the inaptitude of the statesman. When it was pleaded for Mr. Percival that he was a good father, Sydney Smith wittily said he had preferred that that gentleman had whipped the little Percivals if he had saved his country. When however a man has passed from the scene, his private character may for a double reason be dwelt on; he is no longer a candidate for public place, and he is beyond hypocrisy. Then if the statesman, or soldier, or poet, or orator has worn the white rose of a blameless private life, it ought to be pointed out. Baldwin was not a man of genius as that term is properly understood. But though he had not the incommunicable gift he seems to have been made of the choicest human clay; no where does this show more beautifully than in his private life. A tenderly affectionate father, as a lover and a husband, this man of somewhat cold and stern manners, takes his place side by side with the heroes of romantic attachments. His wife was the sister of the Hon. Robert Baldwin Sullivan, and therefore his own first cousin. She was singularly beautiful. They were married in 1827; she died in 1836, when he was only thirty-two years of age, and for twenty-two years he cherished her memory, as Petrarch that of Laura, as Dante that of Beatrice. He was accustomed to retire to his room on the anniversary of her death, and meditate and recall in a happy melancholy, the touch of that vanished hand, and hear in the stillness of his sorrow the silvery note of that voice which was forever husbed. I have said he was not a man of genius, but his speeches show power and breadth of argument and sometimes not a little humour. It was he christened Dominick Daly, the permanent secretary, the Vicar of Bray of Canadian politics, the lily of the valley.* He had that which Cicero says is one of the greatest powers an orator can have, authority. At a reform demonstration which took place in the County of Hastings, on the 17th Feb., 1848, a speaker said he had been asked how it was that Mr. Baldwin carried conviction when he had so little of the orator about him. The reply was, "I am not surprised when I consider the patriotic and able course

"Coming to the character of the Hon. Dominick Daly, he (Mr. Baldwin) stopped and asked what he should say of him. That honourable gentleman said he is like the lily of the valley-he toils not, neither does he spin. Really we can afford to make him a present to the government (loud laughter)." Parliamentary report.

he has pursued in public life." His reading was not wide, but his literary taste was good. Moore was his favourite poet. The same fervour which carried conviction to political audiences persuaded juries. They felt he was a man who dared not lie. Mr. James Stitt used to travel with him on his electioneering tours, and he has often heard him say:-' I would rather never be elected at all than tell an untruth to one of these men." His life has something of the completeness and beauty of a well-kept garden, where tree, and hill, and stream balance each other, where if there is no sublimity there is no deformity, where the air has no wild stimulus of the mountain breeze, no smiting thrilling power of ocean wave, but only the domestic purity of the well-kept home. Milton was a disagreeable husband and a harsh father; Howard could turn away from his philanthrophic labours to play the tyrant in his own house, and to invent the dreadful system of solitary confinement; Marlborough was a miser and a corruptionist; the victor of Trafalgar was the slave of a childish vanity; Wolfe was at times a vain-glorious boaster; Pitt was too fond of the bottle; the heroic William was unfaithful to his wife; the youth of Alfred was stained by dissipation. But though Baldwin was neither a Milton, nor a Marlborough, nor a Pitt, but a brave wise statesman who was equal to the demands made on him by his country, if we cannot claim for him that his life was as splendid as that of those great men, we can that it was more balanced.

Baldwin was born on the 12th of May, 1804, on the northwest corner of Frederick Street and Palace (now Front), at the house of his grandfather, Mr. Willcocks. This gentleman was a native of Cork, who in 1790 conceived the project of founding a settlement in Canada. He was promised a township, on condition that he should settle it with emigrants. When he arrived with his emigrants as far as Oswego, he found that the Government had rescinded the Orders in Council. Of the emigrants he had brought out he sent back at his own expense as many as wished to return. Those who were so disposed dispersed themselves throughout the United States, while he and his family came to Canada and received allotments of land. Dr. Baldwin, shortly after coming to Canada, married a daughter of Mr. Willcocks, by

whom he had five sons, two of whom survived him, Robert and William Augustus.

Robert was called to the bar in the Trinity Term of 1825, and practised with his father under the name of Baldwin & Son. They afterwards associated with them Robert Baldwin Sullivan. Robert early became a member of the Osgoode Society, and at his death held the office of Treasurer. He knew the value of a high character to the profession, and as a bencher was very strict in enforcing professional rules. We have seen how he early married his cousin. He had by her two sons and two daughters. One of the daughters married the Honourable John Ross. One of the sons chose the sea for a profession. The eldest son, W. Willcocks, occupied for some time a large farm handed down from his great grandfather, Mr. Willcocks.

