Mr. Draper had frightened him, for he went hastily at his work, as if he fancied a tempest were shortly to break, and he feared being caught in the storm. In a few weeks it was known that a cabinet had been patched up as follows:

The capture of Mr. Papineau was the most important move the governor had made; for he was a brother of the notorious agitator and rebel, and his accession to the cabinet fell like a wet blanket upon some of the more radical of the reformers. M. Viger was another French Canadian. He had been a bosom friend of Joseph Papineau, had aided in the rebellion, and been imprisoned for his treason. While lying in the gaol a tory paper had objected to his being "fattened for the gallows." The same journal with other tory organs now pointed to him with pride as a leading representative Canadian, and an honour and a strength to the government. But after all M. Viger was not a man of much consequence. He had not constancy enough in his character to be much of anything. He was a weak rebel and an indifferent patriot. He was on the market when Metcalfe began to play the despot, and was speedily bought up. His absorption into the new cabinet had no effect upon anybody but himself and those who profited by his salary and honors.

But those who knew the old man were moved to sorrow rather than to anger at his defection. "I assure you that no occurrence in my political life," says Robert Baldwin, in a private letter to a gentleman in Kingston, "has ever occasioned me a tenth part of the personal pain than the position which our venerable friend thought proper to assume, has inflicted upon

me.

I honoured him as a patriot, I loved him as a man, and I revered him as a father. In fact his course is one of those enigmas that baffle me quite in every attempt to unravel it, and I can still really designate it by no other term than an hallucination."

The necessity of appealing to the country went sorely against the governor's grain, but he was assured that there was no hope for the ministry in the existing house. When he found that a dissolution was inevitable, he folded his sleeves for the contest, and stooped to artifices and meanness in forwarding the cause of the tory party to which an average ward politician would hardly descend. He felt however sure of victory. Circumstances stronger than the strength of parties were in his favour; he lacked not the aid of friends who were influential and unscrupulous, and had the satisfaction, above all, to know that his opponents were alienating sympathy by their excesses.

The contest came on in November, in a very hurricane of umult. At more than one hustings blood was shed, and mutual massacre on a general scale only prevented by bodies of soldiers and special constables. The worst fiend known to man was loose in those days during the elections, the demon of whiskey. Near every booth were open houses, where the excited mobs drank intoxicants furnished by the candidates till they became mad. For days before polling, ill-favoured lookng persons poured into Montreal, some carrying dirks and slung-shots, and others pistols. Regiments of soldiers, aided by hundreds of special constabies, were on constant duty during the elections in this riotous city, but could not prevent some of the most brutal collisions, and even bloodshed. The suspicious strangers with the dirks and pistols did not come into the city for naught; and in the riots gave many a bloody account of themselves.

In Kingston the passions of the mob were scarce less brutal, or party feeling less bitter. Recent sittings of the parliament there had called the staid political principles of the people into

activity, and now the crisis which had come fanned that activity into a fierce flame. Some were extreme radicals, who declared at their gatherings that " the British system ought to be pulled out by the roots," others were uncompromising in their toryism, and prayed that Metcalfe "might hold fast, and fight the good fight bravely to the end;" while, perhaps, a party as large as the two extreme ones, took the middle ground, and was neither so radical as the out-and-out reformer, nor so conservative as the ultra tory. To the moderate conservative party John A Macdonald belonged, though when it was told through the streets of Kingston that he was coming to oppose Manahan, the extreme tories, as well as members of the great middle party approved of the choice, and, with ringing cheers, followed the young Alexander of politics to the hustings.

A

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE HUSTINGS TO THE HOUSE.

TORY, however, Mr. Macdonald was, and as a tory he went to the polls. But what he professed was not that slavish toryism which believed that the nation and the people were made only for the sovereign. Neither did he go to the hustings "talking prerogative, the alpha and omega of the compact," but at once came to the political condition of the people. With prerogative, indeed, he did not concern himself at all, unless where it bore on the constitutional status of the province. These were turbulent times in many parts of Upper and Lower Canada, and for several months preceding the elections monster meetings had been held by the party leaders at various parts of the province. It was not unusual to see proceeding to one of these gatherings, a hundred teams, each carrying a dozen stalwart voters to stirring music, with flags flying, and every man armed with a club. Violent collisions often occurred, and the polling places were frequently the scenes of the maddest and most brutal party strife.

Of a similar character were the crowds that gathered at Kingston before the elections were held, some cheering for Mr. Manahan, others for Mr. Macdonald. Manahan was an Irishman, and all the bullies of the city were on his side. The number of these was comparatively small, but they could terrorize over a much larger number of peacably disposed men. But the election had not proceeded far when the repute of Manahan had grown so odious that his followers began to drop away in flocks. The man's past career, the worthlessness of his moral character and his mean abilities had much to do with

this; but the chief reason was the happy address, the skill and tact of the young lawyer, who opposed him, and who grew from day to day in the good-will of the voters.

Macdonald addressed several meetings in the open air, meetings composed of riotous men, inflamed with whiskey and the worst passions of party. At one of these meetings he had much difficulty in getting an opportunity to begin his specch, as several adherents of Manahan came there to obstruct him. "Never," says an eye-witness, "did he lose temper, but goodnaturedly waited till there was a lull in the disturbance." When silence was restored, he said he knew most of the electors, and they were all manly fellows-too manly, indeed, to refuse another fair play. They were opposed to him, he said, and they had a right to be, and he would not give much for them if they would not stand up for their own candidate; but if they had a right to their opinions-and he would be glad to listen to them at another time-he had also a right to his. He only wished to present his side of the case, and if his hearers did not agree with him they might afterwards vote for whom they chose.

Here was something more than soothing speech; here, indeed, was the genius of a Mark Antony, that could by the very force of subtle knowledge of character, turn a hostile mob into friends upon the spot. The stroke told, and at every point which appealed to the manliness and fair play of his opponents-for every man, however inean, respects both these qualities—the crowd cheered again and again, and the cheers did not all come from his own friends. It need hardly be said that during his speech there were no more interruptions, and that he had completely conquered his opponents besides charming his friends. A very intelligent Irishman, who had just arrived in Canada, called at Macdonald's office the next day, and said to a student there that he had heard O'Connell the year before making a speech in Kerry. "The speech last night," he said, " was not as forcible as O'Connell's,