to the
Goldwin Smith party, which, after {290} all, is not a very small one;
and the Derbyites make no secret of what they would do if they were in
power,--let Canada take her chance."[63] Even Earl Grey was prepared,
at that crisis, to submit to the British and Canadian parliaments a
clear issue, calling on the latter to afford adequate support to the
British forces left in British North America, or to permit the last of
them to leave a country heedless of its own safety.[64] From that time
forth, more especially after Lee, Jackson, Grant, and Sherman had
revealed the military possibilities of the American Republic, even
military men began to accept the strategic arguments against the
retention of Canada as unanswerable, and joined the ranks of those who
called for separation. Richard Cartwright, who had opportunities for
testing British opinion, more especially among military officers, found
a universal agreement that Canada was indefensible, and that separation
had better take place, before rather than after war.[65] So John
Bright and the leaders of the British army had at last found a point in
diplomacy and strategy on which they might agree.

{291}

A considerable portion of authoritative British opinion has now been
traversed; and beneath all its contradictions and varieties a deep
general tendency has been discovered. That tendency made for the
separation of Canada from England and the Empire. It is strange to see
how resolutely writers have evaded the conclusion, and yet, if the
views discussed above have been fairly stated, only four men of note
and authority, Durham, Buller, Elgin, and Grey remained unaffected by
the growing pessimism of the time, and of these, the last seemed at the
end to find it difficult to maintain the confidence of 1853 under the
trials of 1862. Britain was, in fact, undergoing a great secular
change of policy. She had been driven, step by step, from the old
position of supremacy and authority. As in commerce the security of
protection had been abandoned for the still doubtful advantages of free
trade, so, in the colonies, the former cast-iron system of imperial
control had been abandoned for one of _laissez-faire_ and
self-government. It would have been impossible for British statesmen
to follow any other course than that which they actually chose.
Self-government, and self-government to the last detail and corollary
of the argument they must perforce concede. But {292} i