In 1824 he ran for the County of York with James E. Small, afterwards Judge of the County of Middlesex, but both were defeated by Messrs. Ketchum and Mackenzie. In the following year, Mr. John B. Robinson, who then represented York (Toronto), vacated his office of Attorney-General, and his seat in Parliament, on becoming Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. Baldwin came forward, his opponent now, being, oddly enough, Mr. James E. Small. Baldwin was returned but lost his seat on petition, there being an informality in the Writ which was issued by the Lieutenant-Governor, instead of by the Speaker of the House. This was one of the first protests against personal, and in favour of parliamentary, government. Mr. Baldwin, on again presenting himself was again elected. The next year, on the death of George IV., parliament was dissolved, and Mr. Baldwin on seeking re-election was defeated by Mr. Jarvis* whom he had beaten twelve months before. From that period until the Union he did not seek a seat in Parliament; but he continued to watch the progress of events and never ceased to contend that so long as the executive officers were independent of the people, no change in the character of the Legislative Council would be other than illusory, or as he

Mr. W. B. Jarvis, then, and for many years afterwards sheriff of the Home District and afterwards of the County of York.

sometimes put it, that the Executive Council to be effective should always be able to command the support of the Legislative Assembly. We have here the key note to his whole political career. He laboured to make the Executive dependent on the will of the people, when such a claim was denounced as revolutionary. It was to secure this object as we shall see, that he fought with such unbending purpose, that generous, noble character, but reactionary governor, Lord Metcalfe, with his ideas of Government borrowed from India and Jamaica.

In 1835, Baldwin visited England and the Continent. While in England he carried on a correspondence with Lord Glenelg, the Minister for the Colonies-for he was denied an interview -urging the necessity of giving the Canadian people a real constitution instead of the sham by which they were mocked. On his return to Canada, he found Sir Francis Bond Head at war with the Assembly and with popular opinion. Influenced perhaps by instructions from home, and perhaps by a sincere desire to serve the Province, Sir Francis Head determined to have an Executive Council composed of the leaders of both parties. He was confessedly no politician. We have had for many years in our midst a distinguished man who is not only infinitely superior to Sir Francis Head as a literary man, but is a veteran political writer. He has contended for government without party, but has never explained the manner in which such a government could be worked under a constitutional system. When Head made overtures to Baldwin, Baldwin said he would afford him assistance on condition that he had his entire confidence, and that responsible government should be established; pointing out that under responsible government His Excellency would have the full power of a constitutional king, which was all that the Canadian constitution, properly understood, gave him; that he would always have the right to accept or reject the advice of any of his executive councellors, they of course resigning on their advice being rejected. "His Excellency," says Baldwin in his letter to Mr. Perry, "very candidly declared his entire dissent from such views and opinions. He, nevertheless, with the most gracious expression of satisfaction at the very full and candid manner in which I had opened them to him, renewed his solicitation for my accept

SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD.

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ance of a seat in the Executive Council, suggesting as an inducement for such acceptance the increased facilities which my place in the Executive Council would afford me towards the more efficiently representing and urging my views." Baldwin told him that no administration could give him much assistance that had not the confidence of the majority of the Provincial Parliament, and that he did not think this confidence could be obtained without more help than his single name would bring. In the second place he said he had no confidence, politically speaking, in the existing councillors, all of them Tories. These were, Peter Robinson, Commissioner of Crown Lands, G. H. Monkland, Inspector General, and Joseph Wells, Bursar of King's College. After a consultation with Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Rolph, Robert Baldwin declined to enter the Government.

The Lieutenant-Governor again sent for him and requested him to state more explicitly what the assistance was to which he had alluded. Baldwin replied that the assistance of Dr. Rolph, Mr. Bidwell, his father, and Mr. Dunn was most desirable. After further negotiations Baldwin, with his friends Rolph and Dunn, were sworn in. The new councillors, as we have seen, did not conceal from the Lieutenant-Governor their views as to the propriety of the Executive Council being consulted in all public affairs. They patriotically gave Sir Francis Head a trial, especially as he urged that in the Council they would have more opportunity of advancing their views. Sir Francis began to make appointments on his own responsibility-appointments which were censured by the Assembly. The duties of the Council were restricted to land matters, and they were kept in ignorance of administrative acts for which, nevertheless, public opinion held them responsible. Contrary altogether to the expectations of the Lieutenant-Governor, of the House of Assembly, and of the public, the old members of the Council joined the new in signing a remonstrance against a system of government under which the sworn councillors were kept studiously in the dark as to the proceedings of the Lieutenant-Governor. It can scarcely be doubted that Sir Francis Head expected that he would have the support of the three councillors who had been for years acting under the old irresponsible system. He, however, did not hesitate as to his.