s of the majority in the House of
Assembly saw themselves in anticipation compelled to appear before their
constituents and explain that they had been unable to vote this money
because they had joined with a pestilent young editor in an attack on his
elders and betters.

Howe sat up all night wondering what he should do. Then he determined to
take his medicine like a man. On the next day he entered the House with
cheerful face and buoyant step. He threw back his coat, a gesture
already growing familiar, and stood {53} four-square to the Assembly. 'I
feel,' he said, 'that we have now arrived at a point which I had to a
certain extent anticipated from the moment I sat down to prepare the
resolutions . . . the position in which we are now placed does not take
me by surprise. . . . But it may be said, What is to be done? And I
answer, Sacrifice neither the revenue nor the cause of reform. In
dealing with an enemy who is disposed to take us at disadvantage, like
politic soldiers, let us fight with his own weapons. . . . The Council
ask us to rescind a particular resolution; I am prepared to give more
than they ask and to rescind them all. . . . But I shall follow up that
motion by another, for the appointment of a committee to draw up an
address to the Crown on the state of the Colony. . . . It is not for me
to say, when a committee is appointed, what the address shall contain;
but I presume that having these resolutions before them, and knowing what
a majority of this Assembly think and feel, they will do their duty, and
prepare such a document as will attain the objects for which we have been
contending.'[1]

{54}

A motion to rescind the twelve resolutions followed and was carried, and
the revenues were saved. Before the end of the session Howe's thinking
had advanced, and the address to the Crown which his committee prepared
implored the monarch either 'to grant us an elective Legislative Council;
or to separate the Executive from the Legislative Council, providing for
a just representation of all the great interests of the province in both;
and, by the introduction into the former of some members of the popular
branch and otherwise securing responsibility to the Commons, confer upon
the people of this province what they value above all other possessions,
the blessings of the British constitution.'

Lord Glenelg, at this time the colonial secretary, was a weak but amiable
man. He could not see that in the