such high authority
is the worst evil that has yet befallen Upper Canada":[22] and again,
"since the Earl of Durham's Report was published, the reform party, as
I have already stated, have come out in greater force--not in favour of
the Union, nor of the other measures contemplated by the Bill, that has
been sent out to this country, but for the daring object so strenuously
advocated by Mackenzie, familiarly denominated responsible
government."[23]

The distrust and timidity of Arthur's despatches are shared in by
practically the entire Tory party in its dealings with Canada, after
the Rebellion. The Duke of Wellington opposed the Union of the
provinces, because, among other consequences, "the union into one
Legislature of the discontented spirits heretofore existing in two
separate Legislatures will not diminish, but will tend to augment, the
difficulties attending the administration of the government;
particularly under the circumstances of the encouragement given to
expect the establishment in the united province of a local responsible
administration of government."[24] He {250} was greatly excited when
the news of Bagot's concessions arrived. Arbuthnot describes his
chief's mood as one of anger and indignation. "What a fool the man
must have been," he kept exclaiming, "to act as he has done! and what
stuff and nonsense he has written! and what a bother he makes about his
policy and his measures, when there are no measures but rolling himself
and his country in the mire."[25]

During these years, and until late in 1845, Lord Stanley presided at
the Colonial Office. Naturally of an arrogant and unyielding temper,
and with something of the convert's fanatic devotion to the political
creed of his adoption, he administered Canada avowedly on the lines of
Lord John Russell's despatch to Poulett Thomson, but with all the
emphasis on the limitations prescribed in that despatch, and in a
spirit singularly irritating. His conduct towards Bagot exhibited a
consistent distrust of Canadian self-government; and the fundamental
defects of his advice to Bagot's successor cannot be better exhibited
than in the letter warning Metcalfe of "the extreme risk which would
attend any disruption of the present Conservative party of Canada.
Their own steadiness {251} and your own firmness and discretion have
gone far towards consolidating them as a party and securing a stable
administration of the colony."[26] In spite of the warni