rom Lord Palmerston, of all men, that the Newfoundlander might
hope for redress.

He had said in the Don Pacifico case, "As the Roman in the days of old
held himself free from indignity when he could say, 'Civis Romanus
sum,' so also a British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel
confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall
protect him against injustice and wrong."

Surely, the 200,000 Newfoundlanders had more right to expect that Lord
Palmerston would maintain this principle in their defence than the
extortionate Portuguese Jew or the Chinese pirates who were taken from
the Lorcha "Arrow."

And Lord Palmerston had the best opportunity of helping the
Newfoundlander; for he was the intimate friend of Louis Napoleon and
Persigny. By his approbation of Louis Napoleon's _coup d'etat_ he
became the creator of the Anglo-French Alliance; and, since this
alliance was a matter of life and death to the Second Empire, he might
have used the opportunity, after the Crimean War, of exercising such
pressure upon Louis Napoleon as to secure justice to Newfoundland.

But he neglected it, and thereby, he lost the opportunity of
strengthening the position of England and Canada towards the United
States at the time of the "Trent" and "Alabama" affairs.

We may be glad of this; but, from a British point of view, it was not
merely an injustice to Newfoundland, but also a political blunder.

One would suppose that, simply as a matter of imperial policy, the
British government would long ago have built a railroad across this
island, in order to have the quickest possible connection with its
Canadian dependency. The Fenian raids into Canada, the Confederate
raids from Canada, the Red River Rebellion, the possibility of war
arising from the "Trent" incident, the necessity of securing a rapid
means of communication with the Pacific, should all, on purely
strategic grounds, have induced the British government to establish a
safe naval station in some southern harbor of Newfoundland, with a
railroad communication to the west shores of the island.

But the government left the Newfoundlanders, impoverished by the
consequences of British misrule, to take the initiative; and it was
not until 1878 that they were able to do anything. Then the Hon.
William V. Whiteway induced the Newfoundland government to offer an
annual subsidy of $120,000 per annum and liberal grants of crown lands
to any company which would constr