objects."
But of the French Canadians he could not give so favorable a report.
Efforts were still made by some of the old Papineau party to mislead the
people; but he was satisfied they would not again be able to induce the
peasantry to support any attempt at disturbance. It was natural that
that party should still feel some soreness at the utter failure of their
recent attempts and the disappointment of their hopes; and affairs took
the longer time in being brought into perfect order and harmony through
a strange mortality which took place among the first Governors-general.
Lord Sydenham died the next year of lockjaw, brought on by a fall from
his horse; Sir Charles Bagot was forced to retire in a state of hopeless
bad health after an administration equally brief; two years later, Sir
Charles Metcalfe, who succeeded him, returned home only to die; and it
was not till a fourth Governor, Lord Elgin, succeeded to the government
that it could be said that the new system, though established five years
before, had a fair trial.

Fortunately, he was a man admirably qualified by largeness of
statesman-like views and a most conciliatory disposition for such a post
at such a time; and he strictly carried out the scheme which was implied
by the bill of Lord John Russell, and to a certain extent inaugurated by
Lord Sydenham, selecting his advisers from the party which had the
confidence of the Legislative Assembly, and generally directing his
policy in harmony with their counsels; so that under his government the
working of the colonial constitution was a nearly faithful reproduction
of the parliamentary constitution at home. Such a policy was in reality
only a development of the principle laid down by Pitt half a century
before, and warmly approved by his great rival, that "the only method of
retaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to govern
themselves."[255] And since that day similar constitutions have been
established in our other distant dependencies as they have become ripe
for them--in New Zealand, the Cape, and the Australian colonies--almost
the only powers reserved to the home government in those colonies in
which such constitutions have been established being that of appointing
the governors; that of ratifying or, if necessary, disallowing measures
adopted by the colonial government; and, in cases of necessity, that of
prescribing measures for the adoption of the local Legislatures, and
even of compe