sy.[18]
Nevertheless, when opinion changed, and when a coalition attacked and
unseated the Progressive ministry of 1848-1854, Elgin, without a
moment's hesitation, turned to the men who had insulted him. "To the
great astonishment of the public, as well as to his own," wrote
Laurence Oliphant, who was then on Elgin's staff, "Sir Allan MacNab,
who had been one of his bitterest opponents ever since the Montreal
events, was sent for to form a ministry--Lord Elgin by this act
satisfactorily disproving the charges of {205} having either personal
or political partialities in the selection of his ministers."[19]

But the first great constitutional governor-general of Canada had to
interpret constitutionalism as something more than mere obedience to
public dictation with regard to his councillors. He had to educate
these councillors, and the public, into the niceties of British
constitutional manners; and he had to create a new vocation for the
governor-general, and to exchange dictation for rational influence. He
had to teach his ministers moderation in their measures, and,
indirectly, to show the opposition how to avoid crude and extreme
methods in their fight for office. When his high political courage, in
consenting to a bill very obnoxious to the opposition, forced them into
violence, he kept his temper and his head, and the opposition leaders
learned, not from punishment, but from quiet contempt, to express
dissent in modes other than those of arson and sticks and stones. For
seven years, by methods so restrained as to be hardly perceptible even
in his private letters to Grey, he guided the first experimental
cabinets into smooth water, and when he resigned, he left behind him
politicians {206} trained by his efforts to govern Canada according to
British usage.

At the same time his influence on the British Cabinet was as quiet and
certain. He was still responsible to the British Crown and Cabinet,
and a weaker man would have forgotten the problems which the new
Canadian constitutionalism was bound to create at the centre of
authority. Two instances will illustrate the point, and Elgin's clear
perception of his duty. They are both taken from the episode of the
Rebellion Losses Bill, and the Montreal riots of 1849. The Bill which
caused the trouble had been introduced to complete a scheme of
compensation for all those who had suffered loss in the late Rebellion,
whether French or English, and had been passed by