third reading, but the non-official members at once quitted the chamber, and reduced the number below the legal quorum. On the day following Mr. Gregson appeared at the table and apologised for the absence of his honorable brethren, who were preparing a protest to present on the morrow. Wilmot complained of discourtesy, and denounced the opposition as disloyal and unconstitutional. They asserted that quitting the council chamber was not unusual, and was not a concerted movement, and resented in decided language the charge of disloyalty,--amounting in sworn councillors to perjury, if rigorously construed. The governor afterwards explained that he had reference only to the particular instance, and not to their general intentions. It had been publicly rumored that rather than allow the Appropriation Act to pass, several members had resolved to resign. Captain Swanston, less prominent in opposition, waited on the governor, and earnestly advised him to forward another set of estimates, prepared by Captain Swanston, for the approval of the secretary of state. He warned him that should he persevere a rupture would inevitably follow. In this interview the governor expressed his determination to proceed. He forgot, it would seem, some of those forms of civility which no man can safely neglect, and Captain Swanston left him with a sense of personal affront,--an immedicable wound.[244] In this temper the council met on the 3rd of October. Mr. Gregson called the attention of the members to a question submitted to Mr. Francis Smith, a barrister: Whether, as chairman of a committee, the governor had a deliberate and casting vote, and whether the quorum required by law at a meeting of council was requisite in committee; and thus whether the estimates were legally passed through the committee, the numbers present being less than one third, and the governor giving his double vote. Mr. Smith gave his opinion that the estimates were in law rejected instead of carried; but the chief justice considered the sitting of committee merely a convenient method to sift beforehand items afterwards to receive a legal sanction in the council. The attorney-general without notice was unprepared to give an opinion, and a motion of Mr. Gregson for delay was lost. The colonial secretary then moved the third reading of the obnoxious bill, when Mr. Dry rose to read a minute, signed by the members in opposition, objecting to the proceedings. This being rejected as irregular, Mr. Gregson proposed that the third reading should be delayed that the members dissenting might bring forward other estimates. In urging this motion he rebutted the "disloyal" imputation, and referred the governor to the unity existing in the country party in proof that inevitable necessity alone had prompted the co-operation of persons hitherto adverse. This motion being lost--before the Appropriation Act could be carried--the opposition quitted the council. Those remaining did not constitute a quorum, and