They did not want to vote for Christie's motion because Christie's motion was the last thing they desired, and their declarations during the debate would have made voting against it too indecent even for their indecent sense of fitness. They therefore sneaked out of the House. But the question was one too near their hearts for their anxiety not to betray itself. They hovered about the entrance, they peeped through the slit, they bobbed in their heads through the half-opened door. A member saw them and moved that the Sergeant-at-arms should take them into custody and bring them up to vote. They were brought in and told they must vote. Every one of them voted for the long adjournment. Unfortunate men! The vote decided by a majority of one that there should be no holidays but the three religious ones. However the question was raised again, influence having meanwhile been brought to bear on members. Gowan carried his motion by a majority of ten.

On January 21st, 1845, Mr. Gowan moved an address to his Excellency to grant an inquiry into the management of the Board of Works, in which there had been a great deal of jobbing. Men who came paupers a few weeks before, with tenders in their hands, were now worth twenty thousand pounds. The InspectorGeneral opposed Mr. Gowan's motion, who withdrew it under protest and expressions of regret that a member of the Administration should be found to assist in stifling inquiry. A few days afterwards, another supporter of the Government, Dr. Dunlop, said the Board of Works had become a curse.

About this time the Government brought in a Bill forbidding persons to carry arms unless licensed. A search for arms was to be authorized, with all the tyranny of forcible entry. Certain districts were to be placed under a ban, and one hundred mounted police raised to carry out the Act. This measure seems to have been directed at those of the Irish people who were building the canals.

Mr. Hale, the Government member for Sherbrooke, said the Bill had been described as one to put down Irishmen. No; but the Bill would have the effect of preventing quarrels among a warm-blooded people, and that was sufficient reason for passing it. It was a measure inspired by the contractors, some of whom,

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in our own day, have sought to influence Governments to bring in Bills which would enable them to oppress their poor workmen.

The followers of Baldwin defended the labourers, most or all of whom came from the cradle of Baldwin's family. Mr. Drummond (now Judge Drummond) reminded the House of the report signed by himself and his brother commissioners appointed to inquire into the canal riots. Men who had been branded as savage," were not savage by nature-were not wanton violators of the peace, but had been goaded to error by the violence of their task-masters.

At this time the condition of things, so far as Responsible Government was concerned, was no better than when Metcalfe was without an Executive Council. Ministers took no notice whatever of a defeat. The whole party or mob professing to support them, presented a sickening picture of corruption, deceit, and selfseeking in all its multifarious forms.*

Sir Charles Metcalfe's malady was hastening that departure for which his enemies longed. In January, he wrote home a pathetic account of his position. He had lost the use of one eye, and the eye which was still useful sympathised with that which was destroyed; nor was there any hope of the eradication of the cancer. He had now, to his great regret, to use the hand of another to write his letters and despatches. He was racked by pains above the

* Dr. Barker, the editor of the British Whig, a Conservative journal, wrote, on the 14th February, 1845:

A defeat is now a matter of ordinary occurrence, happening whenever half a dozen Conservative members want anything to be done which is unpalatable to the Ministry. The last defeat was on the Reduction of Salaries' Bill -the one before was on the Canada Company Tax Bill. On this subject the Upper Canada members were divided, it being a matter of doubt whether the wild lands of the Company, in the Huron tract, should be liable to the ordinary District Tax or not. The Ministry were of opinion that an exception should be taken in the Company's favour, seeing which, the whole Opposition rose in one body and voted for the Bill. The numbers were 52 to 12.

"I am heartily sick and disgusted with Montreal and the House of Assembly, and wish myself at home a thousand times. I go every day after dinner to pass the evening in the reporter's box, and when I get there can't stay an hour. Some piece of chicanery or double-faced intrigue is sure to provoke me, and send me out with a flea in my lug. Let the matter be ever so bare-faced or scandalous, you are sure to see lots of honourable members advocate it and defend it unblushingly.

"The Lower Canada members appear to much greater advantage than their upper country brethren. All the quarrelling and fighting all the fending and,proving—all the special pleading and false colouring-are left to the Conservatives."

eye and down the right side of the face as far as the chin. The cheek towards the nose and mouth was permanently swelled. He could not open his mouth to its usual width, and it was with difficulty he inserted and masticated food. He no longer looked forward to a cure. On this point he was hopeless. He would have been glad to return home. But he could not, he wrote, reconcile it to his sense of duty to quit his post in the existing state of affairs. Among the dreams of his youth was to be a peer. The Imperial Government knowing this, remembering his past services, and his present difficulties, and it may be, that they would have added, his mistakes, remembering also the state of his health, recommended Her Majesty to raise him to the peerage. A A peerage it was thought would add to his strength in his struggles with the constitutional party which was represented in Metcalfe's despatches as tainted with rebellion. Both Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley wrote him private letters of congratulation, full of that generous spirit which characterizes English politics. Alas! the honour came too late for Metcalfe to enjoy it. There was a time, he wrote to his sister, when he would have rejoiced in a peerage. He would have highly prized the privilege of devoting his life to the service of his Queen and country in the House of Lords. But he was now without any ground of confidence that he should ever be able to undertake that duty with any efficiency. The only gratification it could bring him now was this: it proved that his services were not unapprciated; he knew that kind hearts would rejoice at his elevation. Now, as at all times, he was kindly, and gentle, and affectionate in his private relations.

