possible for them to do so, carry out my views for the
maintenance of the connexion with Great Britain and the advancement of
the interests of the province. On this tacit understanding we have
acted together harmoniously up to this time, although I have never
concealed from them that I intend to do nothing which may prevent me
from working cordially with their opponents, if they are forced upon
me. That ministries and Oppositions should occasionally change places,
is of the very essence of our constitutional system, and it is
probably the most conservative element which it contains. By
subjecting all sections of politicians in their turn to official
responsibilities, it obliges heated partisans to place some restraint
on passion, and to confine within the bounds of decency the patriotic
zeal with which, when out of place, they are wont to be animated. In
order, however, to secure these advantages, it is indispensable that
the head of the Government should show that he has confidence in the
loyalty of all the influential parties with which he has to deal, and
that he should have no personal antipathies to prevent him from acting
with leading men.

I feel very strongly that a Governor-General, by acting upon these
views with tact and firmness, may hope to establish a moral influence
in the province which will go far to compensate for the loss of power
consequent on the surrender of patronage to an executive responsible
to the local Parliament. Until, however, the functions of his office,
under our amended colonial constitution, are more clearly defined--
until that middle term which shall reconcile the faithful discharge of
his responsibility to the Imperial Government and the province with
the maintenance of the quasi-monarchical relation in which he now
stands towards the community over which he presides, be discovered and
agreed upon, he must be content to tread along a path which is
somewhat narrow and slippery, and to find that incessant watchfulness
and some dexterity are requisite to prevent him from falling, on the
one side into the _neant_ of mock sovereignty, or on the other
into the dirt and confusion of local factions.

Many of his letters exhibit the same conviction that the remedy for the
evils which he regretted was to be found in the principles of government
first asserted by Lord