ers to the Canadian Dominion never
lacked statesmen with the imagination to perceive the advantages which
would flow from the consolidation of British power in America.

In 1864, a few weeks before George Brown in the Canadian House had
moved for his select committee on federal union, Dr Charles Tupper
proposed, in the legislature of Nova Scotia, a legislative union of the
Maritime Provinces. The seal of Imperial authority had been set upon
this movement by the dispatch, already quoted, from the Duke of
Newcastle to Lord Mulgrave in 1862.

A word concerning the services of Charles Tupper to the cause of union
will be in order here. None of the Fathers of Confederation {46}
fought a more strenuous battle. None faced political obstacles of so
overwhelming a character. None evinced a more unselfish patriotism.
The overturn of Tilley in New Brunswick, of which we shall hear
presently, was a misfortune quickly repaired. The junction of Brown,
Cartier, and Macdonald in Canada ensured for them comparatively plain
sailing. But the Nova Scotian leader was pitted against a redoubtable
foe in Joseph Howe; for five years he faced an angry and rebellious
province; he gallantly gave up his place in the first Dominion ministry
in order that another might have it; and at every turn he displayed
those qualities of pluck, endurance, and dexterity which compel
admiration. The Tuppers were of Puritan stock.[1] The future prime
minister, a practising physician, had scored his first political
victory at the age of thirty-four by defeating Howe in Cumberland
county. Throughout his long and notable career, a superabundance of
energy, and a characteristic which may be defined in a favourable sense
as audacity, never failed him.

{47}

When the motion was presented to appoint delegates to a conference at
Charlottetown, to consider a legislative union for the three maritime
provinces, the skies were serene. The idea met with a general, if
rather languid, approval. There was not even a flavour of partisanship
about the proceedings, and the delegates were impartially selected from
both sides. The great Howe regarded the project with a benignant eye.
At this time he was the Imperial fishery commissioner, and it was his
duty to inspect the deep-sea fishing grounds each summer in a vessel of
the Imperial Navy. He was invited to go to Charlottetown as a
delegate, and declined in the following terms:

I am sorry for many reasons to