Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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CHAPTER
XII
The Rise
of the
Colonial Office
and
the
Fall
of
Skvery
THE WAR-BORN
political
reaction in the mother
country
had
its
coun-
terpart
in
the
empire.
The
war
brought great
additions
to the
empire,
and the nature of all
these
additions was
such
that the
government
in
London
assumed full
control of
their
administration.
In other
words,
the
war-born
expansion
of the
empire
made for an
enormous
extension
of
imperial authority.
At the same
time,
but
for a different
reason,
this
authority
was
being
extended
in the
oldest
parts
of
the colonial
empire,
which
from
almost their
very
beginning,
back
in the seventeenth
cen-
tury,
had
enjoyed
self-government.
There,
in
the
West
Indies,
its abuse
by
the
whites was
leading
to
growing
interference
by
the home
govern-
ment to
protect
the
blacks,
an
interference
that
was
to
culminate
in
the
abrogation
of
self-government
in
the
third
quarter
of
the nineteenth
century.
The
only
other colonial assemblies
were in
British North
America,
where
they
were
relatively
new
and
untried;
there the
be-
havior
of
the
largest
of
these
bodies,
that of
Lower Canada
which com-
prised
the
great
bulk of the
British
North
American
population,
was
undermining
the
confidence
of London
in its
usefulness,
for the cessa-
tion
of
military
hostilities
brought
a
renewal and
intensification of the
French
Canadian
assembly's
hostility
to
British rule. Since
the
begin-
ning
of
the
long
war
with France
in
1793,
not a
single
British
colony
had
been
invested
with
representative
institutions;
and
in
1815,
when
peace
was at
last
secure,
die British
government
had
not the
slightest
intention
of
introducing
them
anywhere.
It
was
a
far
cry
from the
age
when
it
was
taken for
granted
that
every
British
colony
should
have a
government
modeled
after
that
of
the mother
country.
As a matter
of
fact,
Britain
was
not
the mother
country
of most
of
the lands
now
under
her
sway.
She had not
given
birth
to their
people.
186
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
She
had
conquered
them,
and
she
ruled
them. She
had been a
great
colonizing
country
and
was
to be
again,
but
at
this time
she
was
not
and had
long
since ceased to
be
one.
She was
a
great
imperial
power,
the
only
one
left
in
the
world,
now
that the
Spanish
Empire
was
in
process
of
disintegration;
and
the
authority
she wielded over
her
far-
flung
empire
was
many
times
greater
than
it had
ever
been
in
any
preceding
age.
How could London handle
the burden of
managing
an
empire
so
centralized
in
control
and so
diversified in
character? Out of
the
war,
which
raised
this
question,
came
the
answer.
It
was the
Colonial
Office.
The transfer of
the colonies
from the Home
Office,
where
they
were
a
very
minor
care,
to the War Office
in 1801 was
not
intended
to
benefit
the colonies.
It was
an
obscure
political job.
To
the
two
historic
secretaries
of state
in
the
cabinet,
the
pressure
of the
war
had
added a
third in
1794,
the
Secretary
of State
for
War;
and
the
promise
of
peace
at Amiens threatened to deflate
his
office,
which
did
not
embrace
the
older
military
offices those
of the
ordnance,
the
commander
in
chief,
and
the
secretary-at-war
until
the
middle of the nineteenth
century.
If
the motive
of
the transfer was to
provide
a
peacetime justification
for
the continuance of this
third
secretary
of
state in the
cabinet
by
giving
him new
duties,
which
enlarged
his title to
be
Secretary
of
State
for War
and
the
Colonies,
the
early rupture
of the
peace
rendered
this
justification
superfluous
and
relegated
the colonies
to
the
neglect
of a
minister absorbed
in
the
war.
Strange
as it
may
seem,
this
neglect
came
to
a rather
abrupt
end in
1812,
the
very year
when the war
assumed
its
most
menacing
proportions
with
the
Napoleonic
invasion of
Russia
and
the
outbreak of
hostilities
in
America.
