recruit. But he was a
recruit of uncommon vigour and steadiness, and though he did not
originate, he emphasized the idea of carrying on the fight on strictly
constitutional and peaceful lines. His experience in New York and his
deep hatred of slavery had strengthened by contrast his conviction
that Great Britain was the citadel of liberty, and hence his
utterances in favour of British connection were not conventional, but
glowed with enthusiasm.

With 1849 came the triumph of Reform, and the last despairing effort
of the old regime, dying out with the flames of the parliament
buildings at Montreal. Now ensued a change in both parties. The one,
exhausted and discredited by its fight against the inevitable coming
of the new order, remained for a time weak and inactive, under a
leader whose day was done. The other, in the very hour of victory,
began to suffer disintegration. It had its Conservative element
desiring to rest and be thankful, and its Radical element with aims
not unlike those of Chartism in England. Brown stood for a time
between the government and the Conservative element on the one side
and the Clear Grits on the other. Disintegration was hastened by the
retirement of Baldwin and Lafontaine. Then came the brief and troubled
reign of Hincks; then a reconstruction of parties, with Conservatives
under the leadership of Macdonald and Reformers under that of Brown.

The stream of politics between 1854 and 1864 is turbid; there is
pettiness, there is bitterness, there is confusion. But away from this
turmoil the province is growing in population, in wealth, in all the
elements of civilization. Upper Canada especially is growing by
immigration; it overtakes and passes Lower Canada in population, and
thus arises the question of representation by population. Brown takes
up this reform in representation as a means of freeing Upper Canada
from the domination of the Lower Province. He becomes the "favourite
son" of Upper Canada. His rival, through his French-Canadian alliance,
meets him with a majority from Lower Canada; and so, for several
years, there is a period of equally balanced parties and weak
governments, ending in dead-lock.

If Brown's action had only broken this dead-lock, extricated some
struggling politicians from difficulty, and allowed the ordinary
business of government to proceed, it might have deserved only passing
notice. But more than that was involved. The difficulty was inherent
in the system