ether from the duty of self-defence is attended with
injurious effects upon themselves. It checks the growth of national
and manly morals. Men seldom think anything worth preserving for which
they are never asked to make a sacrifice.

My view, therefore, would be that it is desirable that a movement in
the direction which you Lave indicated should take place, but that it
ought to be made with much caution.

The present is not a favourable moment for experiments. British
statesmen, even Secretaries of State, have got into the habit lately
of talking of the maintenance of the connection between Great Britain
and Canada with so much indifference, that a change of system in
respect of military defence incautiously carried out, might be
presumed by many to argue, on the part of the mother-country, a
disposition to prepare the way for separation. Add to this, that you
effected, only a few years ago, a union between the Upper and Lower
Provinces by arbitrary means, and for objects the avowal of which has
profoundly irritated the French population; that still more recently
you have deprived Canada of her principal advantages in the British
markets; that France and Ireland are in flames, and that nearly half
of the population of this Colony are French, nearly half of the
remainder Irish.

That Canada felt no need of bulwarks except against England's foes was a
point on which he constantly insisted. On one occasion he wrote:--

Only one absurdity can be greater, pardon me for saying so, than the
absurdity of supposing that the British Parliament will pay L200,000
for Canadian fortifications; it is the absurdity of supposing that
Canadians will pay it themselves.

L200,000 for defences! and against whom? against the Americans. And
who are the Americans? Your own kindred, a flourishing swaggering
people, who are ready to make room for you at their own table, to give
you a share of all they possess, of all their prosperity, and to
guarantee you in all time to come against the risk of invasion, or the
need of defences, if you will but speak the word!

[Sidenote: Recommends gradual reduction of forces.]

On the whole he was of opinion that the Government should quietly, and
_sans phrase_, remove their troops altogether from some points, reduce
them in others, and 'aim at the eventual substitution of a Major-Gen