Curiously enough, although his love of good government drove him to amend conditions among the French, Sydenham's relations with that people seem to have grown steadily worse. He had made advances to the foremost French politician, La Fontaine, offering him the solicitor-generalship of Lower Canada; but La Fontaine, who never had any enthusiasm for British Whig statesmanship,[[26]] regarded the offer as a bribe to draw him away from his countrymen and their national ideal, and declined it, thereby increasing the tension. Thus, as the time for the election drew near, the French were still further hardening their hearts against the governor-general of United Canada, and Sydenham, his patience now exhausted, could but exclaim in baffled anger, "As for the French, nothing but time will do anything with them. They hate British rule—British connection—improvements of all kinds, whether in their laws or their roads; so they will sulk, and will try, that is, their leaders, to do all the mischief they can."[[27]]

Meantime he had prepared two other politic strokes before he called Parliament: the regulation of immigration, and a project for raising a British loan in aid of Canadian public works. Immigration, more especially now that the current had set once more towards Canada, was one of the essential facts in the life of the colony; and yet the evils attendant on it were still as obvious as the gains. Most of the defects so vividly portrayed by Durham and his commissioners still persisted—unsuitable immigrants, over-crowded ships, disease which spread from ship to land and overcrowded the local hospitals, wretched and poverty-stricken masses lingering impotently at Quebec, and a straggling line of westbound settlers, who obtained work and land with difficulty and after many sorrows.[[28]] Sydenham had none of Gibbon Wakefield's doctrinaire enthusiasm on the subject; and, as he said, the inducements, to parishes and landlords to send out their surplus population were already sufficiently strong. But much could and must be done by way of remedy. It was his plan to regulate more strictly the conditions on board emigrant ships, and to humanize the process of travelling. Government agents must safeguard the rights of ignorant settlers; relief, medical and otherwise, should be in readiness for the destitute and afflicted when they arrived; sales of land were to be simplified and made easier; and a system of public works might enable the local authorities to solve two problems at one time, by giving the poorer settler steady employment, and by completing the great tasks, only half performed in days when money and labour alike were wanting.[[29]] The final achievement of these objects Sydenham reserved until he should meet parliament, but he had laid his plans, and had primed the home authorities with facts long before that date.

In the same way he had foreseen the need of Canada for Imperial assistance, both in her public works, and in her finance. Assistance in the former of these matters was peculiarly important. Colonists, more especially in the Upper Province, had undertaken the development of Canadian natural resources, but poverty had called a halt before the development was complete, or, by preventing necessary additions and improvements, had rendered useless what had already been done. Conspicuous among such imperfect works were the canals; and Sydenham realized the strange dilemma into which provincial enterprise seemed doomed to run. The province, he told Russell, was sinking under the weight of engagements which it could only meet by fresh outlay, whilst that outlay the condition of its credit preventing it from making.[[30]] He was therefore prepared to come before the United Parliament with a proposal, backed by the British Ministry, for a great loan of £1,500,000 to be negotiated by the home government, and to be utilized, partly in redeeming the credit of the province, and partly in completing its public works. "It will therefore be absolutely necessary that Her Majesty's government should enable the governor of the province of Canada to afford this relief when the Union is completed, and the financial statement takes place; and I know of no better means than those originally proposed—of guaranteeing a loan which would remove a considerable charge arising from the high rate of interest payable by the province on the debt already contracted, or which it would have to pay for raising fresh loans which may be required hereafter for great local improvements."[[31]]

There remained now the last and greatest of Sydenham's labours before his stewardship could be honourably accounted for and surrendered, the summoning, meeting, and managing, of a parliament representative of that Canada, English and French, which he had restored and irritated. His reputation must depend the more on this political adventure, because he had already determined that 1841 should be his last year in Canada—he would not stay, he said, though they made him Duke of Canada and Prince of Regiopolis. And indeed the Parliament of 1841, in all its circumstances, still remains one of the salient points in modern Canadian history.

