But, for all that, the British posts in the hinterland looked like weak little islands which might be suddenly engulfed in the sea of Indian troubles raging round them.  Then, at the other end of the British line, there were the three maritime provinces to watch over.  New Brunswick had been divided off from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island had been taken from the direct supervision of the home authorities and placed under the command of the new governor at Quebec.  Thus Carleton had to deal directly with everything that happened from the far West to Gaspe, while dealing indirectly with the three maritime provinces and all the troubles that proved too much for their own lieutenant-governors.  There was no chance of concentrating on one thing at a time.  Nothing would wait.  The governor had to watch the writhing tangle as a whole during every minute he devoted to any one kinked and knotted thread.

Fortunately there were some good men in office on both sides of the Atlantic.  Lords Sydney and Grenville, the two cabinet ministers with whom Carleton had most to do, were both sensible and sympathetic.  Years afterwards Grenville, the favourite cousin of Pitt, became the colleague of Fox at the head of the celebrated ’Ministry of All the Talents.’  Hope was an acceptable lieutenant-governor, and his successor, Sir Alured Clarke, was better still.  Francois Bailly, the coadjutor Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec, who had gone to England as French tutor to Carleton’s children, was a most enlightened cleric.  So too was Charles Inglis, the Anglican bishop of Nova Scotia, appointed in 1787.  He was the first Canadian bishop of the Anglican communion and his diocese comprised the whole of British North America.  William Smith, the new chief justice, was as different from Carleton’s last chief justice, Livius, as angels are from devils.  Smith had been an excellent chief justice of his native New York in the old colonial days, and, like Inglis, was a very ardent Loyalist.  He respected all reasonable French-Canadian peculiarities.  But he favoured the British-Constitutional way of ’broadening down from precedent to precedent’ rather than the French way of referring to a supposedly infallible written regulation.  We shall soon meet him as a far-seeing statesman.  But he well deserves an honoured place in Canadian history for his legal services alone.  To him, more than to any other man, is due the nicely balanced adjustments which eventually harmonized the French and English codes into a body of laws adapted to the extraordinary circumstances of the province of Quebec.

Besides the committee on laws Carleton had nominated three other active committees of his council, one on police, another on education, and a third on trade and commerce.  The police committee was of the usual kind and dealt with usual problems in the usual way.  But the education committee brought out all the vexed questions of French and English, Protestant and Roman Catholic, progressive and reactionary.