roposed in the constitution of the
country. The result of the election in St. John showed that the people
of that city and county were quite indifferent to the new doctrines.
For the county, Mr. Partelow was at the head of the poll, and that
gentleman on the hustings had declared that he was opposed to any change
in the constitution. He went into the House, he said, under a
constitution of fifty years' standing, and he was determined to leave it
as he found it, unimpaired. He disapproved of the initiation of money
votes being placed in the hands of the executive. He thought "such a
system would be wrong and pernicious in the extreme."

{REFORMERS DEFEATED}

When the legislature met in January 1843, it was found that the
Reformers were in the minority. Mr. Partelow was determined to make this
fact very clear, for in nominating the speaker he made a speech of some
length in which he declared that the time had come for testing the
principles on which the House should act, and with this object in view
he would throw down the gauntlet to the friends of responsible
government by nominating Mr. J. W. Weldon, to fill the chair. This
gentleman was a very fit representative of the old system, for besides
being a member for Kent, he filled almost all the offices in that county
which one man could hold. He was postmaster of Richibucto, deputy
treasurer for the port of Richibucto, issuer of marriage licenses for
the county of Kent, keeper of the seals and clerk of the peace and of
the inferior court of common pleas, and registrar of probates for the
same county.

Mr. Wilmot was nominated for the speakership by Mr. Hill, of Charlotte,
but declined to run; the odds were too great, and so Mr. Weldon, the
opponent of responsible government, was elected without opposition. This
was an unsatisfactory result after so many years of conflict, but the
friends of Reform, although they had to admit defeat, were neither
daunted nor discouraged. They knew that many other questions besides the
abstract one of the adoption of responsible government had influenced
the recent election, and that the new principles had been blamed for
results that would have been avoided if they had been in operation. For
instance, the transfer of the casual and territorial revenues to the
treasury of the province in 1837 had placed a very large sum, amounting
to L150,000, at the disposal of the legislature. All this money had been
dissipated by extravagant grants,