, and
fidelity, with which he had discharged the important trust confided to
him by her Majesty."[29] In a sense the honours and praise were not
altogether out of place. Metcalfe had been sent out to conduct the
administration of Canada on what we now regard as an impossible system;
and unlike his immediate predecessors he had conceded not one point to
the other side. In spite of all that his enemies could say, his {183}
personal honour and dignity remained untarnished. The nicknames and
cruel taunts flung at him, in the earlier months, apparently by his own
ministers, recoil now on their heads, as the petty insults of
unmannerly politicians; indeed, the accusations which they made of
simplicity and honesty, simply reinforce the impression of quixotic
high-mindedness, which was not the least noble feature in Metcalfe's
character. His generosity had been unaffected by his difficulties; and
there are few finer things in the history of British administration
than the sense of duty exhibited throughout 1845 by Lord Metcalfe,
when, dying of cancer in the cheek, almost blind, and altogether unable
to write his despatches, he still clung to his post "to secure the
preservation of this colony and the supremacy of the mother country."
It is easy to separate the man from the official, and to praise the
former as one of the noblest of early Victorian administrators.

But even before Lord Metcalfe's departure at the end of 1845, the
inadequacy of his system stood revealed. He had indeed a majority in
the Assembly, but a small and doubtful majority; and since its members
had been elected rather to support Metcalfe than to co-operate with his
ill-assorted {184} ministry, difficulties very soon revealed
themselves. There were causes of dissension, chief among them the
University question in Upper Canada, which threatened to wreck the
government party. But the most ominous sign of coming defeat was the
incompatibility of temper which rapidly developed between loyal
ministers and loyal Assembly. "It is remarkable," Metcalfe wrote in
May, 1845, "that none of the Executive Council, although all are
estimable and respectable, exercise any great influence over the party
which supports the government. Mr. Draper is universally admitted to
be the most talented man in either House of the Legislature, and his
presence in the Legislative Assembly was deemed to be so essential,
that he resigned his seat in the Upper House, sacrificing h