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In his attempt to answer these various problems, Bagot was at his worst in finance. He had not the requisite business training, and entirely lacked Sydenham's knowledge, boldness, and precision.
His study of Sydenham's despatches revealed to him the contradiction between that statesman's resolute proclamation of Russell's doctrine, and the course of practical surrender which his actions seemed to have followed in 1841.
The issue was stated moderately but quite directly, and there are critics of Sydenham who hold that his answer for it was his voice that spoke surrendered the whole position. Of Sydenham's own doctrine of colonial government the outlines are unmistakeable. A governor-general existed, responsible for his actions solely to the imperial authority.
Sydenham's work had been done once for all. In spite of ignorance, and errors, and worse, the parliamentarians had really learned the lessons of procedure which he had so deftly taught, and they now settled down to the regular game of Ins and Outs, according to established and accepted rules.
That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt; for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily recorded in publick registers.
It was his opinion that Bagot should anticipate the coming crisis by calling in Baldwin and the French, before events forced that step on him. On the Conservative side, a moderate man like W. H. Draper, the attorney-general for Upper Canada in Sydenham's ministry, argued in favour of a policy almost identical.
It is a melancholy comment on the ecclesiastical interpretation of religion that, ten years later, when the firmly expressed desires of all moderate men had given the Bishop of Toronto a good excuse for acquiescence in Sydenham's status quo, that pugnacious ecclesiastic still fought to save as much of the monopoly as could be secured.
Bagot, who understood them and whom they came to trust, may be allowed to describe their characteristics, through the troubled first years of union: "On Lord Sydenham's arrival," he wrote to Stanley, "he found the Lower Province deprived of a constitution, the legislative functions of the government being administered by a special council, consisting of a small number of members nominated by the Crown.
As the Canadian portion of the biography was the work of Sydenham's secretary, Murdoch, it carries with it considerable authority. Murdoch was, indeed, one of the most competent of the men round Sydenham. Sydenham to Russell, 26 June, 1841. Hincks, Lecture on the Political History of Canada, 1840-1855, pp. 22-23. Poulett Scrope, p. 243.
And now if you will have the goodness to take your places, I shall do myself the pleasure of riding with you as far as the magistrate's." Honora knelt and kissed the pale cheeks of the dead boys, and then accepted Captain Sydenham's arm in the march out of the glen. The men followed sadly. Ledwith looked wild for a while. The tears pressed against Arthur's eyes.
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