in Nova Scotia. On arriving home
from Quebec, Dr Tupper and his fellow-delegates found a situation which
required careful handling. 'When the delegates returned to the
Province,' says a pamphlet of the time, 'they did not meet with a very
flattering reception. They had no ovation; and no illuminations,
bonfires, and other demonstrations of felicitous welcome hailed their
return. They were not escorted to their homes with torches and
banners, and through triumphal arches; no cannon thundered forth a
noisy welcome. They were received in solemn, sullen and ominous
silence. {100} No happy smiles greeted them; but they entered the
Province as into the house of mourning.'[1] And in Nova Scotia the
hostility was not, as in New Brunswick, merely a passing wave of
surprise and discontent. It lasted for years. Nor was it, as many
think, the sole creation of the ambitious Joseph Howe. It doubtless
owed much to his power as a leader of men and his influence over the
masses of the Nova Scotians. But there is testimony that this proud
and spirited people, with traditions which their origin and history
fully warranted them in cherishing, regarded with aversion the prospect
of a constitutional revolution, especially one which menaced their
political identity. Robert Haliburton has related the results of his
observations before the issue had been fairly disclosed and before Howe
had emerged from seclusion to take a hand in the game.

In September and October, 1864, when our delegates were at Quebec, and
therefore before there could be any objections raised to the details of
the scheme, or to the mode of its adoption, I travelled through six
{101} counties, embracing the whole of Cape Breton and two counties in
Nova Scotia, and took some trouble to ascertain the state of public
opinion as to what was taking place, and was greatly surprised at
finding that every one I met, without a solitary exception, from the
highest to the lowest, was alarmed at the idea of a union with Canada,
and that the combination of political leaders, so far from recommending
the scheme, filled their partisans with as much dismay as if the powers
of light and darkness were plotting against the public safety. It was
evident that unless the greatest tact were exercised, a storm of
ignorant prejudice and alarm would be aroused, that would sweep the
friends of union out of power, if not out of public life. The profound
secrecy preserved by the delega