Before the Montreal outrage, and when it was
extremely desirable to leave matters as vague as possible, Elgin simply
refrained from giving details to the Colonial Office. "I could not
have made my official communication to {209} you in reference to this
Bill, which you could have laid before Parliament, without stating or
implying an irrevocable decision on this point. To this circumstance
you must ascribe the fact that you have not heard from me
officially."[23] With even greater shrewdness, at a later date, he
made Grey expunge, in his book on Colonial Policy, details of the
outrage which followed the passing of the Act; for, said he, "I am
strongly of opinion that nothing but evil can result from the
publication, at this period, of a detailed and circumstantial statement
of the disgraceful proceedings which took place after the Bill
passed.... _The surest way to arrest a process of conversion is to
dwell on the errors of the past, and to place in a broad light the
contrast between present sentiments and those of an earlier date_."[24]
In constitutional affairs manners make, not merely the statesman, but
the possibility of government; and Elgin's highest quality as a
constitutionalist was, not so much his understanding of the machinery
of government, as his knowledge of the constitutional temper, and the
need within it of humanity and common-sense.

{210}

Great as was Elgin's achievement in rectifying Canadian constitutional
practice, his solution of the nationalist difficulty in Lower Canada
was possibly a greater triumph of statesmanship; for the present _modus
vivendi_, which still shows no signs of breaking down, dates from the
years of Elgin's governorship. The decade which included his rule in
Canada was pre-eminently the epoch of nationalism. Italy, Germany, and
Hungary, with Mazzini as their prophet, were all struggling for the
acknowledgment of their national claims, and within the British Islands
themselves, the Irish nationalists furnished, in Davis and the writers
to _The Nation_, disciples and apostles of the new gospel. It is
always dangerous to trace European influences across the Atlantic; but
there is little doubt that as the French rebellion of 1837 owed
something to Europe, so the arch-rebel Papineau's paper, _L'Avenir_,
echoed in an empty blustering fashion, the cries of the nationalist
revolution of 1848.[25]

Elgin found on his arrival that British administration had thrown every
ele