o the stages in Canadian history had been recorded by the term of
office of the Governors; henceforth it was to be the tenure of Cabinets
which counted. Elgin ceased even to attend the Council, and after his
time the Governor became more and more the constitutional monarch,
busied in laying corner stones and listening to tiresome official
addresses. In emergencies, and especially in the gap or interregnum
between Ministries, the personality of the Governor might count, but as
a rule this power remained latent. Yet in two turning points in Canadian
history, both of which had to do with the relations of Canada to the
United States, Elgin was to play an important part: the Annexation
Movement of 1849 and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854.

In the struggle for responsible government, loyalty to the British
Crown, loyalty of a superior and exclusive brand, had been the creed and
the war cry of the Tory party. Yet in 1849 men saw the hotheads of this
group in Montreal stoning a British Governor General and setting fire to
the Parliament Buildings, while a few months later their elders issued a
manifesto urging the annexation of Canada to the United States. Why this
sudden shift? Simply because the old colonial system they had known and
supported had come to an end. The Empire had been taken to mean racial
ascendancy and trade profit. Now both the political and the economic
pillars were crumbling, and the Empire appeared to have no further
excuse for existence.

In the past British connection had meant to many of the English
minority in Lower Canada a means of redressing the political balance,
of retaining power in face of a body of French-speaking citizens
outnumbering them three or four to one. Now that support had been
withdrawn. Britain had consented, unwillingly, to the setting up of
responsible government and the calling to office of men who a dozen
years before had been in arms against the Queen or fleeing from the
province. This was gall and wormwood to the English. But when the
Ministry introduced, and the Assembly passed, the Rebellion Losses Bill
for compensating those who had suffered destruction of property in the
outbreak, and when the terms were so drawn as to make it possible, its
critics charged, that rebels as well as loyalists would be compensated,
flesh and blood could bear no more. The Governor was pelted with rotten
eggs when he came down to the House to sign the bill, and the buildings
where Parliament had