finding that his policy had met with that success which is its best
eulogy and justification. Two years after the events of 1849, he was
able to write to England that he did not believe that "the function of
the governor-general under constitutional government as the moderator
between parties, the representative of interests which are common to
all the inhabitants of the country, as distinct from those that divide
them into parties, was ever so fully and so frankly recognized." He
was sure that he could not have achieved such results if he had had
blood upon his hands. His business was "to humanize, not to harden."
One of Canada's ablest men--not then in politics--had said to him:

"Yes, I see it all now, you were right, a thousand times
right, though I thought otherwise then. I own that I would
have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured
half of what you did,"

and he added, "I should have been justified, too." "Yes," answered
Lord Elgin, "you would have been justified because your course would
have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the best
course. Mine was a better one." And the result was this, in his own
words:

"700,000 French reconciled to England, not because they are
getting rebel money; I believe, indeed that no rebels will
get a farthing; but because they believe that the British
governor is just. 'Yes,' but you may say, 'this is purchased
by the alienation of the British.' Far from it, I took the
whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that
the Canadian British were never so loyal as they are at this
hour; [this was, remember, two years after the burning of