During this and the following governor-generalship, the predominant influence at the Colonial Office was Lord Stanley, almost the most distinguished of the younger statesmen of the day. Peel's judicial and scientific mind usually controlled those of his subordinates; but even Peel found it hard to check the brilliant individualism of his colonial secretary; and this most interesting of all the great failures in English politics exercised an influence in Canadian affairs, such as not even Lord John Russell attempted. Judged from his colonial despatches, Stanley seems to have found it very hard to understand that there could be another side to any question on which he had made up his mind. His party had consented to a modification of the old oligarchic rule in Canada; but they were intent upon limiting the scope of the {129} change, and upon conducting all their operations in a very conservative spirit. Stanley's instructions to Bagot had been drawn up in no ungenerous fashion. Bagot was to know no distinctions of national origin or religious creed, and in so far as it might be consistent with his duty to his Sovereign, he was to consult the wishes of the mass of the community.[1] Their happiness it was his main duty to secure. In ecclesiastical matters, Stanley, who had changed his party rather than consent to weaken the Anglican Church in Ireland, was willing to acknowledge "that the habits and opinions of the people of Canada were, in the main, averse from the absolute predominance of any single church."[2] But the theory inspiring the instructions was one which denied to the colonists any but the most partial responsibility and independence, and which regarded their party divisions as factious and at times treasonable. This disbelief in the reality of Canadian parties was, however, discounted, and yet at the same time rendered more insulting to the reformers, because the colonial secretary regarded the fragments of old Family Compact Toryism as still the best guarantee in Canada for the British connection. "Although {130} I am far from wishing to re-establish the old Family Compact of Upper Canada," he wrote, at a later date, "if you come into difficulties, that is the class of men to fall back upon, rather than the ultra-liberal party."[3] Confidence in political adventurers and the disaffected French seemed to him a kind of madness. In addition to this attitude towards existing parties, Stanley held stiffly to every constitutional expedient which asserted the supremacy of the Imperial government. The Union had, by fixing a Civil List, taken the power of the purse within certain limits from Canadian hands, and this Civil List Stanley regarded as quite essential to the maintenance of British authority.[4] In fact, any discussion of the subject seemed to him the "reopening of a chapter which has already led to such serious consequences, and in the prosecution of which I contemplate seriously