he colonies, and Lord John
Russell, who had held the same office in a Whig administration,
endorsed the action of the governor-general, who was raised to the
peerage under the title of Baron Metcalfe of Fernhill, in the county
of Berks. Earthly honours were now of little avail to the new peer. He
had been a martyr for years to a cancer in the face, and when it
assumed a most dangerous form he went back to England and died soon
after his return. So strong was the feeling against him among a large
body of the people, especially in French Canada, that he was bitterly
assailed until the hour when he left, a dying man. Personally he was
generous and charitable to a fault, but he should never have been sent
to a colony at a crisis when the call was for a man versed in the
practice of parliamentary government, and able to sympathize with the
aspirations of a people determined to enjoy political freedom in
accordance with the principles of the parliamentary institutions of
England. With a remarkable ignorance of the political conditions of
the province--too often shown by British statesmen in those days--so
great a historian and parliamentarian as Lord Macaulay actually wrote
on a tablet to Lord Metcalfe's memory:--"In Canada, not yet recovered
from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled contending factions to
each other and to the mother country." The truth is, as written by Sir
Francis Hincks[6] fifty years later, "he embittered the party feeling
that had been considerably assuaged by Sir Charles Bagot."

Lord Metcalfe was succeeded by Lord Cathcart, a military man, who was
chosen because of the threatening aspect of the relations between
England and the United States on the question of the Oregon boundary.
During his short term of office he did not directly interfere in
politics, but carefully studied the defence of the country and quietly
made preparations for a rupture with the neighbouring republic. The
result of his judicious action was the disappearance of much of the
political bitterness which had existed during Lord Metcalfe's
administration. The country, indeed, had to face issues of vital
importance to its material progress. Industry and commerce were
seriously affected by the adoption of free trade in England, and the
consequent removal of duties which had given a preference in the
British markets to Canadian wheat, flour, and other commodities. The
effect upon the trade of the province would not have been so s