Elgin, found in imperial administration a more {190}
congenial task than Westminster could offer them. Elgin occupies a
mediate position between the administrative careers of Dalhousie and
Canning, and the parliamentary and constitutional labours of Gladstone.
He was that strange being, a constitutionalist proconsul; and his chief
work in administration lay in so altering the relation of his office to
Canadian popular government, as to take from the governor-generalship
much of its initiative, and to make a great surrender to popular
opinion. Between his arrival in Montreal at the end of January, 1847,
and the writing of his last official despatch on December 18th, 1854,
he had established on sure foundations the system of democratic
government in Canada.

Never was man better fitted for his work. He came, a Scotsman, to a
colony one-third Scottish, and the name of Bruce was itself soporific
to the opposition of a perfervid section of the reformers. His wife
was the daughter of Lord Durham, whom Canadians regarded as the
beginner of a new age of Canadian constitutionalism. He had been
appointed by a Whig Government, and Earl Grey, the new Colonial
Secretary, was already learned in liberal theory, both in politics and
economics, and understood that Britons, abroad as at home, {191} must
have liberty to misgovern themselves. Elgin's personal qualities were
precisely those best fitted to control a self-governing community. Not
only was he saved from extreme views by his caution and sense of
humour, but he had, to an extraordinary degree, the power of seeing
both sides, and more especially the other side, of any question. In
Canada too, as later in China and India, he exhibited qualities of
humanity which some might term quixotic;[2] and, as will be illustrated
very fully below, his gifts of tact and _bonhomie_ made him a
singularly persuasive force in international affairs, and secured for
Britain at least one clear diplomatic victory over America.

Following on a succession of short-lived and troubled governorships,
under which, while the principle of government had remained constant,
nothing else had done so, Elgin had practically to begin Durham's work
afresh, and build without much regard for the foundations laid since
1841. The alternatives before him were a grant of really responsible
government, or a rebellion, with annexation to the United States as its
probable end. The {192} new Governor saw very clear