On the 25th February, Mr. Prince, seconded by Mr. Roblin, moved an address to His Excellency on his elevation to the peerage. The resolution expressed the gratitude of the House to the Sovereign for rewarding the merit of the Governor. This address was passed by a majority of twenty in a house of seventy members. Baldwin made a speech which can only be excused by remembering the heated passions of the time. Aylwin said he could congratulate neither Sir Charles Metcalfe nor the British House of Peers. So far from deserving a peerage, he said Metcalfe should have been taken home and tried for high crimes and misdemea

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nours. Others spoke in a like strain. The proper thing was to have given a silent vote.

On the 16th of March, Mr. Draper introduced his University Bill, which proposed that the University of Upper Canada should embrace three colleges: King's as the Episcopalian; Queen's, for the established Presbyterians; and Victoria for the Methodist. On the 11th, the Bill was brought up for second reading, when, after an able speech from Draper, urging his fellow Churchmen, who objected even to attend a literary class with dissenters, to beware, the debate was adjourned until the 18th instant. On that day, Mr. Hagarty, now Chief Justice, was heard at the bar as counsel for the University.

Boulton moved the rejection of the Bill. Mr. Robinson, who had been appointed Solicitor-General for Lower Canada, resigned. Metcalfe wrote despondingly to Lord Stanley. In the previous year, during nine months, he had laboured in vain to complete his Council. Now he had again to fish in troubled waters for a Solicitor-General for Lower Canada. Draper assured the Governor that the Government could not possibly survive without an infusion of new vigour. The Ministers wanted weight and influence. Several members declared that they only voted for the second reading to keep the Ministers in, but that, if the Bill went farther they would vote against it. This was the attitude of one of the Ministers himself-Solicitor-General Sherwood. The second reading was passed; but the Bill had to be dropped. Mr. Draper had declared, on the 4th of March, that he and his colleagues would stand or fall with the measure. There was no sign of one of them quitting his seat.

The conduct of Mr. Robinson appears amid the wretched political morality of his colleagues like a lily in a stagnant fen. Among such reeds as Smith and such rushes as Sherwood, Robinson stood like an elm. He might, he said, with a manliness which must have cut like a sword the heart of Sherwood, under some private understanding have voted for the second reading and yet retained his office. "But, Mr, Speaker, though I am poor I can afford to lose my office, but I cannot afford to lose my character." At these words Sherwood held a paper before his face.

A few days later one of those disagreeable and discreditable

scenes which have so frequently disfigured Canadian politics occurred. M. Papineau had introduced an Education Bill. M. Morin, speaking on this measure, said the Government had attempted by corruption to procure assistance from the Liberal side of the House. Smith, the Attorney-General, sprang to his feet and challenged proof of the fact. Lafontaine replied that he was prepared at any moment to prove attempts to corrupt the House on the part of the Ministry. Many of the French Canadian members on applying to the Government regarding the business of their counties were met by the answer that they did not support the Government. Mr. Bertrand had had replies of this kind from both Mr. Daly and M. Papineau. Daly declared that in no conversation he ever had with any member of the Opposition was there a word which was capable of such a construction. Bertrand then rose and confirmed what Lafontaine had stated. He said he was willing to believe that Mr. Daly was joking. With M. Papineau, however, the case was quite different. He was quite serious. He had said expressly that he regretted he could do no more for his countrymen, but that they gave him no support in Parliament. If they did this he might do something for them. To this Bertrand said he replied:-" What! must we sell our conscience to procure justice in this House?"

Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of March. The session had lasted four months, and the legislative fruit was small. Everything of any magnitude that was promised was where it was when Parliament met. The University, the Administration of Justice, the Militia, the Civil List, the Prisons and Lunatic Asylums, on all of which measures had been promised, the close of the session found untouched; and naturally, for a weak Ministry can never do more than buttress up an ignoble tenure of office by disreputable shifts.

And poor Metcalfe, whose nature shrank from intrigue, who was quite unfit for the position of a party leader, which he had practically assumed, when he looked back over those four months, felt heartily ashamed of himself. In seeking to strengthen himself, he had leaned on broken reeds which had pierced his hand. In clutching helplessly at power he had had to touch pitch, and the sense of defilement stung that upright soul. He abhorred tactics, and