"Tongue's policy was often against the interests of the governor's clique, which increasingly dominated the council. The only councilors who attended regularly were residents of Halifax, most of whom were closely associated with mercantile interests as they were with the provincial administration. Tonge identified himself with the country and raised the ire of Halifax by proposing taxation of absentee landlords, and anti-smuggling laws, and advocating high taxes, an extended programme of road building, and other expenditures which Haligonians considered opposed to their interests. The reform party was led by Tonge; in 1803 Wentworth described it as 'endeavouring to create dissensions with a view to obtain an elective Legislature council.' It has been shown that the council then consisted of Wentworth's friends and the ultra conservative Croke, a combination as antipathetic to Tonge and his radical party as darkness to light. A clash was inevitable."27

In the days under review, elections were called by the governor after dissolving the existing assembly. The time of the year for the new election was predictable; it was to be in the fall of the year, after the crops were in and before the snow started to accumulate. An election did not back then occur in one day, but rather extended over a number of days. It would appear that a poll traveled from one part of the province to another. The election of 1799 commenced at Halifax on Monday, 18 November, at 11, A.M., and closed there on Saturday, the 23rd. Back then the voters were adult men who owned real property, the so called freeholders.29 During the days leading up to them the province split itself into two camps -- those at Halifax who represented the mercantile interests and the provincial administration, and those outside of Halifax. I quote Wentworth's biographer, Brian Cuthbertson:

"The 1799 election saw the birth of political parties in Nova Scotia; candidates in Colchester and Pictou districts (the two were then part of Halifax County) combined to challenge what they angrily called the 'Government or Court Party' ... The Court Party could generally be relied upon to support both Wentworth's wishes and those of Halifax's mercantile community. ... There had even been talk of moving the capital from Halifax to the more central rural retreat of Windsor. ... At Tonge's urging James Fulton, a prosperous farmer in Londonderry township, and Edward Mortimer, the wealthiest merchant and landowner in Pictou, determined to run and challenge the Court party's control over the county's representation. With Tonge, they formed the nucleus of what became called the Country Party ..."30