In the end of November the inevitable clash occurred. Metcalfe was no believer in responsible government as understood by the Reformers; and he was determined to uphold the prerogative of the Crown. For one thing, he was not going to surrender the right of appointment. He had made several appointments without consulting his ministers. When, on his own authority, he appointed a clerk of the peace, they determined to make it a test case. They considered that, by {91} ignoring them, he had violated an important constitutional principle; and when they were unable to convince him cf this in a personal conference, they resigned in a body (with a single exception) on November 26, 1843. This produced what is known as the Metcalfe Crisis. In a formal statement before the House the Reformers took the ground that they could not be 'responsible' for appointments made without their knowledge. The governor was to act on their advice; but he had acted without giving them a chance to advise him. Metcalfe, on the other hand, maintained that the Reformers wanted him to surrender the patronage of the Crown 'for the purchase of parliamentary support.' He opposed patronage for party purposes. Let the long history of political appointments since that day, of patronage committees, attest that the governor was partly in the right. The formal statements of both sides in the dispute were at once made public and produced a popular furore, second in intensity only to that which had led up to and attended the rebellion. Sydenham's confidence that his work could not be undone by any successor seemed for a time ill-founded.