eight who were present signed a memorandum to the
effect that it was not advisable to appoint any person to the vacant
office, but that such a division of the work of the judiciary should be
made by the legislature as would secure the efficient discharge of the
judicial duties by three judges, together with the Master of the Rolls.
Wilmot was one of the persons who signed this memorandum, but on the
following day he called on the governor and asked that his name might be
withdrawn from it, he having in the meantime apparently changed his
mind. The governor, Sir Edmund Head, asked the judges whether, in their
opinion, three of them would be able to do all the judicial business of
the country, and received from them a strongly worded protest against
any such alteration in the number of judges. Mr. Fisher, who was one of
the members of the executive present at the meeting, submitted to the
governor a paper in which he took strong grounds against the proposal to
reduce the number of judges. Sir Edmund Head referred the matter to the
home authorities, and they decided that the proposed change in the
number of judges was not advisable. Moreover, they decided as to who
should fill the vacant offices, and asked the governor to appoint Mr.
Justice Carter to the position of chief-justice and to offer a puisne
judgeship to the attorney-general, Mr. Wilmot, and if he refused it to
the solicitor-general, Mr. Kinnear. Mr. Wilmot accepted, and thus
brought his political career to an end.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] This is an adaptation of General Taylor's words. John A. Poor was
the chief promoter of the European and North American Railway and the
chairman of the committee of arrangements of the Portland Convention.

CHAPTER X

JUDGE AND GOVERNOR

The opinion that was entertained of Mr. Wilmot by those who were closely
associated with him in the work of Reform was well expressed by the late
Mr. George E. Fenety, in his _Political Notes_.

"A great luminary," says Mr. Fenety, "set in semi-darkness on the day
that Mr. Wilmot left the forum for the bench. He was the light of the
House for sixteen years, the centre from whence radiated most of the
sparkling gems in the political firmament. It was at a time of life
(comparatively a young man) and a period when talents such as his were
most wanted by his party and his country. Notwithstanding his supposed
mistake in having joined a Conservative government, the Liberals were
always wi