Committees were appointed for that salutory purpose and, though many obstacles were thrown in the way, great progress was made. The ordinance was lost for that time by Sir Guy Carleton’s putting an end to the session in consequence of motions made in council by Mr. Livius and others’.[158] He himself suffered from similar obstruction; his dispatch goes on to refer to members of his council, ‘who, however willing they may be to circumscribe the King’s authority in measures of general utility to his service and the welfare of his people, are for carrying on to the greatest height his prerogative to grant Letters Patent for the emolument of individuals though to the oppression of the people’. As the outcome of the Livius case, two additional Royal Instructions had been issued to Haldimand, dated the 29th of March, 1779. The first prohibited him from interpreting the words in the general instructions ‘It is our further Will and Pleasure that any five of the said council shall constitute a board of council for transacting all business in which their advice and consent may be requisite, acts of legislation only excepted’, as Carleton had interpreted them, namely, as authorizing the governor to select five particular members of the Legislative Council to form an Executive or Privy Council; and it instructed him to communicate this decision to the council. The second instructed him to communicate to the council ‘such and so many of our said instructions, wherein their advice and consent are made requisite, with such others from time to time as you shall judge for our service to be imparted to them’.[159] Haldimand did not at once communicate these additional instructions to his council. He thought that at the time it was not for the public interest to do so, and he wrote to Germain to that effect, but only brought upon himself a severe reprimand alike from Germain and from the Board of Trade. Equally he thought it inadvisable, under existing circumstances, to communicate to his council certain clauses in the general instructions, in which the Home Government practically invited the Quebec Legislative Council to modify the Quebec Act, recommending the introduction to some extent of English civil law and also statutory provision for Habeas Corpus. Like Carleton he saw things face to face, as a soldier not as a constitutional lawyer, and he gave advice according to existing conditions, which were those of war and not of peace. These two governors may have been technically wrong in this point or in that, but they had the root of the matter in them, they governed with a single eye, a firm hand, and with most generous and humane intent. ‘Party spirit,’ Haldimand wrote to Germain, ‘is the enemy of every private as well as public virtue. Since my arrival in the province I have steered clear of all parties and have taken great care not to enter into the resentments of my predecessor or his friends, but this present