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and settler leaders he had considerable scope for patronage of his own. An account of a colonial career which simply awards marks or deducts them for decisions taken and results obtained, I would argue, misses the essential underlying dynamics of the politics of power at play between governors, officials, and colonial subjects in colonies where the crown's representative had an executive role in administration. Additionally, attention to politics in a colony where the governor was constitutionally and formally constrained to an advisory role is of interest in the study of mid-nineteenth-century governorships of colonies with responsible government.
The Making of a Governor
How much did Gordon's own formation prepare him for such a career? Arthur Charles Hamilton Gordon was a boy from a very sheltered upbringing who acquired an interest in history, law, and theology and had to be coached rigorously into gaining entrance to Trinity College, Cambridge. 17He developed well, if cautiously, at university into a high-minded young man with a leaning towards holy orders that competed with a strong ambition to distinguish himself in public life, possibly though emigration to Canada. Because of the early death in 1833 of Gordon's mother, Harriet Hamilton (Aberdeen's second wife), and because of his father's close affection for him and dominant opinions, the fourth earl was a major influence on the young Arthur. Descended from a line of Scots royalists, George Hamilton-Gordon was a fine scholar, a good landlord to the tenants of his Haddo estates, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a politician through the influence of his mentor, William Pitt. His politics were Peelite—meaning support for a freer trade policy, which split the Conservative party. His religion changed from Presbyterian to low-church Anglican. His domestic influence over his sons was patriarchal, training the eldest to succeed as the fifth earl, a second to become a successful army general, and a third to enter the church. Following his succession to the earldom, he had taken his place on the Tory benches in the House of Lords in 1806. He was foreign secretary twice and briefly secretary of state for war and colonies before