20 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART I 
also an intermediary with the Home Government in the 
matter of the troops, and used his influence against the 
determination to make the Colony rely solely on its own 
strength for defence purposes. He recognized the duty of 
the Governor-General to exercise a moderating effect on 
governmental bitterness, to constitute himself the patron of 
education, of moral and social efforts, and to wield an un- 
obtrusive but pervading power for good in the Colony, and 
when he left Canada he had given a clear and convincing 
example of all that was best in responsible government. 
In the case of Nova Scotia the principle of responsible 
government had been adopted in theory contemporaneously 
with its acceptance for Canada, but it was by no means at 
once put into effect. In a dispatch of November 3, 1846, 
however, Earl Grey, in replying to a private communication 
from Sir John Harvey, laid down the principle that the 
Lieutenant-Governor should not dismiss his ministers, but 
allow them to be forced into resignation by lack of support 
in the Legislature. He also advised him that he should 
accept the proposals of his ministers unless they seemed to 
be based merely on considerations of party advantage, but 
even in such cases the refusal must be conditioned by the 
fact that it entitled the ministers to resign, and that if 
the public supported them concession to their views became 
inevitable, since it could not be too distinctly acknowledged 
that it was neither possible nor desirable to carry on the 
Government of any of the British Provinces in North 
America in opposition to the opinion of the inhabitants. 
The Lieutenant-Governor then proceeded to endeavour to 
arrange a coalition on the basis of the Liberals being offered 
four seats in the Council and one office. but that was declined 
' Parl. Pap., H. C. 621, 1848, pp. 7, 8; Earl Grey, Colonial Policy, 
i. 209-13. The Executive Council was made distinct from the Legislative 
Council in 1838, by the instructions to Lord Durham ; see Canada Sess. Pap. 
1883, No. 70, pp. 8, 39 ; Bourinot, Constitution of Canada, p. 68 ; Egerton 
and Grant, op. cit., pp. 297-310. For arguments for responsible govern- 
ment see Howe's Letters and Speeches, extracts of which are given by 
Egerton and Grant, pp. 197-252.