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