ief attention. Sir Allan
MacNab, the leader of the Conservative party, had had a long and
diversified experience. He was born at Niagara in 1798, and at an
early age took up the profession of arms. When the Americans attacked
Toronto in 1813, Allan MacNab, then a boy at school, was one of a
number selected to carry a musket. He afterwards entered the Navy and
was rated as a {43} midshipman on board Sir James Yeo's ship on the
Great Lakes. MacNab subsequently joined the 100th Regiment under
Colonel Murray, and was engaged in the storming of Niagara. He was a
member and speaker of the old House of Assembly of Upper Canada, and in
1841 was elected to the first parliament under the new Union. For
sixteen years he continued to represent Hamilton, serving during a
portion of the time as speaker of the Assembly. In 1860 he was elected
a member of the Legislative Council, and was chosen speaker of that
body a few months prior to his death in 1862. In 1854, as we have
seen, he was called upon, as the recognized leader of the Opposition,
to form the new Ministry. He thus became prime minister, an event that
caused some grumbling on the part of younger spirits who thought Sir
Allan rather a 'back number.' It has been charged against Sir John
Macdonald that he at the time intrigued to accomplish his old chief's
overthrow, but there is not a particle of truth in the statement. When
forming his plans for the general elections of 1854, Macdonald thus
wrote:

You say truly that we are a good deal hampered with 'old blood.' Sir
Allan {44} will not be in our way, however. He is very reasonable, and
requires only that we should not in his 'sere and yellow leaf' offer
him the indignity of casting him aside. This I would never assent to,
for I cannot forget his services in days gone by.[1]

Sir Allan was a Tory of the 'Family Compact' school, which with changed
conditions was fast becoming an anachronism. He was at the same time a
loyal and faithful public servant.

MacNab retired from the premiership in 1856 and was succeeded by
Colonel (afterwards Sir) Etienne Tache, who had held Cabinet office
continuously since 1848. Tache was a more moderate man than Sir Allan,
without his ambition or intractability; but he does not appear to have
been distinguished by any particular aptitude for public life, and the
prominence he attained was in large measure the result of circumstance.
He was, however, generally regarded as a