4th Premier of the Colony of Newfoundland. One of the Fathers of the Canadian Confederation and a member of the Conservative Party, he served in this position from April 1865 until February 1870 and again from January 1874 until April 1878. The son of a lawyer, he decided to pursue that profession and studied law locally and in England, and was admitted to the bar in 1842. In 1855 he entered politics when he was elected to the Newfoundland Legislative Assembly and served as House Speaker from 1861 until 1865. In 1864 he attended the Quebec Conference on the Canadian Confederation and highly favored the Newfoundland Colony joining it, but his enthusiasm was not supported by others. In April 1865 he replaced Hugh Hoyles as the Colony's Premier. In the 1869 election, the issue of the Newfoundland Colony joining the Confederation came up and was defeated, along with his government, and Charles Fox Bennett succeeded him as Premier. In January 1874 he became Premier once again, replacing Bennett. During his tenure, he ensured equal distribution of funding and official positions among the Colony's three major religious denominations, Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists, on a proportional basis in order to minimize the importance of divisions in electoral politics. However, his support for religious, rather than public, schools did not help smooth out the barriers between the various denominations. The issue of joining of the Newfound Colony joining the Canadian Confederation never surfaced during his second term as Premier. In April 1878 he resigned his office to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and he was succeeded by William Whiteway. The same year, he was awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. Two years later, he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, succeeding Hugh Hoyles, and retired in that position in 1898. He died at the age of 81.