e, I am well aware, dissatisfied
with the conduct of affairs. But I make bold to affirm that so general
is the belief that, under the present circumstances of our commercial
condition, the colonists pay a heavy pecuniary fine for their fidelity
to Great Britain, that nothing but the existence of an unwonted degree
of political contentment among the masses has prevented the cry for
annexation from spreading like wildfire through the province." He then
proceeded again to press upon the consideration of the government the
necessity of following the removal of the imperial restrictions upon
navigation and shipping in the colony, by the establishment of a
reciprocity of trade between the United States and the British North
American Provinces. The change in the navigation laws took place in
1849, but it was not possible to obtain larger trade with the United
States until several years later, as we shall see in a future chapter
when we come to review the relations between that country and Canada.

Posterity has fully justified the humane, patient and discreet
constitutional course pursued by Lord Elgin during one of the most
trying ordeals through which a colonial governor ever passed. He had
the supreme gratification, however, before he left the province, of
finding that his policy had met with that success which is its best
eulogy and justification. Two years after the events of 1849, he was
able to write to England that he did not believe that "the function of
the governor-general under constitutional government as the moderator
between parties, the representative of interests which are common to
all the inhabitants of the country, as distinct from those that divide
them into parties, was ever so fully and so frankly recognized." He
was sure that he could not have achieved such results if he had had
blood upon his hands. His business was "to humanize, not to harden."
One of Canada's ablest men--not then in politics--had said to him:

"Yes, I see it all now, you were right, a thousand times
right, though I thought otherwise then. I own that I would
have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured
half of what you did,"

and he added, "I should have been justified, too." "Yes," answered
Lord Elgin, "you would have been justified because your course would
have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the best
course. Mine was a better one." And the result was this, in his own
words