Elgin, then, found a distracted ministry, a doubtful Assembly, and an irritated country. His ministers he thought lacking in pluck, and far too willing to appeal to selfish and sordid motives in possible supporters.[6] He was irritated by what seemed to him the petty and inconsistent divisions of Canadian party life: "In a community like this, where there is little, if anything, of public principle to divide men, political parties will shape themselves under the influence of circumstances, and of a great variety of affections and antipathies, national, sectarian, and personal.... It is not even pretended that the divisions of party represent corresponding divisions of sentiment on questions which occupy the public mind, such as voluntaryism, Free Trade, etc., etc. Responsible Government is the one subject on which this coincidence is alleged to exist."[7] The French problem he found peculiarly difficult. Metcalfe's policy had had results disconcerting to the British authorities. Banishing, as he thought, sectarianism or racial views, he had yet practically shut out French statesmen from office so successfully, that, when Elgin, acting through Colonel Tache, {196} attempted to approach them, he found in none of them any disposition to enter into alliance with the existing ministry.[8] Elgin, who was willing enough to give fair play to every political section, could not but see the obvious fault of French Canadian nationalism. "They seem incapable of comprehending that the principles of constitutional government must be applied against them, as well as for them," he wrote to Grey. "Whenever there appears to be a chance of things taking this turn they revive the ancient cry of nationality, and insist on their right to have a share in the administration, not because the party with which they have chosen to connect themselves is in the ascendant, but because they represent a people of distinct origin."[9] Most serious of all, because it hampered his initiative, he found every party except that in office suspicious of the governor's authority, and newspapers like Hincks' _Pilot_ grumbling over Imperial interference.