sts.
Nothing could have been in worse taste than such conduct as this, though
it is possible enough that more sensitiveness was displayed than was
called for by the actual circumstances. The deputation withdrew, cut to
the quick by the indignities which they, rightly or wrongly, conceived
themselves to have sustained. On the succeeding evening a meeting of
themselves and some of their friends was held at the house of Dr.
Morrison--who was now mayor of the city--at which a bitterly sarcastic
rejoinder was prepared. It thanked his Excellency for replying to an
Address from "the industrious classes" with as much attention as if it
had proceeded from either branch of the Legislature, and acknowledged
his condescension in expressing himself in plain and homely
language--language presumed to be brought down to the level of the plain
and homely understandings of his interlocutors, whose deplorable want of
education was accounted for by the maladministration by former
Governments of the endowments of King's College, and by the
impossibility of obtaining a sale of the Clergy Reserves and the
appropriation of the proceeds to educational purposes. "It is,"
proceeded this cutting rejoinder, "because we have been thus maltreated,
neglected and despised, in our education and interests, under the system
of Government that has hitherto prevailed, that we are now driven to
insist upon a change that cannot be for the worse." Reference was made
to the desire to bring about a system of Responsible Government, and the
utter futility of mere responsibility to Downing Street was pointed out
with a pointed eloquence which proved that the signatories were in
deadly earnest. The misgovernment of Dalhousie and Aylmer in Lower
Canada, and of Gore, Maitland and Colborne in Upper Canada, was touched
upon in a few brief, vitriolic sentences. It was shown that, though
these gentlemen had been responsible to Downing Street, they had not
only met with no punishment, but had actually been promoted to higher
honours. "We do not mean," said they, "in our plain and homely
statement, to be discourteous, by declaring our unalterable conviction
that a nominal responsibility to Downing Street, which has failed of any
good with the above gentlemen of high pretensions to honour, character
and station, cannot have any magic operation in your Excellency's
administration, which, should it end as it has unhappily begun, might
make us drink the cup of national misgover