Apparently
the
change
was
a
personal
matter. It
occurred
when
the Earl of
Liverpool,
on
becoming
prime
minister,
chose
Earl Bathurst
to
be his successor
as
Secretary
of
State
for
War and
the
Colonies,
and Bathurst
picked
Henry
Goulburn
as
his
undersecretary.
Bathurst was
a
seasoned
politician
and
administrator.
Ever
since
1783,
when as
a
young
man
of
twenty-one
he
had been
elected
to
the
House
of
Commons
and
his
friend William Pitt
had
made him a
lord
of
the
admiralty,
he
had
sat in
parliament
from
1794
in the House of
Lords
and almost
always
he
had
held some
ministerial
office.
Now
for
the first time he
entered the
cabinet,
and
there,
much
respected
by
his
colleagues,
he remained as
secretary
of
state
for
the
next
fifteen
years
the first real
colonial
secretary.
Goulburn,
nearly
a
generation
younger
and
one
of
Sir
Robert
Peel's closest
friends,
had
just
com-
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the
Fall
of
Slavery
1
8
7
menced
a
long
and
rather
distinguished
public
career
in the
House
of
Commons
and
in
almost
every
Tory
government
until
his death
in
the
middle
of
the
century.
For nine
years
until
1821,
when
he was
ap-
pointed
Chief
Secretary
for
Ireland
he served
under
Bathurst,
often
managing
him
and
always
running
the
department
with
fine
efficiency.
As
parliamentary
secretary
of the Colonial
Office,
Goulburn
over-
shadows
his
successors. There
was also
a
permanent
undersecretary
from
1825,
but
he
had little or no
influence
upon
policy
until
a
most
remarkable
man was
appointed
to this
post
eleven
years
later.
"Bathurst
and Goulburn
unquestionably
created
a Colonial Office
where
none existed
before,
and
in
so
doing
they
performed
a task
which
was
essential
if the British
Empire
was to survive."
1
Under
these
two
men
the
whole
balance of
the
Department
of War
and
the Colonies
was
quickly
reversed and
within the
department
there
was
a
specialization
according
to
function. When
the
return
of
peace brought
a
Treasury
demand
for
a
reduction
in
the establishment
of
the
department,
which
until
1812
had
been almost
wholly
absorbed
in
war
business,
the
min-
ister
could
dispense
with
only
nine
or
ten of
his considerable
staff,
and
none
from
the
larger
of the
two
branches
into
which
it
was
already
divided,
for
this was
fully
occupied
with
rapidly
growing
colonial
business.
The
importance
of this business
and of
the office
that
handled
it
won
public
recognition
in
parliament
during
the
early
years
of
peace.
On
two
separate
occasions
an
opposition
leader
in
the House
of
Commons
pressed
for the abolition
of the
third
secretaryship
of
state
as no
longer
necessary.
He
would turn
back
at least
the
American colonies
to
the
Home
Office,
where,
he
said,
Goulburn
and
his
clerks could
work as
well
as their
predecessors
had
done;
and
if the
new colonies
in the east-
ern
hemisphere
should
be
excluded
from
this
arrangement,
he would
put
them
under
the
Indian
Board
of
Control.
Such
a
disposal
of the
eastern
colonies
was of
course
suggested
by
the
fact
that,
with the ex-
ception
of
the convict
settlements,
they
had
been
acquired
as
subsidiary
to
the
Indian
Empire.
There
is little
point
in
considering
how
the suc-
cess of
this
motion
to
split
the
empire
would
have affected its
history,
for
the
proposal
had
little
chance
of
success
against
the
arguments
of
Goulburn
and
other
members
of the
government.
They
did not
stoop
to
pretend
that
the
third
secretary
of
state
still
had
important military
.
duties.
They
took
their
stand
on
high
grounds,
insisting
that the colo-
1
Helen Taft
Manning,
British
Colonial
Government
After
the American Revolution
(New
Haven, 1933),
p.
483.
188 CHAPTER
TWELVE:
nies,
not
being
represented
in
parliament
and
some
of them
being
with-
out
local
legislatures,
had
to have
a
responsible
cabinet minister
to
look
after
their
interests. The
government
thus committed itself
to
the
main-
tenance of the
Colonial Office
as a
major department
in
its
own
right,
and the
opposition
was
fully
converted.
