certainly weakened himself in his own province by his reluctance to
express himself distinctly with respect to a land question which had
been so long a grievance and a subject of earnest agitation among the
men who supported him in and out of the legislature. Indeed when he
presented himself for the last time before his constituents in 1857,
he was emphatically attacked on the hustings as an opponent of the
secularization of the reserves for refusing to give a distinct pledge
as to the course he would take on the question. This fact, taken in
connection with his previous utterances in the legislature, certainly
gives force to the opinion which has been more than once expressed by
Canadian historians that he was not prepared, any more than LaFontaine
himself, to divert funds given for an express purpose to one of an
entirely different character. Under these circumstances it is easy to
come to the conclusion that the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry was not
willing at any time to make these two questions parts of its
policy--questions on which it was ready to stand or fall as a
government.

The first step towards the breaking up of the ministry was the
resignation of Baldwin following upon the support given by a majority
of the Reformers in Upper Canada to a notion presented by William Lyon
Mackenzie for the abolition of the court of chancery and the transfer
of its functions to the courts of common law. The motion was voted
down in the House, but Baldwin was a believer in the doctrine that a
minister from a particular province should receive the confidence and
support of the majority of its representatives in cases where a
measure affected its interests exclusively. He had taken some pride in
the passage of the act which reorganized the court, reformed old
abuses in its practice, and made it, as he was convinced, useful in
litigation; but when he found that his efforts in this direction were