the gigantic,
fling his arms about his neck, and hang several seconds there
suspended, to the visible consternation of Mr Brown and to the infinite
joy of all beholders, pit, box, and gallery included.

At last statesmanship had taken the place of party bickering, and, as
James Ferrier of Montreal, a member of the Legislative Council,
remarked in the debates of 1865, the legislators 'all thought, in fact,
that a political millennium had arrived.'

[1] _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_, by Sir Joseph Pope, vol. i, p. 265.

[2] This portion of the lengthy survey of the new Dominion in the
_Globe_ of July 1, 1867, is said to have been written by George Brown
himself.

[3] Sir Joseph Pope states that in the printed copy of this memorandum
which Sir John Macdonald preserved there appears, immediately following
the word 'Legislature' at the end of this paragraph, in the handwriting
of Mr Brown, these words: 'Constituted on the well-understood
principles of federal gov.'

{44}

CHAPTER V

THE CHARLOTTETOWN CONFERENCE

Not an instant too soon had unity come in Canada. The coalition
ministry, having adjourned parliament, found itself faced with a
situation in the Maritime Provinces which called for speedy action.

Nova Scotia, the ancient province by the sea, discouraged by the
vacillation of Canada in relation to federation and the construction of
the Intercolonial Railway, was bent upon joining forces with New
Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The proposal was in the nature of
a reunion, for, when constitutional government had been first set up in
Nova Scotia in 1758, the British possessions along the Atlantic coast,
save Newfoundland, were all governed as one province from Halifax. But
the policy in early days of splitting up the colonies into smaller
areas, for convenience of administration, was here faithfully carried
out. In 1770 a separate government was conferred {45} upon Prince
Edward Island. In 1784 New Brunswick was formed. In the same year the
island of Cape Breton was given a governor and council of its own.
Cape Breton was reunited to the parent colony of Nova Scotia in 1820,
but three separate provinces remained, each developing apart from the
others, thus complicating and making more difficult the whole problem
of union when men with foresight and boldness essayed to solve it.
Nova Scotia had kept alive the tradition of leadership. The province
which has supplied three prime minist