The
Colonial
Office
grew
in
power
from the
very
beginning,
as
its
chiefs tackled
a
rather
awkward
problem
of
central
administration.
The
secretary
of state was
not the
only
head of a
department
who
could
give
orders
to officials
in the
colonies;
for
the
Customs,
the
Treasury,
the
Post
Office,
and the
Ordnance each had local staffs
scattered
about
the
empire,
and
these local
staffs
were
answerable
only
to
their
respec-
tive
departments
in London.
Hitherto there
had
been
no
coordination
of
these
independent
services,
with the
result
that
each had
gone
its
own
way
with little or
no
regard
for the interests
of
any
colony
as
a
whole;
and
the
local
governor
could do
nothing
about
it,
no
matter
how
seriously
he
might
be
embarrassed
by
the
actions
of local
officials
over
whom neither he
nor
anyone
else in
the
colony
had
any
control.
This
was
intolerable
to
Bathurst
and
Goulburn.
They
were
determined to
get
cooperation
of
all
the
services
in
each
colony,
and
by degrees
they
got
it. From his
vantage point
in
the
cabinet,
Bathurst
was
able
to
as-
sert an
authority
over the
other
departments
to
bring
their
regulations
and
their
colonial
agents
into
line. The
Colonial Office thus
gained
a
general supervision
over
all
official
matters
pertaining
to
colonies,
and,
in
addition,
it
absorbed
various
functions
that
it
could
perform
more
effectively
than
those
who
had been
responsible
for them.
It was also
during
Bathurst's
regime
that
we
see the
Colonial
Office
coming
under
the
influence
of the
humanitarian
movement,
which
was
to
leave
an
indelible
stamp
upon
British
colonial
policy.
Bathurst
was
reputed
to be
friendly
toward
the
"Clapham
sect,"
so
called
because
the
original
members
of
the
group,
which
included
Wilberforce,
had
lived
as close
neighbors
in the
suburban
community
of
Clapham
and
were
evangelical
churchmen
whose
piety
was
as
strict
as it
was
un-
pretentious.
They
were
men
of
independent
means
and
outstanding
ability
who
devoted
their
fortunes
and their
lives
to
the
humanitarian
cause.
They
were
often
called "the
saints,"
and
there
was
as
much
truth
as
jest
in the
nickname.
They
were
the
core
of
the
awakening
national
conscience,
which
has
been
mentioned
earlier.
It
was
they
who
pro-
vided the
driving
leadership
in
the
antislavery
movement
and in
the
founding
of
missionary
societies,
which
inaugurated
the
modern
Brit-
ish
missionary
movement.
One
of
the
ablest
of
this
remarkable
group
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the
Fall
of
Slavery
189
was
James
Stephen,
Wilberforce's
brother-in-law,
a
lawyer
and
a
mem-
ber
of
parliament,
who was
recognized
as such
an
authority
on
matters
of
slavery
and
the
cause
of the black race
generally
2
that
his
advice
was
constantly sought by
government
officials
at least as
early
as 1807.
It
was
perhaps
only
natural
therefore
that
Bathurst
and Goulburn
should
cultivate
such
a
valuable
established connection
when
they
took
charge
of
the
colonies
five
years
later. This connection
undoubtedly
led
to
another
and,
in
time,
a
more
famous one
with the second
generation
of
the
Clapham
sect.
James
Stephen
had
a
son,
also
James
and
a
chancery
lawyer,
who in
1813
took on
the
duties
of
counsel
to
the
Colonial
Office
in addition
to
the
good
legal practice
he had
already
built,
though
he was
then
only
twenty-four.
Two
years
later
the
elder
Stephen
seems
to
have fallen
out
with
Bathurst
on a
matter
of
policy,
but
the Colonial
Office
leaned
more
and more on
the
younger
Stephen.
In
1825
he
gave
up
the
bar
and
was
appointed
full-time counselor.
8
In
this
capacity
he
gradually
dominated
the
department,
which
was
already
his
department
before
he
was
made
its
permanent
undersecretary
in
1836
and
remained
his
department
until
he retired
eleven
years
later.
