itself most distasteful.
At the same time, there is no doubt that George Brown's anti-Catholic,
anti-French crusade, while but one factor among several in contributing
to the downfall of the Baldwin and Hincks Governments, became in after
years, when directed against successive Liberal-Conservative
Administrations, the most formidable obstacle against which Macdonald
had to contend.

The result of the _Globe's_ propaganda amounted to this, that for
twenty years the Conservative leader found himself in a large minority
in his own province of Upper Canada, and dependent upon Lower Canada
for support--truly an unsatisfactory state of affairs to himself
personally, and one most inimical to the welfare of the country. It
was not pleasant for a public man to be condemned, election after
election, to fight a losing battle {33} in his home province, where he
was best known, and to be obliged to carry his measures by the vote of
his allies of another province. It is therefore not to be wondered at
that Sir John Macdonald in his reminiscent moods sometimes alluded to
these days, thus:

Had I but consented to take the popular side in Upper Canada, I could
have ridden the Protestant horse much better than George Brown, and
could have had an overwhelming majority. But I willingly sacrificed my
own popularity for the good of the country, and did equal justice to
all men.[8]

Scattered throughout his correspondence are several references of a
similar tenor. I do not believe, however, that the temptation ever
seriously assailed him. Indeed, we find that at every step in his
career, when the opportunity presented itself for showing sympathy with
the French Canadians in their struggle for the maintenance of their
just rights, he invariably espoused their cause, not then a popular
one. At the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 there seems to
have been a general disposition to hasten the {34} absorption of the
French-Canadian people, so confidently predicted by Lord Durham. That
nobleman declared with the utmost frankness that, in his opinion, the
French Canadians were destined speedily to lose their distinctive
nationality by becoming merged in the Anglo-Saxon communities
surrounding them, and he conceived that nothing would conduce so
effectually to this result as the union of Upper and Lower Canada. His
successor, Lord Sydenham, evidently shared these views upon the
subject, for his Cabinet did not contain a single