nment, and you have exaggerated our
power--forgetting that we have a strong opposition and a watchful press
which charge us with being mere tools of the C.P.R., and not knowing
that more than once we were deserted by our own parliamentary friends
in caucus, and that it was only my individual power over them that
enabled us on more than one occasion to come to your relief (Sir John
Macdonald to Sir George Stephen, dated August 1, 1890).

[20] This was the Hon. P. Landry, the present speaker (1915) of the
Senate. He was a fast friend and supporter of Macdonald, but he
disapproved of the execution of Riel.

{139}

CHAPTER III

OLD AGE

'With the Canadian Pacific Railway finished, and my Franchise Bill
become law, I feel that I have done my work and can now sing my _Nunc
dimittis_.'

So wrote Sir John Macdonald to Lord Carnarvon shortly after the close
of the arduous parliamentary session of 1885. There can be little
doubt that these words expressed his inmost sentiments at the time. He
had passed the allotted span of threescore years and ten, had 'sounded
all the depths and shoals of honour,' and was beginning to look forward
to a brief period of freedom from the cares of state before he should
be too old to enjoy it. His great work was done. The scattered
colonies had been united into a vast Dominion. The great North-West
and the Pacific province had been added and Canada now extended from
ocean to ocean, its several provinces joined together by iron {140}
bands. The reader of these pages can form some idea of the
difficulties, of the labours, the anxieties, and the discouragements
encountered in the execution of this giant task; and also of the
marvellous courage, patience, and endurance which sustained the master
builder throughout, and eventually enabled him to triumph over all
opposition. Small wonder that Sir John Macdonald, with the
consciousness of duty faithfully performed, sometimes in later life
yearned for that rest which he was fated never to enjoy.

Party considerations forbade it. Macdonald's political friends could
not reconcile themselves to his retirement, and he, in turn, could not
make up his mind to abandon them. They declared that his withdrawal
meant the certain disintegration and consequent defeat of the great
party which he had built up, the party whose destinies he had so long
guided. There were, moreover, at this particular time special reasons
which rendered his contro