Though his government in Jamaica was in every sense a success, he decided not to remain any longer than three years, and so wrote in 1845 to Lord Stanley.  Despite his earnest efforts to identify himself with the island’s interests, he had led on the whole a retired and sad life after the death of his wife.  He naturally felt a desire to seek the congenial and sympathetic society of friends across the sea, and perhaps return to the active public life for which he was in so many respects well qualified.  In offering his resignation to the colonial secretary he was able to say that the period of his administration had been “one of considerable social progress”; that “uninterrupted harmony” had “prevailed between the colonists and the local government”; that “the spirit of enterprise” which had proceeded from Jamaica for two years had “enabled the British West Indian colonies to endure with comparative fortitude, apprehensions and difficulties which otherwise might have depressed them beyond measure.”

It was not, however, until the spring of 1846 that Lord Elgin was able to return on leave of absence to England, where the seals of office were now held by a Liberal administration, in which Lord Grey was colonial secretary.  Although his political opinions differed from those of the party in power, he was offered the governor-generalship of Canada when he declined to go back to Jamaica.  No doubt at this juncture the British ministry recognized the absolute necessity that existed for removing all political grievances that arose from the tardy concession of responsible government since the death of Lord Sydenham, and for allaying as far as possible the discontent that generally prevailed against the new fiscal policy of the parent state, which had so seriously paralyzed Canadian industries.  It was a happy day for Canada when Lord Elgin accepted this gracious offer of his political opponents, who undoubtedly recognized in him the possession of qualities which would enable him successfully, in all probability, to grapple with the perplexing problems which embarrassed public affairs in the province.  He felt (to quote his own language at a public dinner given to him just before his departure for Canada) that he undertook no slight responsibilities when he promised “to watch over the interests of those great offshoots of the British race which plant themselves in distant lands, to aid them in their efforts to extend the domain of civilization, and to fulfill the first behest of a benevolent Creator to His intelligent creatures—­’subdue the earth’; to abet the generous endeavour to impart to these rising communities the full advantages of British laws, British institutions, and British freedom; to assist them in maintaining unimpaired—­it may be in strengthening and confirming—­those bonds of mutual affection which unite the parent and dependent states.”