[Sidenote: Petitions against it.] [Sidenote: Neutrality of the Governor.] Petitions against the measure were got up by the Tories in all parts of the province; but these, instead of being sent to the Assembly, or to the Legislative Council, or to the Home Government, were almost all addressed to Lord Elgin personally; obviously with the design of producing a collision between him and his Parliament. They generally prayed either that Parliament might be dissolved, or that the Bill, if it passed, might be reserved for the royal sanction. All such addresses, and the remonstrances brought to him by deputations of malcontents, he received with civility, promising to bestow on them his best consideration, but studiously avoiding the expression of any opinion on the points in controversy. By thus maintaining a strictly constitutional position, he foiled that section of the agitators who calculated on his being frightened or made angry, while he left a door open for any who might have candour enough to admit that after all he was only carrying out fairly the principle of responsible government. In pursuance of this policy he put off to the latest moment any decision as to the course which he should take with respect to the Bill when it came up to him for his sanction. As regards a dissolution, indeed, he felt from the beginning that it would be sheer folly, attended by no small risk. Was he to have recourse to this ultima ratio, merely because a parliament elected a year before, under the auspices of the party now in opposition, had passed, by a majority of nearly two to one, a measure introduced by the present Government, in pursuance of the acts of a former one? If I had dissolved Parliament, I might have produced a rebellion, but most assuredly I should not have procured a change of Ministry. The leaders of the party know that as well as I do, and were it possible to play tricks in such grave concerns, it would have been easy to throw them into utter confusion by merely calling upon them to form a Government. They were aware, however, that I could not for the sake of discomfiting them hazard so desperate a policy: so they have played out their game of faction and violence without fear of consequences. The other course urged upon him by the Opposition, namely, that of reserving the Bill for the consideration of the Home Government, may appear to have been open to no such objections, and to have been in fact the wisest course which he could pursue, in circumstances of so much delicacy. And this seems to have been the opinion of many in England, who were disposed to approve of his general policy; but it may be doubted whether they had weighed all the considerations which presented themselves to the mind of the Governor on the spot, and which he stated to Lord Grey as follows:--