arch, 1865, was completely
reversed, and the anti-confederates were beaten almost as badly as the
advocates of confederation had been in the first election; such are the
mutations of public opinion.

Mr. Tilley and his colleagues resigned immediately after the result of
the elections became known, and the Hon. Albert J. Smith was called upon
to form a new government. Mr. Smith had been attorney-general in Mr.
Tilley's government up to the year 1862, when he resigned in consequence
of a difference with his colleagues in regard to the negotiations which
were being carried on for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway.
He was a fine speaker, and a man of ability. At a later period, when
confederation had been established, he became a cabinet minister in the
government of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie. His powerful influence was
largely responsible for the manner in which the North Shore counties
declared against confederation, and he also did much to discredit the
Quebec scheme by his speeches delivered in the city of St. John. Mr.
Smith did not take the office of attorney-general in the new government,
but contented himself with the position of president of the council,
the Hon. John C. Allen, of York, becoming attorney-general, and the Hon.
A. H. Gillmor, of Charlotte, provincial secretary. The Hon. Bliss
Botsford, of Westmorland, was made surveyor-general; and the Hon. George
L. Hatheway retained his old office as the chief commissioner of the
board of works. The other members of the government were the Hon. Robert
Duncan Wilmot, of Sunbury, the Hon. T. W. Anglin, of St. John, and the
Hon. Richard Hutchinson, of Miramichi.

{THE NEW GOVERNMENT}

The new government looked strong and imposing, and seemed to be secure
against the assaults of its enemies, yet it was far from being as
compact and powerful as it appeared to the outward observer. In the
first place, it had the demerit of being founded solely on a negative,
and upon opposition to a single line of policy. The reason why these men
were assembled together in council as a government was that they were
opposed to confederation, and, this question having been disposed of,
they were free to differ upon all other points which might arise. Some
of the men who thus found themselves sitting together at the same
council board had all their lives been politically opposed to each
other. The Hon. R. D. Wilmot, an old Conservative, could have little or
no sympathy wit