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Updated: June 15, 2025
We have had frequent occasion to observe that the guiding principle of Lord Elgin's policy was to let the Colony have its own way in everything which was not contrary either to public morality or to some Imperial interest.
The result was that persons at home, who had the highest appreciation of Lord Elgin's capacity as a statesman, sincerely believed him to be deficient in nerve and vigour; and as the misapprehension was one which he could not have corrected, even if he had been aware how widely it was spread, it continued to exist in many quarters until dispelled by the singular energy and boldness, amounting almost to rashness, which he displayed in China.
Late in the month of September, during the last days of Lord Elgin's stay at Simla, occurred the only break in the otherwise peaceful tenor of his government, in the shape of an outburst of certain Wahabee fanatics inhabiting a frontier district in the Upper Valley of the Indus.
Yet he conceived of an empire not confined to the British Islands, but growing, expanding, "strengthening itself from age to age, and drawing new supplies of vitality from virgin soils." With Elgin's administration began the new era of self-government. The legislature was dissolved towards the close of the year 1847, and the election resulted in a complete victory for the Reformers.
"Of course," she said, "papa would not have thought of allowing me to remain at such an expensive school as Miss Elgin's, but grandmamma has kindly promised to pay the expenses of my education for two years, and if I study hard for that time I hope that I shall be able to teach, and to help papa and mamma."
It is marked by an elaborate monument surmounted by the universal symbol of the Christian faith; but a nobler and more lasting memorial is the stable government he gave to 'that true North. See The Seigneurs of Old Canada, chap. iv. The twelve years that followed Elgin's régime saw the flood-tide of Canada's prosperity.
But this patriotic decision delayed somewhat the execution of Lord Elgin's mission to China. It was nearly four months after he had despatched the first Chinese contingent to the relief of the Indian authorities, that another body of troops arrived in China and he was able to proceed vigorously to execute the objects of his visit to the East.
Under these conditions it was not easy to equalise the receipts and expenditure of the island treasury; and the difficulty was not diminished by the necessity of satisfying critics at home. Before long an occasion arose to test Lord Elgin's tact and discretion in mediating on such questions between the colony and the mother-country.
But their wrath rose to fury on the introduction of a Bill 'to provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property was destroyed during the Rebellion in 1837 and 1838: a 'questionable measure, to use Lord Elgin's own words in first mentioning it, 'but one which the preceding administration had rendered almost inevitable by certain proceedings adopted by them' in Lord Metcalfe's time.
Fennings Taylor, the deputy clerk with a seat at the table, tells us in a sketch of Macdonald that Lord Elgin's face clearly marked "deep displeasure and annoyance when listening to the speaker's address," and that he gave "a motion of angry impatience when he found himself obliged to listen to the repetition in French of the reproof which had evidently galled him in English."
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