which had taken possession of his frame. But the struggle was a hopeless one. After all his physical and mental sufferings he sank quietly to rest at Cowes, as already recorded, on the 28th of July, 1840. He left no successor in the ranks of the Liberal party in England, but he was quite justified in hoping that he had not lived in vain. His Canada mission marks an important epoch in the history of colonial government, and his name well deserves to be held by ourselves and our descendants as something more than a memory and a tradition. His infirmity of temper was a solitary blot upon an otherwise spotless record, and even that blot has been looked at through a magnifying glass. In estimating Lord Durham's character it should always be borne in mind that he was a man very much in earnest. It is possible that not a little of his so-called irritability was merely the vigorous expression of strong and not unamiable feeling, evoked by the intensity of his convictions. Very earnest men are often supposed to be angry and petulant when they are only injudiciously sincere. A popular contemporary writer -Mr. Justin McCarthy *-thus aptly sums up the more salient points of his Lordship's character and career: "His proud and sensitive spirit could ill bear the contradictions and humiliations that had been forced upon him. His was an eager and a passionate nature, full of that sava indignatio which, by his own acknowledgment, tortured the heart of Swift. He wanted to the success of his political career that proud patience which the gods are said to love, and by virtue of which great men live down misappreciation, and hold out until they see themselves justified, and hear the reproaches turn into cheers. But if Lord Durham's personal career was in any way a failure, his policy for the Canadas was a splendid success. It established the principles of colonial government. There were undoubtedly defects in the construction of the actual scheme which Lord Durham initiated, and which Lord Sydenham, who died not * "A History of Our Own Times; " Chap. III. long after him, instituted. The legislative union of the two Canadas was in itself a makeshift, and was only adopted as such. Lord Durham would have had it otherwise if he might; but he did not see his way then to anything like the complete federation scheme afterwards adopted. But the success of the policy lay in the broad principles it established, and to which other colonial systems as well as that of the Dominion of Canada owe their strength and security to-day. One may say, with little help from the merely fanciful, that the rejoicings of emancipated colonies might have been in his dying ears as he sank into his early grave." CHAPTER II. THE UNION ACT. 66 The Queen's Government have no desire to thwart the representative assemblies of British North America in their measures of reform and improvement. They have no wish to make those provinces the resource for patronage at home. They are earnestly intent on giving to the talent and character of leading persons in the colonies, advantages similar to those which talent and character, employed in the public service, obtain in the United Kingdom. Her Majesty has no desire to maintain any system of policy among her North American subjects which opinion condemns."-Despatch from Lord John Russell to the Governor-General of Canada, dated 14th October, 1839. ORD DURHAM'S report was seed sown in good ground. From the time when it became public property it formed a prominent topic of discussion among British statesmen, and added not a little to the reputation of both his Lordship and his secretary, Mr. Charles Buller.* Most people approved of it; a few found fault with some of its clauses; but there was no difference of opinion as to the great ability and industry which had gone to its production as a whole. In Upper Canada the Reform party, who had long been struggling against the Family Compact under great disadvantages, and who had strenuously contended for many of the principles recognized by the report, received it with enthusiasm. The Legislative Assembly of that Province passed a resolution in favour of union. The Conservatives, * Mr. Buller was another distinguished man in his day who was only prevented by his untimely death from achieving permanent fame. He was at one time a pupil of the late Thomas Carlyle, who subsequently became his biographer. In politics he was a philosophic radical, and a man of enlightened and capacious views. In his youth he was the admirer of Miss Jane Welsh, of Haddington, who became the wife of Mr. Carlyle. however, were very well satisfied with the existing order of things, and were, almost to a man, opposed to any change. The Honourable -afterwards Sir-John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, who had long been the chief guide, philosopher and friend of the dominant faction in the Province, went to England at this time, and during his stay there, towards the close of the year 1839, published what was intended as a counterblast to Lord Durham's report, under the title of "Canada and the Canada Bill." It strove to show that the division of the Provinces in 1791 had worked satisfactorily, and that the carrying out of his Lordship's recommendations would by no means remove existing evils or promote the welfare of the country. Mr. Robinson had sixteen years before been an advocate of such a union as he now opposed, but had subsequently seen reason for changing his views. His little book was well written, and presented the case from his side with great clearness, but it was like arguing against the doctrine of gravitation. A few fossilized Tories on both sides of the Atlantic complimented the author upon having conducted his argument with mathematical precision, but it produced no more effect upon the British Parliament than erst did King Canute's command upon the foaming brine. The Atlantic was not to be turned back by Mrs. Partington's mop, although the mop in the present instance was of most respectable conformation, and held out hopes of developing into a broom which should sweep with remarkable cleanness. In Lower Canada public opinion was much divided. A large majority of the British population approved of the project of union, but there was a considerable minority on the other side. The French Canadians were almost unanimous in their disapproval of the scheme. It thus seemed probable that there would be no slight * In 1822 there was considerable agitation on the subject of a union of the Provinces, but the opposition to it, both in Canada and in the House of Commons, was overwhelming, and the project was shelved for the time. difficulty in obtaining general assent to the carrying out of Lord Durham's recommendations. But, the will being present, a way was soon found. During the session of 1839 a Bill for reuniting the Canadas was introduced into the Imperial Parliament by Lord John Russell. When it came to be dealt with by a committee of the House of Commons it was found that some additional information was needed. It was also thought desirable to obtain the formal concurrence of the Canadians, as expressed through their respective Legislatures. To effect these objects it was necessary to send out some clear-headed man, possessed of a large share of tact, and with a due sense of how much was involved in his enterprise. The gentleman fixed upon to undertake this important mission was Mr. Charles Poulett Thomson, better known to Canadians by his subsequent title of Lord Sydenham. Mr. Thomson, though still a young man to be entrusted with a matter of such importance, had had large experience as a politician and diplomatist. He was particularly well informed respecting mercantile affairs, having been bred to commercial pursuits, and was an ardent disciple of Free Trade doctrines. He had been an hereditary member of an old established and wealthy mercantile house largely connected with the Russian trade. At the time of his entry into public life most of the leading merchants of London-his own father included -were Tories, and he had been reared amid Tory influences. The particular branch of trade in which his firm were engaged, however, and his own reading and observation, had turned his mind in an opposite direction on all purely economical questions. He had become a disciple of Mill and Ricardo, and the personal friend of Jeremy Bentham and Joseph Hume. Certain family connections, moreover, doubtless had some influence upon the formation of his opinions. He was allied, by the marriage of one of his sisters, to the Barings, and the head of that great house (who subsequently |