out a new Governor free from any previous
association with either of the parties, or any of the recent
transactions in the colony, was, probably, the wisest that could have
been adopted. Unfortunately, it was in some degree marred by the choice
of the statesman sent out, Lord Durham, a man of unquestioned ability,
but of an extraordinarily self-willed and overbearing temper. He drew up
a most able report of the state of the provinces, combined with
recommendations of the course to be pursued toward them in future, so
judicious that subsequent ministers, though widely differing from his
views of general politics, saw no better plan than that which he had
suggested; but, unhappily, the measures which he himself adopted,
especially with respect to the treatment of those who had been leaders
in the late rebellion, were such manifest violations of law, that the
government at home had no alternative but that of disallowing some of
them, and carrying a bill of indemnity for others. He took such offence
at their treatment of him, though it was quite inevitable, that he at
once resigned his appointment and returned home. But the next year the
Queen sent down a message to the Houses recommending a union of the two
provinces (a measure which had been the most important, and the very
foundation, of his suggestions), and Lord John Russell introduced a bill
which, as he described its object, he hoped would "lay the foundation of
a permanent settlement of the affairs of the entire colony." The main
feature of the government policy was the formation of "a legislative
union of the two provinces on the principles of a free and
representative government," and the establishment of such a system of
local government as amounted to a practical recognition of the principle
so earnestly repudiated, as we have seen, by Lord John Russell a year or
two before. It was not, perhaps, fully carried out at first. Lord
Sydenham, who had succeeded Lord Durham, reported to the home
government, as the result of a tour which he had taken through a great
part of the country, that in the whole of the Upper Province, and among
the British settlers of the Lower Province, "an excellent spirit
prevailed, and that he had found everywhere a determination to forget
past differences, and to unite in an endeavor to obtain under the union
those practical measures for the improvement of the country which had
been too long neglected in the struggle for party and personal