To the Earl Grey.

    Toronto:  March 23,1850.

[Sidenote:  Speech of Lord J. Russell.] [Sidenote:  Colonial existence not provisional.]

Lord John’s speech on the colonies seems to have been eminently successful at home.  It is calculated too, I think, to do good in the colonies; but for one sentence, the introduction of which I deeply deplore—­the sting in the tail.  Alas for that sting in the tail!  I much fear that when the liberal and enlightened sentiments, the enunciation of which by one so high in authority is so well calculated to make the colonists sensible of the advantages which they derive from their connection with Great Britain, shall have passed away from their memories, there will not be wanting those who will remind them that, on this solemn occasion, the Prime Minister of England, amid the plaudits of a full senate, declared that he looked forward to the day when the ties which he was endeavouring to render so easy and mutually advantageous would be severed.  And wherefore this foreboding? or, perhaps, I ought not to use the term foreboding, for really to judge by the comments of the press on this declaration of Lord John’s, I should be led to imagine that the prospect of these sucking democracies, after they have drained their old mother’s life-blood, leaving her in the lurch, and setting up as rivals, just at the time when their increasing strength might render them a support instead of a burden, is one of the most cheering which has of late presented itself to the English imagination.  But wherefore then this anticipation—­if foreboding be not the correct term?  Because Lord John and the people of England persist in assuming that the Colonial relation is incompatible with maturity and full development.  And is this really so incontestable a truth that it is a duty not only to hold but to proclaim it?  Consider for a moment what is the effect of proclaiming it in our case.  We have on this continent two great empires in presence, or rather, I should say, two great Imperial systems.  In many respects there is much similarity between them.  In so far as powers of self-government are concerned it is certain that our colonists in America have no reason to envy the citizens of any state in the Union.  The forms differ, but it may be shown that practically the inhabitants of Canada have a greater power in controlling their own destiny than those of Michigan or New York, who must tolerate a tariff imposed by twenty other states, and pay the expenses of war undertaken for objects which they profess to abhor.  And yet there is a difference between the two cases; a difference, in my humble judgment, of sentiment rather than substance, which renders the one a system of life and strength, and the other a system of death and decay.  No matter how raw and rude a territory may be when it is admitted as a state into the Union of the United States, it is at once, by the popular belief, invested