wreck the system of responsible government, so far conceded by Sydenham and Bagot; and that the episode of 1843 was part of a deeper plot to check the growth of Canadian freedom.[11] Apart from the absurdities contained in Hincks' statement of the case, the only answer which need be made to the charge is that, if Stanley could have descended to such ignoble plotting, Metcalfe was the last man in the world to act as his dishonoured instrument. On the other side, Gibbon Wakefield believed that {171} the council chose the occasion to escape from a defeat otherwise inevitable, in the hope that a renewed agitation for responsible government might reinstate them in public favour. As Metcalfe gave the suggestion some authority by accepting it provisionally in a despatch,[12] the details of Wakefield's charge may be given. The ministry, he held, had been steadily weakening. Two bills, advocated by them, had been abandoned owing to the opposition of their followers. The French solidarity had begun to break up, and La Fontaine had found in Viger a rival in the affections of his adherents. The ministers, intoxicated by the possession of a little brief authority, had offended the sense of the House by their arrogance; and the debates concerning the change of the seat of government from Kingston to Montreal had been a cause of stumbling to many. With their authority weakened in the House, doubtful in the country, and more than doubtful with the governor-general, the resignation of the ministers, in Wakefield's view of the case, "upon a ground which was sure to obtain for them much popular sympathy, was about the most politic of their ministerial acts."[13] {172}