d in ten years the Government had committed Canada to an
undertaking greatly beyond its resources; indeed, to a physical
impossibility.

In December of the same year the Government in Ontario led by Sandfield
Macdonald was defeated in the legislature and compelled to resign. An
Administration, determinedly hostile to the Ottawa Government, was
formed at Toronto under Edward Blake. The Ontario Orangemen were
filled with anger at the brutal murder of Thomas Scott by Louis Riel at
Fort Garry and the failure of the Government at Ottawa to seize the
murderer. The anti-confederate feeling was still strong in Nova
Scotia. There was dissatisfaction over the appointment of Sir Francis
Hincks. {94} In many quarters the Washington Treaty was unpopular.
All this hostility Macdonald had to face, as well as the strenuous
opposition of the Liberal party. It was under these untoward
circumstances that Sir John Macdonald advised the dissolution of the
House of Commons and appealed to the people in the summer of 1872. His
feelings on the eve of the battle are thus expressed in a letter to Sir
John Rose:

I am, as you may fancy, exceedingly desirous of carrying the election
again; not with any personal object, because I am weary of the whole
thing, but Confederation is only yet in the gristle, and it will
require five years more before it hardens into bone.

It is only by the exercise of constant prudence and moderation that we
have been able to prevent the discordant elements from ending in a
blow-up. If good Constitutional men are returned, I think that at the
end of five years the Dominion may be considered safe from being
prejudiced by any internal dissension.[13]

{95} The fight in Ontario proved very severe, as may be gathered from
his subsequent account:

I had to fight a stern and up-hill battle in Ontario, and had I not
taken regularly to the stump, a thing that I have never done before, we
should have been completely routed. The chief ground of attack on the
Government was the Washington Treaty, and our submitting to Gladstone's
resolve not to press the Fenian claims. Added to this, of course, were
all the sins of omission and commission that gather round an
administration of so many years' duration as ours.

I never worked so hard before, and never shall do so again; but I felt
it to be necessary this time. I did not want a verdict against the
treaty from the country, and besides, I sincerely believe tha