The Union came into force on the tenth of February, but long before that time all the diverse political interests in Canada had organized themselves for the fray. Sydenham himself naturally occupied the foremost place. He was acting now, not merely as governor-general, but as the prime minister of a new cabinet, and as a party manager, whose main duty it was to secure parliamentary support for his men and his measures by the maintenance of a sound central group. By the beginning of the year he thought he had evidence for believing that, in Upper Canada, a great majority of the members would be men who had at heart the welfare of the province, and the British connection, and who desired to make the Act of Union operate to the advantage of the country.[[32]] But even in Upper Canada there were doubtful elements. The Family Compact men, few as they might be in number, were unlikely to leave their enemy, the governor-general, in peace; nor were all the Reformers prepared to acquiesce in Sydenham's very restrained and limited interpretation of responsible government. Late in 1840, and early in 1841, the Upper Canadian progressives had organized their strength; and additional significance was given to their action by their communications with Lower Canada.[[33]] There, indeed, was the crux of the experiment. The French Canadians, already organized in sullen opposition, had just received what they counted a fresh insult. But Sydenham may be allowed to explain his own action. "There were," he wrote to Russell in March, 1841, "attached to the cities, both of Montreal and Quebec, very extensive suburbs, inhabited generally by a poor population, unconnected with the mercantile interests to which these cities owe their importance. Had these cities been brought within the electoral limits, the number of their population would have enabled them to return one, if not both, of the members for each city. But such a result would have been directly at variance with the grounds on which increased representation was given by Parliament to these cities. On referring to the discussions which took place in both houses when the Union Bill was before them, I find that members on all sides laid great stress on the necessity of securing ample representation to the mercantile interests of Canada.... Feeling myself, therefore, bound in duty to carry out the views of the British parliament in this matter, I was compelled in fixing the limits of Quebec and Montreal to transfer to the county a large portion of the suburbs of each."[[34]] Whatever Sydenham's intentions may have been, the actual result of his action was to secure for his party four seats in the very heart of the enemy's country; and the French Canadians, naturally embittered, resented the governor's action as a piece of gerrymandering, which had practically disfranchised many French voters. Already, in 1840, under the active leadership of Neilson of Quebec, a British supporter of French claims, an anti-union movement had been started.[[35]] In July of the same year La Fontaine visited Toronto, to canvass, said scandal, for the speaker's chair in the united assembly; and in any case he was able to assure his compatriots that they had sympathizers among the British in the West. The Tory paper in Sydenham's new capital, Kingston, in a review and forecast of the situation, settled on this Anglo-French co-operation as one of the serious possibilities of the future;[[36]] and Sydenham as he watched developments in the Lower Province, found himself growing unwontedly pessimistic. "In Lower Canada," he wrote, "the elections will be bad. The French Canadians have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing by the Rebellion, and the suspension of the constitution, and are more unfit for representative government than they were in 1791. In most of the French counties, members, actuated by the old spirit of the Assembly, and without any principle except that of inveterate hostility to British rule and British connection, will be returned without a possibility of opposition."[[37]]

The elections began on the 8th of March, and the date on which parliament was to meet was postponed, first from April 8th to May 26th, and then, in consequence of the continued lateness of the season,[[38]] from May 26th to June 14th. The result of the elections, known early in April, gave matter for serious thought to many, Sydenham himself not excluded. Absolute precision is difficult, but Sydenham's biographer has tabulated the groups as follows:

Government Members - - - - 24
French Members - - - - - - 20
Moderate Reformers - - - - 20
Ultra Reformers - - - - - 5
Compact Party - - - - - - 7
Doubtful - - - - - - - - - 6
Special Return - - - - - - 1
Double Return - - - - - - 1
--
84[[39]]

In the confusion of groups, Sydenham still trusted to the centre—a party almost precisely similar to that which in 1867 was called Liberal-Conservative. This centre he hoped to create out of moderate Conservatives who had enlarged their earlier views, and moderate Reformers who anxiously desired to see Sydenham's proposed improvements carried out.[[40]] A shrewd observer, himself a member, and appreciatively critical of Sydenham's work, counted at least five parties in the new parliament. Three of these groups came from Upper Canada—the Conservatives under Sir Allan MacNab; the Ministerialists, that is the Reformers and moderate Conservatives, under the Attorney-General Draper, and the Secretary Harrison, and the ultra-reformers who looked to Robert Baldwin for guidance. From Lower Canada came the French nationalists, with some British supporters, under Morin, Neilson, and Aylwin, and the defenders of the Union policy, chiefly British, but with a few conservative French allies. "The division lists of the session 1841," writes the same observer, "cannot fail to strike anyone acquainted with the state of parties, as extraordinary. Mr. Baldwin on several occasions voted with considerable majorities in opposition to the Government, while as frequently he was in insignificant minorities. There was a decided tendency towards a coalition with the Reformers of French origin, on the part of Sir Allan MacNab and the Upper Canada Conservatives. The Ministerial strength lay in the support which it received from the British party of Lower Canada, and from the majority of the Upper Canada Reformers."[[41]] Well might Sydenham speak of the delusive nature of the party nicknames borrowed by his legislators from England.

Whatever were the characteristic faults of the parliament in 1841, sloth was not one of them. All through the summer it worked with feverish energy. Writing to his brother at the end of August, Sydenham boasted—"The five great works I aimed at have been got through—the establishment of a board of works with ample powers; the admission of aliens; a new system of county courts; the regulation of the public lands ceded by the Crown under the Union Act; and lastly the District Council Bill. I think you will admit this to be pretty good work for one session, especially when superadded to half a dozen minor measures, as well as the fact of having set up a government, brought together two sets of people, who hated each other cordially, and silenced all the threatened attacks upon the Union, which were expected to be so formidable.... What do you think of this, you miserable people in England, who spend two years upon a single measure?"[[42]]