at home, party with all its faults, popular control of the
executive, and apparently the decisive influence of that executive in
advising the governor in internal affairs. Yet, in the great imperial
federation of which they dreamed, they never doubted the right of the
mother country to act with overmastering authority in certain crises.
That right, and the unquenchable affection of exiles for the land
whence they came, constituted for them "the connexion."

These were the views which came to dominate political opinion in
Britain, for Molesworth was right when he declared that to Buller and
Wakefield, more than to any other persons, was the country indebted for
sound views on colonial policy. The interest of the present inquiry
lies in tracing the development of these views into something unlike,
and distinctly bolder than, anything which these rash and
unconventional thinkers had planned.

Whatever might be the shortcomings of the Radical group, the daring of
their trust in the colonists stands out in high relief against a
background of conservative restriction and distrust. It was natural
for the Tories to think of colonies as {248} they did. Under the
leadership of North and George III. they had experienced what might
well seem to them the natural consequences of the old constitutional
system of colonial administration. After 1782 they were disinclined to
experiment in Assemblies as free as those of Massachusetts and
Connecticut had been. The reaction caused by the French Revolution
deepened their distrust of popular institutions; and the war of 1812
quickened their hatred of the United States--the zone of political no
less than military danger for Canada. The conquests which they made
had given them a second colonial empire, and they had administered that
empire with financial generosity and constitutional parsimony, hoping
against hope that a fabric so unexpected and difficult as colonial
empire might after all disappoint their fears by remaining true to
Britain. Developing in spite of themselves, and with the times, they
had still learned little and forgotten little. So it was that Sir
George Arthur, a Tory governor _in partibus infidelium_, was driven
into panic by Durham's frank criticisms, and expounded to Normanby, his
Whig chief, fears not altogether baseless: "The bait of responsible
government has been eagerly taken, and its poison is working most
mischievously.... {249} The measure recommended by