The late Ministers tendered their resignations in a body on Saturday 4th, immediately after the division on the address, which took place on Friday.  I received and answered the address on Tuesday, and then sent for Messrs. Lafontaine and Baldwin.  I spoke to them in a candid and friendly tone:  told them that I thought there was a fair prospect, if they were moderate and firm, of forming an administration deserving and enjoying the confidence of Parliament; that they might count on all proper support and assistance from me.

They dwelt much on difficulties arising out of pretensions advanced in various quarters; which gave me an opportunity to advise them not to attach too much importance to such considerations, but to bring together a council strong in administrative talent, and to take their stand on the wisdom of their measures and policy....

I am not without hopes that my position will be improved by the change of administration.  My present council unquestionably contains more talent, and has a firmer hold on the confidence of Parliament and of the people than the last.  There is, I think, moreover, on their part, a desire to prove, by proper deference for the authority of the Governor-General (which they all admit has in my case never been abused), that they were libelled when they were accused of impracticability and anti-monarchical tendencies.

[Sidenote:  News of the French revolution.]

It was only a few days after this that news reached Canada of the revolution of February in Paris.  On receipt of it he writes:—­

It is just as well that I should have arranged my Ministry, and committed the Flag of Britain to the custody of those who are supported by the large majority of the representatives and constituencies of the province, before the arrival of the astounding intelligence from Europe, which reached us by the last mail.  There are not wanting here persons who might, under different circumstances, have attempted, by seditious harangues if not by overt acts, to turn the example of France, and the sympathies of the United States, to account.

[Sidenote:  Three difficulties.]

But while congratulating Lord Grey on having passed satisfactorily through a crisis which might, under other circumstances, have been attended with very serious results, and on the fact that ’at no period, during the recent history of Canada, had the people of the province generally been better contented, or less disposed to quarrel with the mother-country,’ Lord Elgin did not disguise from himself, or from the Secretary of State, that there were ominous symptoms of disaffection on the part of all the three great sections of the community, the French, the Irish, and the British.