safe man with no private
interests to serve, and he was quite content to allow Macdonald and
Cartier a free hand in the direction of public affairs. {45} Under
their united guidance much was accomplished. During the first session
after the formation of the Liberal-Conservative party the two great
questions which had long distracted the united province of Canada--the
Clergy Reserves and the Seigneurial Tenure--were settled on terms which
were accounted satisfactory by all moderate and reasonable men. Both
the measures which the Government introduced to adjust these matters
were opposed at every stage by Brown, Dorion, and other professed
champions of the popular will.[2] Brown, who had never forgotten the
failure of the Conservative leaders to open negotiations with him on
the defeat of the Hincks Government, vented his wrath alternately on
the new Ministry and on the Roman Catholic Church, assailing both with
amazing violence. Despite this unrestrained vehemence, impulsiveness,
and lack of discretion, George Brown's great ability and intellectual
power made him a formidable opponent, as the ministers learned to their
cost.

{46} Meanwhile, as the different groups settled into their places,
political parties in the legislature became more clearly defined. The
French-Canadian ministerialists soon ceased to be regarded as anything
but Conservatives; and while many of the Upper-Canadian supporters of
the Government long continued to be known as 'Baldwin Reformers,' the
line of separation between them and their Conservative allies grew
fainter every day. It was inevitable that this should be so. Baldwin
himself had disappeared. Hincks had left the country. John Ross, the
leading member of the Liberal wing of the coalition, had resigned from
the Cabinet. So it came to pass, after the withdrawal of Sir Allan
MacNab, that many quondam Liberals grew to realize that there was no
longer any reason why they should not unite under the leadership of the
man who inspired equally the confidence and the regard of the whole
party.

All this was gall and wormwood to Brown, who pursued Macdonald with a
malignity which has no parallel in our happier times. Nor, it must be
confessed, did Macdonald fail to retort. Though not a resentful
person, nor one who could not control his feelings, he never disguised
his personal antipathy {47} towards the man who had persistently and
for many years misrepresented and traduced him. On on