Though Mr. Brown's power did not lie in the manipulation of combinations of men, he succeeded on this occasion in enlisting the services of colleagues of high character and capacity, including besides Dorion, Oliver Mowat, John Sandfield Macdonald, Luther Holton and L. T. Drummond. On Saturday morning Mr. Brown waited upon the governor-general, and informed him that having consulted his friends and obtained the aid of Mr. Dorion, he was prepared to undertake the task of forming an administration. During the day the formation of the ministry was completed. "At nine o'clock on Sunday night," to give the story in Mr. Brown's words, "learning that Mr. Dorion was ill, I went to see him at his apartments at the Rossin House, and while with him the governor-general's secretary entered and handed me a despatch. No sooner did I see the outside of the document than I understood it all. I felt at once that the whole corruptionist camp had been in commotion at the prospect of the whole of the public departments being subjected to the investigations of a second public accounts' committee, and comprehended at once that the transmission of such a despatch could have but the one intention of raising an obstacle in the way of the new cabinet taking office, and I was not mistaken."[11]
The despatch declared that the governor-general gave no pledge, express or implied, with reference to dissolution. When advice was tendered on the subject he would act as he deemed best. It then laid down, with much detail, the terms on which he would consent to prorogation. Bills for the registration of voters and for the prohibition of fraudulent assignments and gifts by leaders should be enacted, and certain supplies obtained.
Mr. Brown criticized both these declarations. It was not necessary for the governor-general to say that he gave no pledge in regard to dissolution. To demand such a pledge would have been utterly unconstitutional. The governor was quite right in saying that he would deal with the proposal when it was made by his advisers. But while he needlessly and gratuitously declared that he would not pledge himself beforehand as to dissolution, he took exactly the opposite course as to prorogation, specifying almost minutely the terms on which he would consent to that step. Brown contended that the governor had no right to lay down conditions, or to settle beforehand the measures that must be enacted during the session. This was an attempt to dictate, not only to the ministry, but to the legislature. Mr. Brown and his colleagues believed that the governor was acting in collusion with the ministers who had resigned, that the intriguers were taken by surprise when Brown showed himself able to form a ministry, and that the Sunday communication was a second thought, a hurriedly devised plan to bar the way of the new ministers to office.