A
born
administrator,
he
greatly
improved
the
organization
that
Bathurst
and Goulburn
had
created,
and he
really
ruled
the colonial
empire.
No
other
man
before
or
since
has
ever
wielded
such
power
over
it.
In
him
the centralization
of
the
empire
reached
its climax.
"Mr.
Oversecretary"
and
"Mr.
Mother
Country,"
his
enemies
called
him,
but
that
was
because
they
were
impractical
reformers
who
could
not
bend
him to
their
will.
He
was
more
enlightened
than
they
were,
though
only
now is
this
coining
to
be
fully
realized.
His
guiding
motive
was
not
the
concentration
of
authority
over the
colonies,
nor
any
selfish
interest
of
the
metropolitan
state.
A
deeply
religious
and
highly
conscientious
man,
he
was above
all
else,
from
first
to
last,
the
champion
of
the
colored
races
against
oppression
by
the
whites.
He
was
the
vigorous
personification
of
the
new
principle
of
trusteeship,
which
thenceforth
characterized
British
colonial
policy.
Another
healthy
change
that
appeared
during
Bathurst's
administra-
tion
was
in
the
relations
between
the
Colonial
Office
and
parliament.
At
first
the
ministry
was
strongly
reluctant
to
consult
parliament
on
2
As
a
young
man he
had
practiced
his
profession
in the
West
Indies,
and there he
had
gained
a firsthand
knowledge
of
slavery.
Also
to
the
Board
of
Trade.
190
CHAPTER TWELVE:
colonial
affairs,
and
parliament
was
little
inclined
to
pry
into
them
except
in so
far
as
they
touched
the
sensitive
subject
of
slavery.
The
normal
desire
of
a
specialized
governmental
agency
to
manage
its
busi-
ness
without
interference
by
uninformed
legislators
and
the
remoteness
of
colonial
business
from
almost
all
the
members
of
parliament
do
not
wholly explain
this
mutual
shyness.
There
was
also
a
constitutional
reason.
The
Colonial
Office
was
little
beholden
to
parliament
for
au-
thority
to
govern.
The
legal
authority
exercised
by
the
secretary
of
state
over
the
colonies
was
that
of
the
royal
prerogative,
which
was
unlimited
in
the
crown
colonies
and
very
considerable
in
the others.
Of
course
the
colonial
secretary
was
far
from
being
an
absolute
autocrat.
He
wielded
this
enormous
power
only
on
the
sufferance
of
his
cabinet col-
leagues
and
of
his
fellow
members
of
parliament,
who
could
at
any
time force
his
removal
from office.
Moreover,
parliament
could
at
will,
by
ordinary legislation,
curtail
the
royal prerogative;
but
it
has
been
chary
of
doing
so,
lest
it
impair
the
efficiency
of
government
in
the
future.
It
was
Australia
that
began
to
bring
the Colonial
Office
and
parlia-
ment
closer
together
on the
management
of
the colonies.
The
effective
pressure
was not
financial,
though
by
1815
parliament
was
required
to
make
an
annual
grant
of
80,000
to
support
the
penal
settlements
of
New
South
Wales
and
Van
Diemen's
Land,
for
it
was
generally
con-
ceded
that
the convicts
would
have cost
more to
maintain
at home.
What
forced
the
change
was,
as
suggested
in a
previous
chapter,
a
growing
realization
that there
was
something
constitutionally
wrong
in
Australia.
The
governor
there had
undoubted
authority,
derived
from
parliament,
to rule
a
society
of convicts
and
their
guardians.
His
power
was
more
or
less
despotic,
a condition
dictated
by
the
very
nature of
this
society
and
reinforced
by
the
enormous
distance
that
separated
Australia
from
England.
