Lord Sydenham died suddenly at the end of the first session of the new Parliament. His successor as governor general, Sir Charles Bagot, had to reconstruct the ministry. Sydenham had tried to have a broad-based ministry, reducing the strength of the Reformers and the French-Canadians, but those two groups had developed their strength in the Assembly, under the leadership of Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine from Canada East, and Robert Baldwin from Canada West. Bagot found that he had to invite them into the Executive Council.J.M.S. Careless, The Union of the Canadas: The Growth of Canadian Institutions, 1841–1857 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), at p. 69. Aylwin was appointed Solicitor-General for Lower Canada, replacing Charles Dewey Day, a Tory. The law at that time required that a member of the Assembly who took an office under the Crown had to resign his seat in the Assembly and stand for re-election. Aylwin was re-elected in the Portneuf riding.Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, pp. 44, 59, note (32).
