y the House of
Commons during the last few years to inquire into matters relating to
those Provinces." It was declared to be the Lieutenant-Governor's duty
to vindicate to the King and the Imperial Parliament every act of his
administration. In the event of any complaint being preferred against
him, his conduct was to receive the most favourable construction. The
Assembly, it was said, were at all times able to invoke the
interference of the King and Parliament. Every public officer was
to depend on the King's pleasure--_i.e._, upon the pleasure of the
Lieutenant-Governor--for the tenure of his office. Certain rules were
then laid down, the observance of which, it was said, would produce a
system of perfect responsibility. As these rules differed in no
essential respect from those which had consistently been acted upon by
Francis Gore, Sir Peregrine Maitland and Sir John Colborne, it was
evident that the system of responsibility contemplated by Lord Glenelg
was not identical with that desired by Upper Canadian Reformers. Lord
Glenelg certainly made good his asseveration that the Upper Canadian
Executive were "practically responsible." But to whom were they
responsible? To the Upper Canadian people? Not at all. The
responsibility was to the King and Parliament of Great Britain--that is
to say, to Downing Street, several thousand miles away. Of what avail
was such responsibility, guarded, as it was, by secret despatches, "like
a system of espionage"?[215] Had this responsibility to Downing Street
ever saved "a single martyr to Executive displeasure"?[216] Had it been
of any avail for the protection of Robert Gourlay, Captain Matthews,
Francis Collins or Robert Randal? Had it preserved from the dry pan and
the slow fire any one of a score of individuals whose only offence
against the State was that they would not willingly sacrifice their
rights, and become the tools of venality and corruption? In not one
solitary instance had it served any such purpose. Such responsibility
was a mockery, "a broken reed, which it would be folly ever again to
rest upon."[217] Of real, constitutional responsibility to the people
there was not so much as a pretence. "All the powers of the Government,"
says Mr. Lindsey, "were centralized in Downing Street, and all the
colonial officers, from the highest to the lowest, were puppets in the
hands of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. At the same time, the
outward trappings of a constitutiona