ngland, the
House of Commons, the theatres. The battle-lanterns of Britain's
thousand ships were lit by candles. Supplies of tallow must be fetched
from far lands, such as Russia. And this business formed the
governor-general of Canada. As a boy in his teens he was sent into the
counting-house, an apprentice to commerce, and so he escaped the
'education of a gentleman' in the brutal public schools and the
degenerate universities of the time. Business in those days had a sort
of sanctity and was governed by punctilious--almost religious--routine.
In the interests of the business he travelled, while young and
impressionable, to Russia, and mixed to his advantage with the
cosmopolitan society of the capital. Ill-health drove him to the south
of France and Italy, where he resided for two years. His was the rare
nature which really profits by travel. Thus, in a nation of one
tongue, he became a fluent speaker of several European languages; and,
in a nation which prides itself on being blunt {35} and plain, he was
noted for his suave, pleasing, 'foreign' manners. Poulett Thomson
became, in fact, a thorough man of the world, with well-defined
ambitions. He left business and entered politics as a thoroughgoing
Liberal and a convinced free-trader long before free trade became
England's national policy. Another title to distinction was his
friendship with Bentham, who assisted personally in the canvass when
Thomson stood for Dover. From 1830 onwards he was intimately
associated with the leaders of reform. He was a friend of Durham's,
and they had worked together in negotiating a commercial treaty with
France. Continuity in the new Canadian policy was assured by personal
consultations with Durham before Thomson started on his mission.
'Poulett Thomson's policy was based on the Durham Report, and most of
his schemes in regard to Canada were devised under Durham's own roof in
Cleveland Row.'

[Illustration: Lord Sydenham. From an engraving by G. Browning in
M'Gill University Library.]

Business, travel, and politics combined to form the character of
Poulett Thomson. His well-merited titles, Baron Sydenham and Toronto,
tend to obscure the fact that he was essentially a member of the great
middle class, a civilian who had never worn a sword or {36} a military
uniform. He represented that element in English life which is always
enriching the House of Peers by the addition of sheer intellectual
eminence, like that of