him his _Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia_, a work
which, in spite of its mistakes, may still be read with profit. In
1836-37 a series of sketches appeared in the _Nova Scotian_, which were
reprinted with the title of _The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings
of Sam Slick of Slickville_. These were issued in volume form in 1837,
and took by storm the English-speaking world. The book has no plot.
It tells how the author and his friend Sam, a shrewd vulgar Down-East
Yankee, ride up and down the province discoursing on anything and
everything. Shrewd, kindly, humorous, with an unfailing eye for a
pretty woman or a good horse, selling his clocks by 'a mixture of soft
sawder and human natur',' so keen on a trade that he will make a bad
bargain rather than none at all, yet so knowing that he almost always
comes out ahead, Sam is real to the finger-tips. From Haliburton flows
the great stream of American dialect humour. Mark Twain, Artemus Ward,
and a dozen others, all trace their descent from him.

{41}

But Haliburton's real object was intensely serious. He desired to
awake Nova Scotians from their lethargy. 'How much it is to be
regretted,' he wrote, 'that, laying aside personal attacks and petty
jealousies, they would not unite as one man, and with one mind and one
heart apply themselves sedulously to the internal improvement and
development of this beautiful province. Its value is utterly unknown,
either to the general or local government.' It is in his writings that
we find the best exposition and defence of the 'Compact' theory of
government.

'Responsible Government,' says Haliburton, 'is responsible nonsense.'
Some one must be supreme, and as between colony and mother country, it
must be the latter. The governor is sent out by the Colonial Office,
and to that office he must be responsible. Were he responsible to his
ministers or to the local House of Assembly, he might have to act in a
way displeasing to the mother country, and subordination would be at an
end. Responsible Government is a form of government only fit for an
independent country. It is incompatible with the colonial status.

But not only was Responsible Government impossible for a colony; it
would, in any case, {42} be a bad system for Nova Scotia, because it
would be too democratic. A wise constitution must be, like that of
Great Britain, composed of various elements. Such a mixed constitution
Nova Scotia had. The