Mackenzie's supporters during the contest had been Radicals, or at least persons of strong Reform proclivities. This had arrayed the whole Tory and Conservative vote on the side of Sullivan, who was thus in a measure brought under anti-Reform influences. His social tastes also inclined him in the same direction, so that he soon came to be classed as a Conservative. Reformers were disposed to look askance at him as a political renegade, and this disposition was increased upon his acceptance of office under Sir Francis Head at the present juncture. He alone, of all the new Councillors, was a man of exceptional ability. He was not inaccurately described, a few years later, as "an Irishman by birth, and a lawyer by profession; a man who, if he had united consistency of political conduct and weight of personal character with the great and original talents which he unquestionably possessed, might have taken a conspicuous part in the public affairs of any country."[230] These transactions--the resignation of the Councillors and the appointment of their successors--produced a tremendous effervescence of feeling among the Opposition in the Assembly, who had already conceived strong suspicions of the Lieutenant-Governor's motives. But the excitement was not confined to the Opposition. It was participated in by the Conservatives, and, even, for a time, by most of the ultra-Tories. On the 14th of March, the House, by a vote of fifty-three to two, adopted a resolution unequivocally assertive of the principles which the ex-Councillors had endeavoured to maintain. Ten days later an address to the Lieutenant-Governor, based on this resolution, was passed by a vote of thirty-two to nineteen. It expressed deep regret that his Excellency had consented to accept the resignation of his late Council. It declared the Assembly's entire want of confidence in the new appointments, and humbly requested that immediate steps might be taken to remove the new Councillors from office. Meanwhile, petitions on the all-engrossing subject poured into the Assembly from all over the Province.[231] Public meetings were called in Toronto, as well as in some other of the principal towns, at which resolutions were passed echoing the Assembly's address, imploring the Lieutenant-Governor to dismiss his present advisers, and to call to his Council gentlemen possessing public confidence.