Hitherto things have gone on well with me, much better than I hoped for when we parted.  I should have been very willing to meet the Assembly at once, and throw myself with useful measures on the good sense of the people, but my ministers are too weak for this.  They seem to be impressed with the belief that the regular Opposition will of course resist whatever they propose, and that any fragments of their own side, who happen not to be able at the moment to get what they want, will join them.  When I advise them, therefore, to go down to Parliament with good measures and the prestige of a new Governor, and rely on the support of public opinion, they smile and shake their heads.  It is clear that they are not very credulous of the existence of such a controlling power, and that their faith in the efficiency of appeals to selfish and sordid motives is greater than mine.

Nevertheless, we must take the world as we find it, and if new elements of strength are required to enable the Government to go on, it is I think very advisable to give the French a fair opportunity of entering the Ministry in the first instance.  It is also more prudent to enter upon these delicate negotiations cautiously and slowly, in order to avoid, if possible, giving the impression that I am ready to jump down everybody’s throat the moment I touch the soil of Canada.

I believe that the problem of how to govern United Canada would be solved if the French would split into a Liberal and a Conservative party, and join the Upper Canada parties which bear corresponding names.  The great difficulty hitherto has been that a Conservative government has meant a government of Upper Canadians, which is intolerable to the French, and a Radical government a government of French, which is no less hateful to the British.  No doubt the party titles are misnomers, for the radical party comprises the political section most averse to progress of any in the country.  Nevertheless, so it has been hitherto.  The national element would be merged in the political if the split to which I refer were accomplished.

The tottering Ministry attempted to strengthen its position by a junction with some of the leaders of the ‘French’ party; but the attempt was unsuccessful: 

I cannot say that I am surprised or disheartened by the result of these negotiations with the French.  In a community like this, where there is little, if anything, of public principle to divide men, political parties will shape themselves under the influence of circumstances, and of a great variety of affections and antipathies, national, sectarian, and personal; and I never proposed to attempt to force them into a mould of my own forming.

You will observe that no question of principle or of public policy has been mooted by either party during the negotiation.  The whole discussion has turned upon personal considerations.