through the province.”  He then proceeded again to press upon the consideration of the government the necessity of following the removal of the imperial restrictions upon navigation and shipping in the colony, by the establishment of a reciprocity of trade between the United States and the British North American Provinces.  The change in the navigation laws took place in 1849, but it was not possible to obtain larger trade with the United States until several years later, as we shall see in a future chapter when we come to review the relations between that country and Canada.

Posterity has fully justified the humane, patient and discreet constitutional course pursued by Lord Elgin during one of the most trying ordeals through which a colonial governor ever passed.  He had the supreme gratification, however, before he left the province, of finding that his policy had met with that success which is its best eulogy and justification.  Two years after the events of 1849, he was able to write to England that he did not believe that “the function of the governor-general under constitutional government as the moderator between parties, the representative of interests which are common to all the inhabitants of the country, as distinct from those that divide them into parties, was ever so fully and so frankly recognized.”  He was sure that he could not have achieved such results if he had had blood upon his hands.  His business was “to humanize, not to harden.”  One of Canada’s ablest men—­not then in politics—­had said to him: 

“Yes, I see it all now, you were right, a thousand times right, though I thought otherwise then.  I own that I would have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured half of what you did,”

and he added, “I should have been justified, too.”  “Yes,” answered Lord Elgin, “you would have been justified because your course would have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the best course.  Mine was a better one.”  And the result was this, in his own words: 

“700,000 French reconciled to England, not because they are getting rebel money; I believe, indeed that no rebels will get a farthing; but because they believe that the British governor is just.  ‘Yes,’ but you may say, ’this is purchased by the alienation of the British.’  Far from it, I took the whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that the Canadian British were never so loyal as they are at this hour; [this was, remember, two years after the burning of Parliament House] and, what is more remarkable still, and more directly traceable to this policy of forbearance, never, since Canada existed, has party spirit been more moderate, and the British and French races on better terms than they are now; and this in spite of the withdrawal of protection, and of the proposal to throw on the colony many charges which the imperial government has hitherto borne.”

Canadians at the beginning of the twentieth century may also say as Lord Elgin said at the close of this letter, Magna est Veritas.