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In 1851 another step was taken towards dissolution, for the course of the year brought with it the transformation of the ministry. The commercial strain was no longer acute, and Hincks, speaking of financial conditions, was able to dwell on the great prosperity which prevailed throughout the country, and the increase in imports since 1848. The legislative programme was no less ambitious than in former years, and the railway movement found eager support in the government. But the leaders had become restless in office. La Fontaine, as has been seen, was out of touch with Upper Canadian sentiment concerning the clergy reserves, and the rectification of seigneurial tenure opened fresh grounds for disquiet in his mind. He was a whig, in days when reformers were passing into radicalism. But Baldwin was the first to leave. Baldwin, whom the governor recognized as the most conservative man in the province and ‘worth three regiments to the British connexion,’ found himself equally out of touch with the reform feeling, and when William Lyon Mackenzie, whose fervours were once more permitted to express themselves in parliament, precipitated a crisis in a vote for the abolition of that Court of Chancery which Baldwin had done his best to reform, and when Baldwin’s position was saved only through the votes of Lower Canada, the minister’s resignation followed within a week. The following general election saw him ousted from parliament, and so there passed from public life a man of noble character, strenuous political principle, and solid practical wisdom, the most admirable public character up to that point produced in Canada. In the autumn La Fontaine followed his old comrade-in-arms, and by the end of October the new Hincks-Morin administration was complete—a second edition of the earlier cabinet, with the best financier in Canada at its head, and an amount of practical ability at its command probably superior to that of any earlier government.

Yet when parliament was dissolved on November 1, and the ministry went to the polls with a fair assurance of victory, it was still true that things had changed for the worse. George Brown redoubled his strokes. It was too apparent, he said, that Hincks and his colleagues had surrendered to the French, and he asked whether any intelligent reformer of Upper Canada could read through the list of the new ministry, and honestly say that it presented the slightest hope of a policy different from that of its predecessor.

The attack was doubly unfortunate because, in spite of Brown’s suspicions, there was a change, and that change made the French alliance more difficult. Along with other reforms the ministry stood pledged to a policy of secularizing the clergy reserves—the very point which had disquieted moderates like La Fontaine. Among the new ministers, men like Rolph and Malcolm Cameron represented a very different type of politician from those of Baldwin’s choice, and as Clear-Gritism entered, no matter how modified in its expression, French-Canadian sympathy must grow cool. And, with all the other considerations, there was the lessened confidence of the public in the new leader; for Hincks was neither Baldwin nor La Fontaine, men firmly trusted even by those who opposed them. It was already whispered that there was a sound financial basis for his friendship with Elgin, and that he was too good a business man to let scruples of office and leadership hinder him from seizing opportunities for private profit. For the present, however, success attended their efforts. After an election, in which Elgin could flatter himself that there were few treasonous suggestions of separation and little foolish radical talk, the ministerialists found themselves with a clear majority over all other sections, and the tories had to admit the loss of men like Henry Sherwood, John Hillyard Cameron, and William Cayley. But George Brown was now member for Lambton, and the ministers could look forward to a vocal session.

The main movement in politics—the fate of the administration—becomes from this moment of so absorbing interest that it is necessary to exclude from view other subordinate issues. It may, however, be mentioned that during 1852 Derby’s government held office in England, a fact by no means favourable to the Canadian ministry; that in September of the same year Hincks defined the government attitude towards the clergy reserves; and that the session, which lasted, with an adjournment, from August 19, 1852, to June 14, 1853, was perhaps the most fruitful of acts of any since the provinces had united, including among its labours an act for the increase in the number of representatives in the lower house, a redistribution act, to come into operation in 1855, an address to obtain freedom for an elective upper chamber, and a bill on seigneurial tenure, rejected, however, in the legislative council.

But through all these labours the ministry was weakening in itself and in popular opinion. It had to face Brown’s hurricane-like onslaught on the address, not the less damaging even although Brown was not yet prepared to vote for the opposition. The railway policy of the ministry was meeting with rude checks, and the line from Halifax to Quebec, which had occupied so much of its energies, was as much an event of the future as ever. Month after month the complicated private financial transactions of Hincks were involving him in a network of popular suspicions. At the beginning of 1853 the domain farm of the seigniory of Lauzon was purchased by joint owners, of whom he was one. In April shares in the Grand Trunk Railway were allotted to him under circumstances which certainly required explanation. Towards the end of the year there were rumours that the minister had introduced legislation for the improvement of the Ottawa, at a locality in which he had an interest, and there were other accusations of a similarly damaging character. The importance of these in discrediting the government may be gauged by the report of the select committee of 1855, which, while it exonerated Hincks absolutely from the charges, raised the question

whether it is beneficial to the due administration of the affairs of this country, for the ministers to purchase public lands sold at public competition, and municipal debentures, also offered in open market or otherwise;—and lastly, whether it would be advisable to increase the salaries of the Members of the Executive Council to such a figure as would relieve them from the necessity of engaging in private dealings to enable them to support their families and maintain the dignity of their position, without resorting to any kind of business transactions, while in the service of the Crown.

