" This was far from a true reading of the
situation. The French stood aloof, it is true, a compact and
sullen group, angered by the undisguised policy of Anglicization
that faced them and by Sydenham's unscrupulous tactics. But they
had learned restraint and had found leaders and allies of the
kind most needed. Papineau's place--for the great tribune was now
in exile in Paris, consorting with the republicans and socialists
who were to bring about the Revolution of 1848--had been taken by
one of his former lieutenants. Louis Hippolyte La Fontaine still
stands out as one of the two or three greatest Canadians of
French descent, a man of massive intellect, of unquestioned
integrity, and of firm but moderate temper. With Baldwin he came
to form a close and lifelong friendship. The Reformers of Canada
West, as Upper Canada was now called, formed a working alliance
with La Fontaine which gave them a sweeping majority in the
Assembly. Bagot bowed to the inevitable and called La Fontaine
and Baldwin to his Council. Ill health made it impossible for him
to take much part in the government, and the Council was far on
the way to obtaining the unity and the independence of a true
Cabinet when Bagot's death in 1843 brought a new turn in affairs.
The British Ministers had seen with growing uneasiness Bagot's
concessions. His successor, Sir Charles Metcalfe, a man of honest
and kindly ways but accustomed to governing oriental peoples,
determined to make a stand against the pretensions of the
Reformers.
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