But he was also
exercising
this
power
over
the free
settlers,
who
were
growing
in
number;
and
though
he
did not
know
it,
and
the
Colonial
Office
had
not realized
it,
he
had no
legal
authority
to
rule
over
them. Parliament
had not
given
him this author-
ity,
and the Crown
could
not
give
it. The
oversight
on
the
part
of
the
Colonial
Office
may
be
explained
by
the small and slow
beginning
of
this
new
society
under
the
shadow
of the
older
one,
by
its
location on
the far side
of
the
earth,
by
the
distractions of
the
long
French
war,
and
by
the false
analogy
of the
conquered
colonies,
where
the
royal
preroga-
tive
was
supreme.
Nevertheless,
the
Colonial Office
was
responsible
for
allowing
the
governor,
who
simply
followed
in the
footsteps
of
his
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and the
Fall
of Slavery
1 9
1
predecessors,
to
levy
taxes
he
had no
right
to
collect,
to
make
and
en-
force
laws
that
were
invalid,
and
to
impose
on
free
Englishmen
an
arbitrary
administration of
justice
which denied
the
precious
right
of
trial
by jury
and
sometimes
punished
without
any
trial.
In
1817 the
highhanded
behavior of Governor
Macquarie
was
aired
in
the
House of
Commons,
following
a free
settlers'
petition
to
that
body
for his
recall;
and
it
began
to
dawn
on
the Colonial Office
and
the
ministry
that
they
would
have to
ask
parliament
to
supply
Australia
with
a
proper
constitution.
This entailed considerable
preliminary
in-
vestigation,
and
meanwhile Bathurst
warned
Macquarie
to walk
warily.
In
1819,
while
still
wondering
what
should be
done,
the
ministry
suf-
fered
a
withering
attack
from
the
opposition
benches
for
what had
been
done
in Australia. The ministers
sought
to
soften
the blow
by
declaring
that
a
radical
change
was
contemplated,
that
a
royal
com-
missioner
was
appointed
and would soon
depart
to
examine
the
whole
situation
in New South
Wales,
and
that
further
action
should
await
his
recommendations.
As
an
emergency
measure,
the
government
had
parliament
provide
a
legal
sanction for the
taxes
raised
in
the
colony.
4
From
this
time
forth
the relations
between
the Colonial
Office
and
parliament
were
the
opposite
of
what
they
had
been.
The
ministers
had
learned
a
wholesome
lesson.
Never
again
would
the
Colonial
Office
shield
itself
behind
the^royal
prerogative,
much
less
stretch
the
pre-
rogative
beyond
the
legal
limits.
The
department
would
rather
look
to
parliament
for
support
in
administering
the
colonies,
and
to this
end it
undertook
the
education
of
parliament.
In
1822
Bathurst
inaugurated
the
policy
of
publishing
an annual
"Blue
Book" for
each
colony.
It
was
he also
who,
under
the
impulse
of this
Australian
crisis,
developed
the
valuable
practice
of
sending
out
specially
selected
royal
commissioners
as
the
need
arose
to tackle
on
the
spot
peculiarly
difficult
problems
in
the
colonial
world.
5
The
commissioner
dispatched
to
New
South
Wales
in
1819 had
power
to overrule
the
governor,
who
resented
this
interference
with
his
authority
and
resigned
in a
huff;
and
the
voluminous
reports
of the
commissioner
were
the
basis of
the
first
Australian
constitution,
which
was
framed
in
the Colonial
Office
and
then
enacted
by parliament
in
1823.
The act
reformed
the
judicial
system,
invested
the
existing
taxes
4
By
an
act that
was
renewed
annually
until
the
new constitution
was
completed.
5
Commissioners
were
sent
to
Trinidad
in
1802,
West Africa
in
1811,
Malta in
1812,
New
South
Wales
in
1819,
the
Cape,
Mauritius,
and
Ceylon
in
1823,
and West
Africa
again
in
1824.
192
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
with a
permanent legality,
gave
a
limited
legislative
authority
to
the
governor
and
a small
legislative
council,
and
provided
for the
separa-
tion
of Van Diemen's Land
from
New
South Wales
with the
same
form
of
government.
It will be observed
that
there
was no
provision
for
an
assembly,
which is
in marked contrast
to
what had been
done for
Canada
a
generation
previously,
when
Pitt's
government
felt bound
by
the
Declaratory
Act
of
1778 to create
an
assembly
as
the
only
remaining
means of
raising
the
necessary
colonial
revenue. But
the
times
had
changed;
there had
been no
popular
demand
in
Australia
for
an
as-
sembly,
and
there
was
no
pressing
need to
levy
new taxes there.
