act on his own motion, and without
waiting to take counsel from any quarter; but in all ordinary affairs of
administration he was guided by Sir John Robinson quite as effectually
as Sir John Colborne had ever been.

No sooner was it announced that the Executive Councillors had all
resigned office than the public pulse began to beat at an accelerated
pace. The excitement was greatly intensified upon the publication of a
letter written by Robert Baldwin to Peter Perry, in which, by the
Lieutenant-Governor's special permission, all the attendant
circumstances were set forth in detail. This letter, having been written
for the express purpose of being read by Mr. Perry from his place in the
Assembly, and of being afterwards published in the newspapers, is
somewhat formal and official in its tone, but it presents the
subject-matter in a clear light, and must be regarded as an important
contribution to the history of Responsible Government in Upper Canada.
It is the chief, indeed the only trustworthy original authority for the
facts as to the precise dispute between Sir Francis and his Council, for
the former's account[229] is more than usually incomplete and one-sided
when dealing with this episode. The essential portions of Mr. Baldwin's
presentation of the case have been embodied in the foregoing narrative.
The Lieutenant-Governor lost no time in providing himself with a new
Council. On the 14th of March, when the resignation was only two days
old, an extraordinary issue of the _Gazette_ announced that Robert
Baldwin Sullivan, John Elmsley, Augustus Baldwin and William Allan had
been appointed members of the Executive Council of the Province. The
reader has already made the acquaintance of all these gentlemen with the
exception of Augustus Baldwin, who was a retired naval officer of high
character, but of no particular politics; a brother of Dr. Baldwin, and
by consequence an uncle of Robert Baldwin. All four of the new
Councillors were persons of character and position, but they were not in
sympathy with the Liberal sentiments of the period, and the people
generally were not disposed to place any political confidence in them.
Elmsley and Allan were consistent, old-fashioned Tories. Baldwin's
leanings, so far as he had any, were in the same direction. Sullivan's
youth and early life had been passed amid more or less Liberal
influences, but of late he had shown a retrogressive tendency in
political matters. This was largely