It was now a political war a outrance between Lord Falkland and Mr. Howe, from 1842 until the governor left the province in 1846.  Lord Falkland made strenuous efforts to detach Mr. MacNab, Mr. Uniacke and other Liberals from Mr. Howe, and induce them to enter the government, but all to no purpose.  He now gave up writing letters to the press, and attacked his opponents in official communications addressed to the colonial office, which supported him, as it did Lord Metcalfe, under analogous circumstances.  These despatches were laid without delay on the tables of the houses, to be used far and wide against the recalcitrant Liberals.  Mr. Howe had again renewed his connection with the press, which he had left on becoming speaker and councillor, and had become editor of the Nova Scotian, and the Morning Chronicle, of which Mr. Annand was the proprietor.  In these influential organs of the Liberal party—­papers still in existence—­Mr. Howe attacked Lord Falkland, both in bitter prose and sarcastic verse.  All this while the governor and his council contrived to control the assembly, sometimes by two or three votes, sometimes by a prorogation when it was necessary to dispose summarily of a troublesome question.  Public opinion began to set in steadily against the government.  The controversy between Lord Falkland and Mr. Howe reached its climax on the 21st February, 1846, when a despatch was brought down to the house, referring to the speaker, Mr. William Young, and his brother, George R. Young, as the associates of “reckless” and “insolvent” men—­the reference being to Mr. Howe and his immediate political friends.  When the despatch had been read, Mr. Howe became greatly excited, and declared amid much disorder that if “the infamous system” of libelling respectable colonists in despatches sent to the colonial office was continued, “without their having any means of redress ... some colonist would by-and-by, or he was much mistaken, hire a black fellow to horsewhip a lieutenant-governor.”

It was time that this unhappy conflict should end.  The imperial authorities wisely transferred Lord Falkland to Bombay, where he could do no harm, and appointed Sir John Harvey to the government of Nova Scotia.  Like Lord Elgin in Canada, he was discreetly chosen by the Reform ministry, as the sequel showed.  He was at first in favour of a coalition government like his predecessors, but he wisely dissolved the assembly when he found that the leading Liberals positively refused to go into an alliance with the members of the executive council, or any other set of men, until the people had decided between parties at the polls.  The result was a victory for the Liberals, and as soon as the assembly met a direct motion of want of confidence was carried against the government, and for the first time in the history of the country the governor called to his council men exclusively belonging to the opposition in the popular branch.  Mr. Howe was not called upon to form a cabinet—­his quarrel with Lord Falkland had to be resented somehow—­but the governor’s choice was Mr. James Boyle Uniacke, who gave a prominent position in the new government to the great Liberal, to whom responsible government owed its final success in this maritime province.