than the sense of duty exhibited throughout 1845 by Lord Metcalfe, when, dying of cancer in the cheek, almost blind, and altogether unable to write his despatches, he still clung to his post "to secure the preservation of this colony and the supremacy of the mother country." It is easy to separate the man from the official, and to praise the former as one of the noblest of early Victorian administrators. But even before Lord Metcalfe's departure at the end of 1845, the inadequacy of his system stood revealed. He had indeed a majority in the Assembly, but a small and doubtful majority; and since its members had been elected rather to support Metcalfe than to co-operate with his ill-assorted {184} ministry, difficulties very soon revealed themselves. There were causes of dissension, chief among them the University question in Upper Canada, which threatened to wreck the government party. But the most ominous sign of coming defeat was the incompatibility of temper which rapidly developed between loyal ministers and loyal Assembly. "It is remarkable," Metcalfe wrote in May, 1845, "that none of the Executive Council, although all are estimable and respectable, exercise any great influence over the party which supports the government. Mr. Draper is universally admitted to be the most talented man in either House of the Legislature, and his presence in the Legislative Assembly was deemed to be so essential, that he resigned his seat in the Upper House, sacrificing his own opinions in order that he might take the lead in the Assembly; nevertheless he is not popular with the party that supports the government, nor with any other, and I do not know that, strictly speaking, he can be said to have a single follower. The same may be remarked of every other member of the Executive Council; and although I have much reason to be satisfied with them, and have no expectation of finding others who would serve her Majesty better, still I do not {185} perceive that any of them individually have brought much support to the government."[30]