Some of my honorable friends in this and
the other House, who were his guests last year, must have felt the
impress of his character as well as the warmth of his hospitality.
Well, he is known as one of the first men in sagacity, as he is in
position, in any of these colonies; that he was for many years the
intimate associate of his late distinguished _confrere_,
Archbishop Hughes of New York; that he knows the United States as
thoroughly as he does the Provinces,--and these are his views on this
particular point; the extract is somewhat long, but so excellently put
that I am sure the House will be obliged to me for the whole of it:--
"Instead of cursing, like the boy in the upturned boat, and holding on
until we are fairly on the brink of the cataract, we must at once begin
to pray and strike out for the shore by all means, before we get too
far down on the current. We must at this most critical moment invoke
the Arbiter of nations for wisdom, and abandoning in time our perilous
position, we must strike out boldly, and at some risks, for some rock
on the nearest shore--some resting-place of greater security. A cavalry
raid, or a visit from our Fenian friends on horseback, through the
plains of Canada and the fertile valleys of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, may cost more in a single week than Confederation for the next
fifty years; and if we are to believe you, where is the security even
at the present moment against such a disaster? Without the whole power
of the Mother Country by land and sea, and the concentration in a
single hand of all the strength of British America, our condition is
seen at a glance.
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