a reforming
colour, the ruin of the Empire would follow hard on concession to
agitation. In his heart, he trusted only {143} the old Tories, and not
all his disgust at MacNab's interested advances could alter his
conviction that one party alone cared for Britain--the former Family
Compact men. When he bade Bagot disregard party divisions in his
choice of ministers, he was unconsciously limiting Bagot's choice to a
very little circle, all of them most unmistakably displeasing to the
populace, whose wishes he professed to be willing to consult. He
claimed to be a man of principle--mistaking the clearness of
doctrinaire ignorance for the certainty of honest knowledge.

Happily the governor-general of Canada was not in this sense a man of
principle. He observed, took counsel, and began to shape his own
policy. It is not easy to describe that policy in a sentence, or even
to make it absolutely clear. He had come out to Canada, forewarned
against Baldwin and the school of constitutionalists associated with
him; and the warning made him reluctant to consent to their ideas. He
had been advised to draw his councillors from all directions, and his
naturally moderate spirit approved a policy of judicious selection.
But the noteworthy feature in the line of action which he ultimately
followed was that he allowed his diplomatic instincts to overbalance
the advice imposed on him by the British ministry. {144} In selecting
individuals for his councils, he almost unconsciously followed the
wishes of Baldwin and his party, until, at the end, he found himself in
the hands of resolute advocates of responsible government, and did
nothing to withstand their doctrine. But this is to anticipate events,
and to simplify what was actually a process involved in some confusion.
He filled two vacant places--one with the most brilliant of reforming
financiers, Francis Hincks, whose merits he saw at once; the other,
after a gentlemanly refusal from Cartwright, with Sherwood, a sound but
comparatively moderate Conservative from Upper Canada. In an admirable
letter to Stanley at the beginning of the summer, he outlined his
policy. Stanley, ever fearful of rash experiments, warned him that a
combination of black and white does not necessarily produce grey. To
this he answered: "My hope is that, circumstanced as I am, I possibly
may be able to do this, that is, to take from all sides the best and
fittest men for the public service.... The a