ure; everywhere he impressed his strong
personality on colonial affairs. He was very sociable, and his
hospitality was unstinted." Indeed, the historian of the island can
point to only one mistake committed by the Governor, the bad taste
shown in the erection of Government House, which "looks more like a
prison than the Vice-regal residence ... it is a huge pile of
unredeemed ugliness."[35]

In England, in the early thirties, reform was in the air. The blow was
struck at the right time, and in 1832--the year of the great Reform
Bill--Parliament passed a measure creating in Newfoundland a
representative assembly. The island was divided into nine electoral
divisions, each of which was to have one or more representatives,
according to population. There were, in fact, fifteen members. The
first election passed off quietly in the autumn of the same year. Dr.
Carson, the father of Home Rule, stood for St. John's, and Mr Justice
Prowse has usefully noted that he was defeated. The fickleness and
ingratitude of the people were never more dramatically illustrated.
"He had been the pioneer of the new movement, had suffered in the
people's cause, and yet the public, 'that many-headed monster
thing--the mob,' were the first to cast aside their leader in the
fight for Home Rule, and to give their votes and support to a new and
untried man." It was said, however, that the defeat was due to an
electioneering trick, whereby a false report was spread as to the
attitude of the veteran in the liberal cause.[36] "The House of
Assembly of 1833 was the youngest constituent body in America, but it
was not one whit behind any of them in stately parliamentary pageant
and grandiloquent language. H.B. (Doyle) in London caricatured it as
the 'Bow-wow Parliament' with a big Newfoundland dog in wig and bands
as Speaker putting the motion: 'As many as are of that opinion
say--bow; of the contrary--wow; the bows have it.'"[37]

A nominated Legislative Council had been provided by the Constitution
of the Colony. The relations of the Chambers have always been delicate
in the British colonies, and in Newfoundland friction soon arose. The
Legislative Council, under Chief Justice Boulton--who improperly
called himself the Speaker instead of the President--set itself to
thwart and discredit the popular Chamber. On both sides the
controversies were petty, and were conducted in a petty spirit. The
popular assembly described itself as "the Commons House of As