It was now a political war _à outrance_ between Lord Falkland and Mr. Howe, from 1842 until the governor left the province in 1846. Lord Falkland made strenuous efforts to detach Mr. MacNab, Mr. Uniacke and other Liberals from Mr. Howe, and induce them to enter the government, but all to no purpose. He now gave up writing letters to the press, and attacked his opponents in official communications addressed to the colonial office, which supported him, as it did Lord Metcalfe, under analogous circumstances. These despatches were laid without delay on the tables of the houses, to be used far and wide against the recalcitrant Liberals. Mr. Howe had again renewed his connection with the press, which he had left on becoming speaker and councillor, and had become editor of the _Nova Scotian_, and the _Morning Chronicle_, of which Mr. Annand was the proprietor. In these influential organs of the Liberal party--papers still in existence--Mr. Howe attacked Lord Falkland, both in bitter prose and sarcastic verse. All this while the governor and his council contrived to control the assembly, sometimes by two or three votes, sometimes by a prorogation when it was necessary to dispose summarily of a troublesome question. Public opinion began to set in steadily against the government. The controversy between Lord Falkland and Mr. Howe reached its climax on the 21st February, 1846, when a despatch was brought down to the house, referring to the speaker, Mr. William Young, and his brother, George R. Young, as the associates of "reckless" and "insolvent" men--the reference being to Mr. Howe and his immediate political friends. When the despatch had been read, Mr. Howe became greatly excited, and declared amid much disorder that if "the infamous system" of libelling respectable colonists in despatches sent to the colonial office was continued, "without their having any means of redress ... some colonist would by-and-by, or he was much mistaken, hire a black fellow to horsewhip a lieutenant-governor."