The conduct of the attack on the clergy reserves brought only additional weakness. As has been shown, the hands of the Canadian government were tied by the action of Britain during 1852, and then, when in 1853 news came of the Imperial Act, it did not seem right either to Elgin or to his ministers to complete legislation on so vexed a question until the new machinery of government had been brought into operation. A failing ministry is certain to find new occasions for discredit, and now chance co-operated with more normal factors.

Gavazzi, an Italian enthusiast, with that unfortunate desire to expose the evils of a church in which he had previously served which has always proved so fruitful a source of trouble, arrived in Canada in June 1853, prepared to expose what his class terms ‘the errors of Rome.’ The natural consequences followed. First at Quebec and then at Montreal there were furious riots, and at Montreal shots were fired at the crowd. Occasion was at once taken by Brown and his anti-Romanist following to describe the incident as one of ‘awful murders’ and ‘Roman Catholic violence.’ When Hincks, for reasons which may only be guessed at, protected the Mayor of Montreal, and did not push forward an inquiry into the facts concerning the order to fire which public opinion attributed to the mayor, he was preparing trouble for himself in Upper Canada; and, in any case, the relations between Upper Canadian reform and the French party became more strained than ever. In June the government lost its attorney-general, William Buell Richards, and in September its commissioner of Public Works—the former to the bench, the latter because the free trade principles which he professed were violated by the talk in which the ministry now indulged, of retaliation as a means of securing reciprocity with the United States.

The end came in 1854. Broken in their credit with the public, drawn towards violent contradictory policies, on the one hand by moderates and French Canadians, on the other by reformers and anti-church men, blasted with the effective rhetoric of Brown and his newspaper, incapable of quick action in the church question, where nothing but quick action would satisfy the radicals, the party deserved to die, and die it did. It had ceased to be capable of real service to Canada, and the happiest fate must be a quick decease. Brown had now determined to wreck the government, and Macdonald, the power behind the throne among the conservatives, saw his way, through a consolidation of the moderates and an alliance with the French, to a new government. ‘I believe,’ he wrote in February 1854, ‘that there must be a change of ministry after the election, and, from my friendly relations with the French, I am inclined to believe my assistance would be sought.’

The end came more dramatically than was expected. When parliament met on June 13 the ministry were at one with the governor-general as to the procedure they must follow. Two great measures were impending, on the clergy reserves and on seigneurial tenure. The cabinet, and, more decidedly, Elgin himself, argued that, on the threshold of a complete reorganization of the legislative assembly, they could not force on measures so drastic in their operation. Dissolution seemed necessary, but, before dissolution, legislation must be introduced to hasten the changes which at present could not come into operation until 1855. Their policy therefore resolved itself into a combination of delay and haste. The bills must be postponed; parliament must be asked to antedate the new system of registration; and an immediate dissolution must fling the responsibility of further legislation on the revised electorate. Unfortunately for their calculations, the opposition was too strong. After bearing the brunt of an attack on their postponement of the session, the ministry found itself in a minority of twenty-nine votes to forty-two; for an amendment by Louis Victor Sicotte, to a previous amendment by Joseph Edouard Cauchon, expressing regret ‘that His Excellency’s government do not intend to submit to the legislature during the present session a bill for the immediate settlement of the Clergy Reserves,’ enabled all shades of the opposition to unite on the clergy reserves delay. An adjournment, a quickly and secretly planned dissolution, a furious scene in the house, and a constitutional challenge from the speaker on a session barren of even a single legal measure, preceded the summons to hear Elgin’s word of dismissal.

In a sense the speaker’s criticism was the last stroke discrediting an already discredited ministry. The election, which found ‘Clear Grits’ and tories fighting side by side against the government, saw the ministry maintain a gallant fight; but the combination was too strong, and the definitive defeat occurred over the speakership, on September 5. The remainder of a great session belongs to the history of the fortunes of liberal-conservatism.