Richard Graves {54} Macdonnell, dropped an ironical
remark on the 'disinterested' course of Canada, which plainly betrayed
his own attitude. But the gathering was, in the main, highly
successful and augured well for the movement.

The Charlottetown Conference was therefore an essential part of the
proceedings which culminated at Quebec. The ground had been broken.
The leaders in the various provinces had formed ties of intimacy and
friendship and favourably impressed each other. At this time were laid
the foundations of the alliance between Macdonald and Tilley, the
Liberal leader in New Brunswick, which made it possible to construct
the first federal ministry on a non-party basis and which enlisted in
the national service a devoted and trustworthy public man. Tilley's
career had few blemishes from its beginning to its end. He was a
direct descendant of John Tilley, one of the English emigrants to
Massachusetts in the _Mayflower_, and a great-grandson of Samuel
Tilley, one of the Loyalists who removed to New Brunswick after the War
of Independence. He had been drawn into politics against his wishes by
the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. A nominating
convention at which he was not present had selected him for {55} the
legislature, and his first election had taken place during his absence
from the country. Yet he had risen to be prime minister of his
province; and his was the guiding hand which brought New Brunswick into
the union. His defeat at first and the speedy reversal of the verdict
against Confederation form one of the most diverting episodes in the
history of the movement.

The ominous feature of the Charlottetown Conference was the absence of
Joseph Howe, the most popular leader in Nova Scotia. This was one of
the accidents which so often disturb the calculations of statesmen.
When the delegates resumed their labours at Quebec he was in
Newfoundland, and he returned home to find that a plan had been agreed
upon without his aid. From him, as well as from the governors of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, the cause of federation was to receive its
next serious check.

[1] See _Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada_, p. 2. The original
Tupper in America came out from England in 1635. Sir Charles Tupper's
great-grandfather migrated from Connecticut to Nova Scotia in 1763.

[2] _The Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe_, edited by J. A.
Chisholm, vol. ii, p. 433. Halifax, 1909