gs forward the Canada
question in the House of Commons may be well versed in all the
official details, and have immediate personal control over the
local administration; and the excuse for sending out Thomson, and
accepting Colborne's resignation, is the necessity of appointing
a Governor thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed both
abroad and at home, cognisant of the intentions, and possessed of
the confidence of the Cabinet. All this will appear to furnish
inadequate grounds for recalling Colborne, who has acted with
sense and vigour, albeit not pretending to be a statesman or a
legislator. A story is told, which shows the levity of the
Government people, and how they make game of what might be
thought matter of anything but pleasantry to them. At the end of
the season there is always a fish dinner at Greenwich, the
whipper-in (Secretary of Treasury), Ben Stanley, in the chair;
and this is on the plan of the Beefsteak Club, everybody saying
what he pleases, and dealing out gibes and jests upon his friends
and colleagues according to the measure of his humour and
capacity. Normanby, still smarting from the attacks of Brougham,
was made the mark for these jocularities, after his health being
drunk thus: 'Lord Normanby and the liberation of the Prisoners.'
At a subsequent period, Rutherford, the Lord Advocate, attacked
the Attorney-General, and said he had long known his learned
friend as the advocate of liberty, but he had lately seen him in
quite a new capacity, prosecuting in the Tory fashion, and having
people shut up in jail in all parts of the country. Campbell said
it was very true that he had lately had a very unpleasant duty to
perform, and that he had been the unwilling instrument of
incarcerating many of Her Majesty's subjects, but that he had all
along been consoled by the reflexion that there was every
probability of his noble friend Lord Normanby making a progress,
during the recess, and letting them all out again. Normanby,
however, did not like the witticism, and complained afterwards
that the dinner was very dull, and the jokes exceedingly heavy.

[Page Head: A GREENWICH DINNER.]

The Dover dinner to the Duke of Wellington,[1] which took place
the other day, did not present an agreeable spectacle. Brougham,
who had thrust himself in among the party, was pitched upon, as
having the best gift of the gab, to propose the Duke's health,
which he did in a very tawdry speech, stuffed with claptraps