in
number, he purposely left unchanged from the regime of his predecessor
On November 13th and 14th, after discussions in which the minority
never exceeded three, that body accepted Union with the Upper Province
in six propositions, affirming the principle of union, agreeing to the
assimilation of the two provincial debts, and declaring it to be their
opinion "that the present temporary legislature should, as soon as
practicable, be succeeded by a permanent legislature, in which the
people of these two provinces may be adequately represented, and their
constitutional rights exercised and maintained."[11] Before he left
Montreal, he assured the British ministry that the large majority of
those with whom he had spoken, English and French, in the Lower
Province were warm advocates of Union.[12]

Yet here lay his first mis judgment, and one of the most serious he
made. It was true and obvious that the British inhabitants of Eastern
Canada earnestly desired a union which would promote {83} their racial
interests; true also that a group of Frenchmen took the same point of
view. But the governor was guilty of a grave political error, when he
ignored the feeling generally prevalent among the French that Union
must be fought. Colborne's judgment in 1839, that French aversion to
Union was growing less, seems to have been mistaken.[13] The British
government, more especially in the person of Durham, had not disguised
their intention--the destruction of French nationalism as it had
hitherto existed. They had taken, and were taking, the risk of
conducting the experiment in the face of a grant of self-government to
the doomed community; and the first governor-general of union and
constitutionalism was now to find that French racial unity, combined
with self-government, was too strong even for his masterful will,
although he had all the weight of Imperial authority behind him. But,
for the time, Lower Canada had to be left to its council, and the
centre of interest changed to Toronto and Upper Canada.

There, although no racial troubles awaited him, the governor had to
persuade a popular assembly before he could have his way; and there for
the {84} first time he was made aware of the perplexing cross-currents
and side eddies, and confusion of public opinion, which existed
everywhere in Canadian politics. So doubtful was the main issue that
he debated with himself whether he should venture to meet the Assembly
without a diss