The duration of the Treaty was limited to ten years, and has not been extended; but it is not too much to hope that it has had some effect in engendering feelings of friendliness, and of community of interest, which may long outlast itself.

[Sidenote:  Views of Government.]

It has been already noticed that the ‘annexation movement’ of 1849 died away without serious consequences; and extracts which have been given above sufficiently show to what cause Lord Elgin attributed its extinction.  The powerful attraction of the great neighbouring republic had been counteracted and overcome by the more powerful attraction of self-government at home.  The centrifugal force was no longer equal to the centripetal.  To create this state of feeling had been his most cherished desire; to feel that he had succeeded in creating it was, throughout much obloquy and misunderstanding, his greatest support.

[Sidenote:  Duty of supporting authority,]

From the earliest period of his entrance into political life he had always had the strongest sense of the duty incumbent on every public man of supporting, even in opposition, the authority of Government.  The bitterest reproach which he cast upon the Whigs, in his first Tory ’Letter to the Electors of Great Britain’ in 1835, was that when they found they could not carry on the government themselves, they tried to make it impossible for any other party to do so.  Nor was he less severe, on another occasion, in his reprehension of ’a certain high Tory clique who are always cavilling at royalty when it is constitutional; circulating the most miserable gossip about royal persons and royal entertainments,’ &c.; busily ’engaged in undermining the foundations on which respect for human institutions rests.’  Writing, in May 1850, to Mr. Gumming Bruce, a Tory and Protectionist, he said—­

I shall not despair for England whether Free-traders or Protectionists be in the ascendant, unless I see that the faction out of power abet the endeavours of those who would make the Government of the country contemptible.  Read Montalembert’s speeches.  They are very eloquent and instructive.  He had as full a faith in his religion, and what he considered due to his religion, as you can have in your Corn Laws.  Yet observe how bitterly he now repents having aided those who have undermined in the French public all respect for authority and the powers that be.

If all that your Protectionist friends want to do is to put themselves, or persons in whom they have greater confidence than the present Ministry, in office, their object is, I confess, a perfectly legitimate one.  What I complain of is the system of what is termed damaging the Government, when resorted to by those who have no such purpose in view; or at least no honest intention of assuming responsibilities which they are endeavouring to render intolerable to those who are charged with them.

[Sidenote:  especially in Colonies.]