The
old
ones
sufficed and
though originally
unconstitutional
they
were
no
longer
so,
parliament having
leaped
into the breach
to cover them
with
its own
authority,
which
no British law
court could
question.
What
seems
to have forestalled
any
agitation
for
representative
government
among
the free
people
of
Australia,
who
by
this time
outnumbered the
rest of
the
population
and
possessed
most of
the wealth
in the
country,
was
Macquarie's
bitter
quarrel
with
the
rest of local officialdom over his
policy
of
favoring
emancipists
and
the continuance of
this
quarrel
by
his successor.
Why
should
the
emancipists
seek
to hobble the
guber-
natorial
authority
when
it
was
their
powerful
ally
against
the
class of
entrenched
"exclusives,"
who insisted
that
they
could
never be
any-
thing
but
outcasts?
As for the Canadian
precedent
of
1791,
Canadian
experience
had robbed
it
of much of
its
value
in
English
eyes.
Canada
was
giving
the Colonial Office
a headache. The
restoration
of
peace
with
the United
States released
the
suspended
strife in Lower
Canada,
and
it flamed
up
more
fiercely
than ever. The
conflict
between
the
French
majority
who controlled
the
assembly
and
the British
minority
who
monopolized
the
other
branches
of
government
affected
more
than
Lower Canada.
It
injured
Upper
Canada
by
depriving
that
province
of most
of
its revenue.
As
the
upper province
was
dependent
on
the lower for
access to the
sea,
and
the
latter
was
therefore
in a
position
to tax
the trade of
the
former,
the two
had
made
an
agreement
whereby
Lower
Canada would
collect
customs duties on
imports
with-
out
regard
for
their destination
and
turn over to
Upper
Canada
a
certain
proportion
of the
proceeds.
This
payment
stopped
in 1819
when
the
local
political
discord
prevented
the
renewal of
the
necessary
Lower
Canadian
statute.
Upper
Canada
appealed
to London
for
redress
by parliament.
But the French
province
was
in an
even worse
plight,
for
there the
lower
chamber
of the
legislature
was at
logger-
The
Rise
of
the
Colonial
Office
and
the
Fall
of
Slavery
193
heads
with the
upper
chamber
and the
executive,
and
beneath
this
political
deadlock
burned the fires
of racial and
religious
hatred.
Be-
cause
the
intense
nationalism that
grew
until
it
dominated
western
civilization
in
the
nineteenth
century
was
yet
a
novel
phenomenon,
London
could
not
understand the
strange
fever that had
gripped
French
Canada
and
made the
assembly
so intractable.
Therefore
Bathurst
welcomed a
proposal
that came from
Lower
Canada
and
promised,
at
one
stroke,
to
remove the
exasperating
diffi-
culties
of
both
provinces.
The
plan
was to
pass
an
act of
parliament,
of
which
the
Lower
Canadian
solicitor
general
prepared
the
first
draft,
to
provide
an
arbitration
system
for the division
of the duties
collected
at
the
port
of
Quebec,
and
to effect
a
legislative
union
of the
two
prov-
inces,
which would in other
respects
remain distinct.
The new
legis-
lature
was to have
power
to
legislate
for either
or
both,
and
representa-
tion
was
to
be
divided
equally
between
them
though
the
population
of
Upper
Canada
was
a
bare
150,000
while
that of
Lower
Canada was
about
450,000
so
that
the new
assembly
would
have
a
guaranteed
English-speaking
majority.
The
French Canadians
were also to be
bridled
by
other features
of the
bill,
which
was
presented
to
parliament
in the
early
summer
of 1822.
Much
to
the
surprise
of
the
government,
which
expected
a
prompt
passage,
the
measure roused
a violent storm
in
the House
of Commons.
The
objections
were
not to the
principles
of the
bill,
but
to
the introduction
of such
an
important
measure so late
in
the
session
and without
any
effort
to consult
the
provinces
con-
cerned.
