and spirit in which they should act in carrying into effect
the then new system of responsible government!" He exclaimed, "It cannot
be! I have these letters." I said, "It can be; and it is so; and if you
will compare my third letter in defence of Lord Metcalfe with my recent
address, you will find that I have not omitted an illustration from
Greek, or Roman, or English history, or an authority from standard
writers, on political or moral science, or a petition or address from
Reformers from the rebellion of 1837 to the establishment of
responsible government under Lord Sydenham and Sir Charles Bagot in
1840-42; that I have not added to, or omitted, a word, but have repeated
_verbatim et literatim_ in 1868, in regard to confederate government,
what I advised the people of Canada in 1844 in regard to responsible
government." And now, I continued, "who has changed? you or I?" "Oh," he
said, "circumstances alter cases." "Truly," I said, "circumstances alter
cases; but circumstances don't change principles; I wrote on the
principles and spirit of government irrespective of party." On such
principles I have endeavoured to act throughout my more than half a
century of public life--principles, the maintenance of which has
sometimes brought me into collision with the leaders of one party, and
sometimes in opposition to those of another party; but principles which
I have found higher and stronger than party.

* * * * *

A day or two after the issue of Dr. Ryerson's first paper in defence of
Sir Charles Metcalfe, Hon. Isaac Buchanan sent to him copies of letters
which he had written to Hon. Joseph Howe, Halifax, and to Civil
Secretary Higginson, Kingston, on the Metcalfe controversy. In this
letter he said:--

It is with infinite pleasure that I see you have publicly come out
to tell the truth as to politics and public men. The fact is,
politics in a new country are either the essential principles of
society or parish business. In both cases every man is interested,
and to a less extent than in an old state of things, where in a
hereditary educated class, there are natural guardians of the
public virtue. Is it objectionable that clergymen interfere in the
arrangement of detail for the happiness of the country? But it is,
as I have always maintained, their most imperative duty to hold and
express an opinion on constitutional politics. The priests in Lower
Canada, from