when he received a positive or fancied injury. He had been a
solicitor-general of Upper Canada in the LaFontaine-Baldwin government,
and had never forgiven Hincks for not having promoted him to the
attorney-generalship, instead of W.B. Richards, afterwards an eminent
judge of the old province of Canada, and first chief justice of
the Supreme Court of the Dominion. Hincks had offered him the
commissionership of crown lands in the ministry, but he refused to
accept any office except the one on which his ambition was fixed.
Subsequently, however, he was induced by his friends to take the
speakership of the legislative assembly, but he had never forgiven
what he considered a slight at the hands of the prime minister in
1851. Accordingly, when he appeared at the Bar of the Council in 1853,
he made an attempt to pay off this old score. As soon as he had made
his bow to the governor-general seated on the throne, Macdonald
proceeded to read the following speech, which had been carefully
prepared for the occasion in the two languages:

"May it please your Excellency: It has been the immemorial
custom of the speaker of the Commons' House of Parliament to
communicate to the throne the general result of the
deliberations of the assembly upon the principal objects
which have employed the attention of parliament during the
period of their labours. It is not now part of my duty thus
to address your Excellency, inasmuch as there has been no
act passed or judgment of parliament obtained since we were
honoured by your Excellency's announcement of the cause of
summoning of parliament by your gracious speech from the
throne. The passing of an act through its several stages,
according to the law and custom of parliament (solemnly
declared applicable to the parliamentary proceedings of this