As early as March, Bagot had begun to feel that the views of the Cabinet in Britain were impracticable: and that even the Civil List might not be so easily defended as Stanley imagined. "I know well by what a slender thread the adhesion of the colony will hang whenever we consent to leave the matter entirely in its own hands.... But the present supply is not sufficient for its purposes. We must always be dependent on the Legislature for provision to meet its excess; and I cannot but {139} think that the sooner the Legislature succeeds, if they are to succeed, in carrying the point, the more generous they may possibly be in the use of their victory."[12] Bagot was already defining the policy which was to be peculiarly his own. He had a singularly clear eye for facts, even when they contradicted his preconceived ideas; and, being a man of the world, he saw that compromise with the opposition was as natural in Canada as in Britain. But in answer to his despatches, proposing such a compromise, Stanley, with his dogmatic omniscience, and eloquent certainty, had nothing but regrets to express, and difficulties to suggest. England, he thought, had dealt generously with Canada in the terms of the Act of Union, and sound statesmanship lay in resolute defence of that measure. And, since there always seems to be in such imperialists a sense of political pathos--the _lacrymae rerum politicarum_--he began to have pessimistic views of the permanence of the connection: "I am very far from underrating the value to Great Britain of her extensive and rapidly improving North American possessions, but I cannot conceal from myself the fact that they are maintained to her at no light cost, and at no {140} trifling risk. To all this she willingly submits, so long as the bonds of union between herself and her colonies are strengthened by mutual harmony, good will, and confidence; and it would be indeed painful to me to contemplate the possibility that embarrassments, arising from uncalled for and unfounded jealousies on the part of Canada, might lead the people of England to entertain a doubt how far the balance of advantages preponderated in favour of the continuance of the present relations."[13] The Civil List raised the fundamental question, but it was a simple issue, and it lay still far in the future. The constitution of the ministry, however, and its relation to the coming parliament, could be neither evaded nor delayed.