verer critic than Elgin, but he saw that by party Canada would be
ruled, and he could not, as Metcalfe had done, deceive himself into
thinking he had abolished it by governing in accordance with the least
popular party in the state. With the candour and the discriminating
judgment which so distinguished all his doings in Canada, he admitted
that, notwithstanding the high ground Lord Metcalfe had taken against
party patronage, the ministers favoured by that governor-general had
"used patronage for party purposes with quite as little scruple as his
first council."[16]

Since the first general election had proved beyond a doubt that
Canadians desired a {203} progressive ministry, he made the change with
perfect success, and remained a consistent guide and friend to his new
ministers.

There was something dramatic in the contrast between the possibilities
of trouble in the year when the concession was made, and the peace
which actually ensued. It was the year of revolution, and the men whom
he called to his assistance were "persons denounced very lately by the
Secretary of State to the Governor-General as impracticable and
disloyal";[17] but before the year was out he was able to boast that
when so many thrones were tottering and the allegiance of so many
people was waxing faint, there is less political disaffection in Canada
than there ever had been before. From 1848 until the year of his
recall, he remained in complete accord with his liberal administration,
and never was constitutional monarch more intimately and usefully
connected with his ministers than was Elgin, first with Baldwin and La
Fontaine, and then with Hincks and Morin.

Elgin gave a rarer example of what fidelity to colonial
constitutionalism meant. In these years of liberal success, "Old
Toryism" faced a new strain, and faced it badly. The party had {204}
supported the empire, when that empire meant their supremacy. They had
befriended the representative of the Crown, when they had all the
places and profits. When the British connection took a liberal colour,
when the governor-general acted constitutionally towards the
undoubtedly progressive tone of popular opinion, some of the tories
became annexationists. Many of them, as will be shown later,
encouraged a dastardly assault on the person of their official head;
and all of them, supported by gentlemen of Her Majesty's army, treated
the representative of the Crown with the most obvious discourte