that all was for the
best in the best of all possible colonies. The British government sent
out as High Commissioner one of England's ablest men, Lord Durham. His
report, published early in 1839, is a landmark in the history of British
colonial administration. Disregarding all half-measures, he declared
that in Responsible Government {57} alone could salvation for the
colonies be found. In clarion tones he proclaimed that thus alone could
the deep, pathetic, and ill-repaid loyalty of the Canadas be preserved.
But the report had still to be acted on. Lord John Russell, the ablest
man in the government, had succeeded Lord Glenelg, and in 1839 he made a
speech which did indeed mark an advance on the views of his predecessor,
but which fell far short of the wishes of the Canadian Reformers. The
internal government of the province, he admitted, must be carried on in
accordance with the well-understood wishes of the Canadian people, but he
still held Responsible Government to be incompatible with the colonial
status. The governor of a colony can be responsible, he said, only to
the Crown; to make him responsible to his ministers would be to proclaim
him head of an independent state. If the governor must act on the advice
of his ministers, he might be forced to choose ministers whose acts would
embroil the province, and thereby the whole Empire, with a foreign power.

In answer to this speech Howe wrote to Lord John Russell four open
letters, which were republished in almost every Canadian newspaper, and
which, issued in pamphlet {58} form, were sent to every British newspaper
and member of parliament. Never did he reach a higher level. Vigorous,
sparkling, full of apt illustration and sound political thought, they
grip 'little Johnny Russell's' speech and shake it to tatters. 'By the
beard of the prophet!'--to use one of Howe's favourite oaths--here is a
big man, a man with a gift of expression and a grip of principle. They
should be read in full, for an extract gives but a truncated idea of
their power.

He ridicules the arrogation to itself by the 'Compact' of a monopoly of
loyalty. 'It appears to me that a very absurd opinion has long prevailed
among many worthy people on both sides of the Atlantic: that the
selection of an Executive Council, who, upon most points of domestic
policy, will differ from the great body of the inhabitants and the
majority of their representatives, is indispensable to the very exist