By the blood pumped aloft by his pride.

So it goes on, not unamusing, full of topical allusions and bad puns.
The serious Johnston, with some lack of humour, brought the matter up in
the House, and came near to accusing Howe of High Treason. Howe wisely
refused to take the matter seriously, and defended himself in a speech of
which a fair sample is: 'This is the first time I ever suspected that to
hint that noblemen wore shirts was a grave offence, to be prosecuted in
the High Court of Parliament by an Attorney General. Had the author said
that the Lord of the Bedchamber wore no shirt, or that it stuck through
his pantaloons, there might have been good ground of complaint.' On the
more serious question he said: 'The time has come when I must do myself
justice. An honest fame is as dear to me as Lord Falkland's title is to
him. His name may be written in Burke's Peerage; mine has no record but
on the hills and valleys of the country which God has given us for an
inheritance, and must live, if it lives at all, in the hearts of those
who tread them. Their confidence and respect {84} must be the reward of
their public servants. But if these noble provinces are to be preserved,
those who represent the sovereign must act with courtesy and dignity and
truth to those who represent the people. Who will go into a Governor's
Council if, the moment he retires, he is to have his loyalty impeached;
to be stabbed by secret dispatches; to have his family insulted; his
motives misrepresented, and his character reviled? What Nova Scotian
will be safe? What colonist can defend himself from such a system, if a
governor can denounce those he happens to dislike and get up personal
quarrels with individuals it may be convenient to destroy?'[5]

In 1846 the quarrel came to a crisis. The speaker of the House and his
brother, a prominent member of the Opposition, were connected with an
English company formed for building Nova Scotian railways. To the
astonishment of everybody, a dispatch from Lord Falkland to the Colonial
Office was brought down and read before the speaker's face, in which his
own name and that of his brother were repeatedly mentioned, and in which
they were held up to condemnation as the associates of 'reckless' and
'insolvent' {85} men. Howe was justly indignant at this gross breach of
constitutional procedure, and indeed of ordinary good manners. Leaping
to his feet, he said: 'I should but ill discharge my