um was proposed, but rejected as
unknown to the constitution and at variance with British practice.

Parliament finally adopted the resolutions by a vote of ninety-one to
thirty-three in the Assembly and of forty-five to fifteen in the
Legislative Council. Hillyard Cameron, politically a lineal descendant
of the old Family Compact, supported by Matthew Crooks Cameron, a
Conservative of the highest integrity and afterwards chief justice,
then moved for a reference to the people by a dissolution of
parliament. But after an animated debate the motion was defeated, and
no further efforts in this direction were attempted. That an eagerness
to invoke the judgment of democracy {96} was not seen at its best, when
displayed by two Tories of the old school, may justify the belief that
parliamentary tactics, rather than the pressure of public opinion,
inspired the move.

Fortune had smiled upon the statesmen of the Canadian coalition. In a
few months they had accomplished wonders. They had secured the aid of
the Maritime Provinces in drafting a scheme of union. They had made
tours in the east and the west to prepare public opinion for the great
stroke of state. They and their co-delegates had formulated and
adopted the Quebec resolutions, on which a chorus of congratulation had
drowned, for the time, the voices of warning and expostulation. And,
finally, the ministers had met parliament and had secured the adoption
of their scheme by overwhelming majorities.

But all was not so fair in the provinces by the sea. Before the
Canadian legislature prorogued, the Tilley government had been hurled
from power in New Brunswick, Joseph Howe was heading a formidable
agitation in Nova Scotia, and in the other two provinces the cause was
lost. It seemed as if a storm had burst that would overwhelm the union
and that the hands of the clock would be put back.

[1] See the remark of McCully of Nova Scotia that the delegates should
take the matter into their own hands and not wait to educate the people
up to it--Pope's _Confederation Documents_, p. 60.

[2] November 23, 1864.

{97}

CHAPTER IX

ROCKS IN THE CHANNEL

In the month of March 1865, as the Canadian debates drew to a close,
ominous reports began to arrive from all the Maritime Provinces. An
election campaign of unusual bitterness was going on in New Brunswick.
The term of the legislature would expire in the following June; and the
Tilley government had de