CHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY , 21
on the ground of the unfairness of the proposal. The Liberal
leaders pointed out that from 1840 to 1843 they had left
the Conservatives to enjoy a majority of the seats and the
posts, that the agreement had been broken up by the action
of the Conservatives in 1843 in engrossing seven seats in
the Executive Council, and that they had accordingly
abandoned their coalition, and that now the House only
supported the Government by one vote instead of their
commanding three-fourths of the members as before 1843.
In a dispatch of February 2, 1847. the Lieutenant-Governor
forwarded to the Secretary of State copies of two memoranda
by his Council which asked for a statement of the views
of Earl Grey as to the mode of conducting the Government :
they deprecated the adoption of full self-government as
anderstood by their rivals, especially Mr. Howe, and they
sought to maintain the limited interpretation put on respon-
sible government by Sir Charles Metcalfe when Governor-
General of Canada, when he asserted his refusal to rely
blindly on the advice of the Executive Council or to sur-
render the control of patronage into their hands, a view which
had been accepted by the House of Assembly on March 4,
L844, as a correct interpretation of the rule of responsible
government. They then referred to the fact that Lord
Falkland had consistently refused to govern with any but
a coalition ministry, and that when at the elections of 1843
Mr. Howe, then a member of the coalition, went to the
country declaring for full responsible government, he had
been defeated, and his subsequent conduct in attacking the
Governor in his newspaper had rendered his appointment
to office in a coalition impossible. They also argued from
the poverty of the province that a large adoption of the
changing of offices would work very badly indeed.
Earl Grey’s reply of March 31, 18472 recapitulated the
principles of responsible government which be thought both
parties really accepted. He laid stress on the necessity for
the partv on whose advice the Lieutenant-Governor acted
Parl, Pan.. H. C. 621, 1848, p. 15.
29,
2 Thid., p
