nd before the elements
of disintegration that were forming within it had fully developed.
After his retirement he returned to the practice of law, and in 1853
he became chief justice of the court of appeal of Lower Canada on the
death of Sir James Stuart. At the same time he received from the Crown
the honour of a baronetcy, which was also conferred on the chief
justice of Upper Canada, Sir John Beverley Robinson.

Political historians justly place LaFontaine in the first rank of
Canadian statesmen on account of his extensive knowledge, his sound
judgment, his breadth of view, his firmness in political crises, and
above all his desire to promote the best interests of his countrymen
on those principles of compromise and conciliation which alone can
bind together the distinct nationalities and creeds of a country
peopled like Canada. As a judge he was dignified, learned and
impartial. His judicial decisions were distinguished by the same
lucidity which was conspicuous in his parliamentary addresses. He died
ten years later than the great Upper Canadian, whose honoured name
must be always associated with his own in the annals of a memorable
epoch, when the principles of responsible government were at last,
after years of perplexity and trouble, carried out in their entirety,
and when the French Canadians had come to recognize as a truth that
under no other system would it have been possible for them to obtain
that influence in the public councils to which they were fully
entitled, or to reconcile and unite the diverse interests of a great
province, divided by the Ottawa river into two sections, the one
French and Roman Catholic, and the other English and Protestant.

CHAPTER VI

THE HINCKS-MORIN MINISTRY.

When LaFontaine resigned the premiership the ministry was dissolved
and it was necessary for the governor-general to choose his successor.
After the retirement of Baldwin, Hincks and his colleagues from Upper
Canada were induced to remain in the cabinet and the latter became the
leader in that province. He was endowed with great natural shrewdness,
was deeply versed in financial and commercial matters, had a complete
comprehension of the material conditions of the province, and
recognized the necessity of rapid railway construction if the people
were to hold their own against the competition of their very energetic
neighbours to the south. His ideas of trade, we can well believe,
recommended themselves to