I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity.

However before LaFontaine could take up his seat Governor Sydenham died. In Canada East gerrymandering and Orange Order violence were used to prevent the election of Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine leader of the French reformers in Terrebonne outside Montreal. Robert Baldwin (May 12 1804 – December 9 1858) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine led the first responsible ministry in Canada.

Robert Baldwin (May 12 1804 – December 9 1858) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine led the first responsible ministry in Canada. Baldwin is also noted for resisting a decades-long tradition of Orange Order terrorism of political reform in the colony that went so far as to burn the Parliament buildings in Montreal in 1849.