When Lord Metcalfe assumed the responsibilities of his post, he found in office a Liberal administration, led by Mr. Baldwin, the eminent Reform leader of Upper Canada, and Mr. Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, afterwards chief justice of Lower Canada and a baronet, who had been at the outset, like all his countrymen, opposed to the union, as unjust to their province.  What originally excited their antagonism were the conditions exacted by the legislature of Upper Canada:  an equality of representation, though the French section had a population of two hundred thousand more than the western province, the exclusion of the French language from the legislature, and the imposition of the heavy debt of Upper Canada on the revenues of the united provinces.  But unlike Mr. Papineau, with whom he had acted during the political struggles in Lower Canada, Mr. Lafontaine developed a high order of discreet statesmanship after the union, and recognised the possibility of making French Canada a force in government.  He did not follow the example of Mr. John Neilson, who steadily opposed the union—­but determined to work it out fairly and patiently on the principles of responsible government.

Lord Metcalfe, at the very outset, decided not to distribute the patronage of the crown under the advice of his responsible advisers, but to ignore them, as he declared, whenever he deemed it expedient.  No responsible ministers could, with any regard to their own self-respect, or to the public interests, submit to a practice directly antagonistic to responsible government, then on its trial.  Consequently, all the members of the Baldwin-Lafontaine government, with the exception of Mr. Daly, immediately resigned, when Lord Metcalfe followed so unconstitutional a course.  Mr. Dominick Daly, afterwards knighted when governor of Prince Edward’s Island—­who had no party proclivities, and was always ready to support the crown in a crisis—­became nominally head of a weak administration.  The ministry was only completed after a most unconstitutional delay of several months, and was even then only composed of men whose chief merit was their friendliness to the governor, who dissolved the assembly and threw all the weight of the crown into the contest.  The governor’s party was returned with a very small majority, but it was a victory, like that of Sir Francis Bond Head in 1835, won at the sacrifice of the dignity of the crown, and at the risk of exciting once more public discontent to a dangerous degree.  Lord Metcalfe’s administration was strengthened when Mr. Draper resigned his legislative councillorship and took a seat in the assembly as leader.  Lord Metcalfe’s conduct received the approval of the imperial authorities, who elevated him to the peerage—­so much evidence that they were not yet ready to concede responsible government in a complete sense.  The result was a return to the days of old paternal government, when the parliamentary opposition was directed against