A copy of this despatch was sent to the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick and it was laid before the House in pursuance of an address which had been passed a few days before. It was understood that the principles laid down in this despatch would be equally applicable to the province of New Brunswick, and Mr. Fisher moved that the House should approve of them and of their application to New Brunswick. This resolution was carried by a vote of twenty-four to eleven, which was a complete reversal of the vote of the previous session. Among those who voted for the resolution were the three members of the government who had seats in the House of Assembly and who had been previously opposed to any such change in the political system of the country. Thus the victory for responsible government was practically won, and it only remained to perfect the details.
Immediately after the prorogation of the legislature, a reorganization of the government took place, Messrs. Baillie, Shore and Johnston retired and their places were taken by Messrs. Wilmot, Partelow, Fisher and Kinnear. Mr. Wilmot became attorney-general in the place of Mr. Peters, recently deceased, who had filled that office for twenty years. Mr. Partelow became provincial secretary in place of John Simcoe Saunders. Mr. Kinnear, who had been made solicitor-general in 1846, now became a member of the government under the new system, while Mr. Fisher took his seat as a member of the government without office. Thus were the principles of responsible government vindicated and established in New Brunswick. The provincial secretary, the attorney-general and the solicitor-general became political officers subject to change with every change of government. The surveyor-general, Mr. Baillie, by resigning from the government escaped this condition for the time being, but it was not long before that office also became political, Mr. Baillie himself retiring with a pension in 1851.
INFLUENCE OF COLONIAL OFFICE
Messrs. Wilmot and Fisher were much censured by their friends for becoming members of a government that was essentially Conservative and in which they were in a minority. But as the principles for which they had contended had been admitted and were now in a measure established, there seemed to be no reason why they should not assist in working them out. Wilmot as attorney-general certainly had greater opportunities of advancing the cause of Reform than as a private member, and he and Fisher working together were able to exercise a strong influence on the administration. In the following year, as has already been seen, a measure was carried voiding the seats of members of the assembly who became heads of departments in the government, or enjoyed any office of profit or emolument under the Crown, and this was all that was necessary to establish responsible government on a firm basis. There was indeed one other difficulty, the interference of the colonial office and the influence of the governor, who had been accustomed to govern the province largely by means of despatches. This influence was one which could only be got rid of by degrees, for the wise men of Downing Street always thought they knew much better what colonists required than did the colonists themselves. The colonial secretary undertook to dictate to the province as to the kind of tariff it should pass, and to refuse assent to the passage of bills by the legislature giving a preference to any particular county or granting bounties to fishermen or others engaged in any special calling. It was felt to be a hardship that the province was not permitted to give encouragement to any industry which it desired to assist, and so strong was this feeling that at the session of 1850, immediately after the receipt of a despatch from Earl Grey disallowing the bill of the previous session granting bounties for the cultivation of hemp, a bill was introduced and carried by an overwhelming majority in the assembly appropriating three thousand pounds for bounties to fishermen. This bill was rejected by the council, so that the colonial secretary was spared the difficulty which would have been involved in being defied by the New Brunswick legislature. It was also felt to be a great hardship that, at a time when the colonies were being deprived of the preferential tariff they had so long enjoyed in the English markets, they should be debarred from entering into commercial arrangements with foreign nations. A series of strongly worded resolutions on this subject was moved by Mr. David Wark, and was well supported, although not carried. The language used by many of the speakers during the debate showed that the loyal feelings which had always distinguished the people of the province were being subjected to a severe strain by the policy of the British government. These interferences with provincial rights continued for many years after Wilmot had retired from public life, and therefore it is unnecessary to refer to them further.
THE PORTLAND CONVENTION
Wilmot had but few opportunities during his active career as a public man of displaying his abilities outside of his native province. His fame as an orator was therefore mainly a local one, and the Portland Railway Convention of 1850 was the first occasion on which he was recognized as one of the best speakers on the continent. That great gathering of the railway and business men of the United States and Canada was assembled for the purpose of taking measures to secure a shorter ocean route to Europe than was afforded by steamships sailing from New York. It was thought that a better plan would be to run steamships from some port on the west coast of Ireland to a port on the east coast of Nova Scotia, a distance of about two thousand miles, and to connect the latter with New York by a line of railway. No one doubted at that time that this was a plan that was likely to succeed, and probably it would have done so if there had been no improvement in the construction of steamships. No one dreamed in those days that boats with a speed of twenty-five knots an hour and of twenty thousand tons displacement would be running to New York before the century was ended, and that the voyage to Liverpool would be reduced to less than six days.
The Portland Convention included many eminent men from the United States and Canada and not a few that could justly be described as orators, but it was universally admitted that in eloquence Attorney-General Wilmot, of New Brunswick, exceeded them all. The reporter of the proceedings of the convention stated, in the pamphlet afterwards published, that it was due to the speaker and to himself to say that "he had been entirely unable to give anything like a report of the remarks of Mr. Wilmot." The reporter also quotes the statement of another that "Mr. Wilmot delivered one of the most spicy, eloquent and enlivening speeches which he ever heard, which, while it kept the audience in the best spirits, was replete with noble sentiments commending themselves to the hearts of all present. His remarks were generally upon the moral, social and intellectual influences which would result from the contemplated work. No sketch would do justice to its power and beauty, its flashes of wit and humour."
WILMOT'S GREAT SPEECH
The following report of Wilmot's great convention speech, although admittedly very imperfect, is given as almost the only example that survives of his eloquence:—
"I find myself in a new position in addressing a convention in a city, in a state, and under a government that is foreign to me, as far as citizenship is concerned. But I feel myself at home, for I am among those who derive their inheritance from the same common ancestry. I am, Mr. President, not a son of New England, but a grandson, and I can find the old gravestone which indicates the graves of my ancestors, in a pleasant village of Connecticut [cheers].