the principles and practice of Government; who was
ignorant of the proprieties and amenities of official intercourse; who,
in what were intended for grave official despatches, indulged in
extracts from French vaudevilles, and referred to certain methods of
procedure as not being _according to Hoyle_! By all known theory and
precedent, the accession to office of such a man ought to have been
attended by immediate and ignominous failure. Yet, so far as could be
judged, he had by no means failed. Nay, he actually appeared to have
scored a marvellous success, and to have brought about what men of
greater ability and wider experience had been utterly unable to
accomplish. Such a success was an inscrutable mystery to the official
mind, and Lord Glenelg, after the first few weeks, appears to have
abandoned all attempts to penetrate it. The entire demeanour of this
unconventional Lieutenant-Governor was incomprehensible. He had
expressed his total dissent from the policy of the Commissioners of
Inquiry in Lower Canada, who had reported in favour of a responsible
Executive.[256] He had even gone so far as to tender his resignation in
consequence of his inability to concur in the liberal measures of Reform
advocated by the Commissioners.[257] But the Home Government had by no
means been disposed to accept his resignation just at that time. They
had no available person to put in his place, and it had been thought
desirable that he should be permitted to try his hand a little longer.
And now this news as to the result of the elections seemed to fully
justify their determination to retain him in office. If he had really
inaugurated a new and improved order of things in Upper Canada, it was
only fair that he should enjoy the prestige of his success.

But the ill effects of Sir Francis's superficial and disastrous policy
were already beginning to be apparent to those whose eyes were keen
enough to look below the surface of things. The Reformers felt that they
had been out-manoeuvred. That they could have borne, for they had
often been compelled to bear a similar infliction in past times. But
they considered that they had been cheated out of their rights by one
whose especial duty it was to watch over and preserve those rights
inviolate. They had endured much at the hands of a Gore, a Maitland and
a Colborne. But Gore, Maitland and Colborne had not presented themselves
before them in the garb of tried Reformers. They had been the Tory