There is dancing in the streets of St. John’s on April 26, 1841, when the legislature is dissolved and the constitution is suspended.
It is recommended that in their place should be put an amalgamated assembly consisting of fifteen elected and nine appointed Protestant members.
When it is observed that all the Protestant Conservatives need to dominate the assembly is to win four of the fifteen elected seats, the Colonial Office sees its error and increases the number of appointed members to ten.
The passage of bills is found to be much easier under this system. Unfortunately, it lasts but seven years, and would not have lasted even that long had not the city of St. John’s been destroyed by fire on June 9, 1846, twenty-seven years after the Reevesian Reverend Lewis Amadeus Anspach published his maddening History of the Island of Newfoundland.