in their statements on that point. The incident, striking enough in
itself, gave occasion for an extraordinary outburst of pamphleteering;
and the reckless or incompetent statements of men on either side make
it necessary to dispel one or two illusions created by the partizan
excitement of the time. On the side of the council, Hincks, the
inspector-general, then and afterwards contended that the incident was
only an occasion and a pretext; that Stanley had sent Metcalfe out to
wreck the system of responsible government, so far conceded by Sydenham
and Bagot; and that the episode of 1843 was part of a deeper plot to
check the growth of Canadian freedom.[11] Apart from the absurdities
contained in Hincks' statement of the case, the only answer which need
be made to the charge is that, if Stanley could have descended to such
ignoble plotting, Metcalfe was the last man in the world to act as his
dishonoured instrument. On the other side, Gibbon Wakefield believed
that {171} the council chose the occasion to escape from a defeat
otherwise inevitable, in the hope that a renewed agitation for
responsible government might reinstate them in public favour. As
Metcalfe gave the suggestion some authority by accepting it
provisionally in a despatch,[12] the details of Wakefield's charge may
be given. The ministry, he held, had been steadily weakening. Two
bills, advocated by them, had been abandoned owing to the opposition of
their followers. The French solidarity had begun to break up, and La
Fontaine had found in Viger a rival in the affections of his adherents.
The ministers, intoxicated by the possession of a little brief
authority, had offended the sense of the House by their arrogance; and
the debates concerning the change of the seat of government from
Kingston to Montreal had been a cause of stumbling to many. With their
authority weakened in the House, doubtful in the country, and more than
doubtful with the governor-general, the resignation of the ministers,
in Wakefield's view of the case, "upon a ground which was sure to
obtain for them much popular sympathy, was about the most politic of
their ministerial acts."[13]

{172}

But the ministry possessed and continued to possess a great
parliamentary majority; and a dissolution could not in any way have
improved their position. Besides this, the alienation of the
councillors from the governor-general had developed far more deeply
than was generally supposed; in