influence among the Methodists, and, since the cry was one of loyalty to the Crown, many waverers {181} may have voted on patriotic grounds for the government candidates. Metcalfe's reputation, too, counted for him, for he had already become known as more than generous, and one of his successors estimated that he spent L6,000 a year in excess of his official income. "It must be admitted," he himself wrote to Stanley, "that this majority has been elected by the loyalty of the majority of the people of Upper Canada, and of those of the Eastern townships in Lower Canada."[25] The government, and presumably also the governor-general, were accused of having secured their victory by doubtful tactics, and Elgin reported in 1847 that his Assembly, which was that of the 1844 election, had had much discredit thrown on it on the ground that the late governor-general had interfered unduly in the elections.[26] Neither side had been perfectly scrupulous in its methods of warfare, and it is not necessary to blame Metcalfe for the misguided zeal and cunning of his Ministers and his country supporters. Be that as it may, the governor-general had won a hard-fought victory--Pyrrhic as it proved. Throughout this political warfare, Metcalfe had {182} been sustained by the strong support of the home government. The cabinet announced itself ready to give him every possible support in maintaining the authority of the Queen, and of her representative, against unreasonable and exorbitant pretensions.[27] In the debate on the troubles, which Roebuck introduced on May 30th, 1844, all the leading men on either side, Stanley, Peel, Russell, and Buller, warmly supported the governor, Russell and Buller being as strong in their reprobation of the demands of the council as Stanley himself.[28] And the chorus of approval culminated in the letters from Peel and Stanley, which announced the conferring of a peerage on Metcalfe "as a public mark of her Majesty's cordial approbation of the judgment, ability, and fidelity, with which he had discharged the important trust confided to him by her Majesty."[29] In a sense the honours and praise were not altogether out of place. Metcalfe had been sent out to conduct the administration of Canada on what we now regard as an impossible system; and unlike his immediate predecessors he had conceded not one point to the other side. In spite of all that his enemies could say, his {183} personal honour and dignity remained untarnished. The nicknames and cruel taunts flung at him, in the earlier months, apparently by his own ministers, recoil now on their heads, as the petty insults of unmannerly politicians; indeed, the accusations which they made of simplicity and honesty, simply reinforce the impression of quixotic high-mindedness, which was not the least noble feature in Metcalfe's character. His generosity had been unaffected by his difficulties; and there are few finer things in the history of British administration