Thereupon
the contentious
union
feature
was
dropped
for that
session,
and
the financial
provisions,
which
were
urgently
needed to
rescue
Upper
Canada,
were
rushed
through.
It
was
well that
parliament
blocked
this
union,
a
scheme
long
cher-
ished
by
influential
leaders
of
the
British
minority
in Lower
Canada
who
seized the
opportunity
of
Upper
Canada's
distress
to launch it in
parliament
with ministerial
support.
They
wanted
to
combine
English-
speaking
Upper
Canada
with
the
English-speaking
part
of
Lower
Canada
to
crush
the
French,
who still
formed
the
great
majority
of the
population
of
the
two
Canadas.
Upper
Canada
knew
nothing
of the
bill
until
after
it
was
introduced,
and
then
people
in that
province
did
not
relish
the
thought
of
being
used
as
a
makeweight.
Many
of them
suspected
that
the
wrong
party
might
be
crushed,
and
the
government
of
Upper
Canada
denounced
the
union
in
no
uncertain terms.
The
news
from
London
threw
Lower
Canada
into
an
uproar.
Everywhere,
even
in
the
smallest
communities,
there
were
meetings,
speeches,
194
CHAPTER
TWELVE:
resolutions,
and
petitions;
for
the
French
and
British
alike
realized
that
their
whole
future
was
at
stake
in
the decision
to be
made
in
the
em-
pire's
capital,
and
each
party
was
determined
to make
its voice
heard
over
the other.
Early
in the
winter
their
opposing
petitions
to
king
and
parliament
were carried
across
the
Atlantic
by
special
delegations,
who
were welcomed
at
the
Colonial
Office.
Wilmot
Horton,
the
new
parliamentary
undersecretary,
admitted
to
Papineau,
one
of the
dele-
gates
and
the
speaker
of
the
assembly,
that
the
government
had
ex-
pected
opposition
from
the
French
Canadians
but
had favored
union
as best
for them
in the
end.
When
Horton
went on
to criticize
the
Montreal committee's
attack on
the bill
as destructive
of
French
Ca-
nadian
laws,
language,
and
religion,
the future
rebel leader
dissociated
himself from
such
an
expression
and
declared
that
his
people
had
the
fullest
confidence
in the
government
of
the mother
country.
Papineau
and
his
colleague
remained
for
some
time
in
London,
using
all
the
arguments
and
influence
that
they
could,
until
they
were
satisfied that
the
union
project
was
dead.
After
Bathurst's
retirement
in
1827 there
was
a more or
less
rapid
succession
of colonial
secretaries;
but
the Colonial Office
was
then
well
established
and,
on
the
whole,
these later
secretaries
of state
were
abler
than
the
first of the line.
William
Huskisson
was
perhaps
the
best
statesman
and
administrator of
them
all,
and
he
did
much
for the
colo-
nial
empire
by liberalizing
its
trading
relations.
This,
however,
was a
service that
he had
already
accomplished
in
another
capacity,
as we
shall
see
in the
next
chapter.
He
was
only
eight
months
in the
Colonial
Office,
just long
enough
to indicate
that
he
might
have done much
more for
the
colonies
if an
unfortunate
split
with his
colleagues
over
a
domestic
political
matter
had
not
forced
his withdrawal from the
cabinet.
Before
Huskisson left
the Colonial
Office
in
May
1828,
he
had to
face
a new crisis
in
Lower
Canada,
whence came
more
delegates
with
monster
petitions
to
the
king
for
relief from
an internal situation
that
seemed
intolerable.
After
considerable
study
of
the
complicated
prob-
lem,
Huskisson
analyzed
it in a
speech
to the Commons and asked for
a
select
committee
of
the House
to
investigate
and
report.
It would
not
be
surprising,
he
said,
if the constitution
given
to the
province
a
gen-
eration
before
was now found to be
"extremely
defective." Therefore
he
posed
the
question:
What
changes
in
form or
operation
are neces-
sary
to
get
a workable
government?
He
deplored
the
constitutional
deadlock,
pointing
out
some
of the
crying
evils
it had
wrought.
The