous figure during the session. He had already fully imbibed the
idea that a responsible Executive was the great want of Upper Canadian
polity, and took comparatively little interest in the subordinate
questions of the day. He could see no good purpose to be served by
recording successive majorities against the Government, so long as the
members of that Government could retain their offices, together with the
favour of the Lieutenant-Governor, in spite of any vote which the
Assembly might see fit to record. He made no remarkable speeches, and
seemed rather disposed to remain in the background. It so happened that
he did not again have an opportunity of winning honours in the
Legislature for many years, as, in consequence of the death of the king,
a dissolution of Parliament took place before the time had arrived for
the meeting of another session, and Robert Baldwin was one of the many
Reform candidates who were beaten at the general elections which ensued.

There are few facts worthy of record in connection with the session of
1830. In the Speech from the Throne the Lieutenant-Governor was able to
announce that the revenue at the disposal of the Crown had been found
sufficient to meet the requirements of the civil list, and that there
still remained a considerable surplus in the Provincial Treasury. The
Assembly's Address in Reply once more drew his Excellency's attention to
the want of confidence felt in the advisers by whom he was surrounded.
"We still feel unabated solicitude about the administration of public
justice," it ran, "and entertain a settled conviction that the
continuance about your Excellency of those advisers who from the unhappy
policy they pursued have long deservedly lost the confidence of the
country, is highly inexpedient, and calculated seriously to weaken the
expectations of the people from the impartial and disinterested justice
of His Majesty's Government.