While these events were happening in the Canadas, the maritime provinces were taking steps in the direction of their own union.  In 1861 Mr. Howe, the leader of a Liberal government in Nova Scotia, carried a resolution in favour of such a scheme.  Three years later the Conservative ministry of which Dr., now Sir, Charles Tupper, was premier, took measures in the legislature of Nova Scotia to carry out the proposition of his predecessor; and a conference was arranged at Charlottetown between delegates from the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island By a happy forethought the government of Canada, immediately on hearing of this important conference, decided to send a delegation, composed of Messrs J.A.  Macdonald, Brown, Cartier, Galt, McGee, Langevin, McDougall, and Campbell.  The result of the conference was favourable to the consideration of the larger question of the union of all the provinces; and it was decided to hold a further conference at Quebec in October for the purpose of discussing the question as fully as its great importance demanded.

SECTION 2.—­The Quebec convention of 1864.

Thirty-three delegates met in the parliament house of this historic city.  They were all men of large experience in the work of administration or legislation in their respective provinces.  Not a few of them were noted lawyers who had thoroughly studied the systems of government in other countries.  Some were gifted with rare eloquence and power of argument.  At no time, before or since, has the city of Quebec been visited by an assemblage of notables with so many high qualifications for the foundation of a nation.  Descendants of the pioneers of French Canada, English Canadians sprung from the Loyalists of the eighteenth century, eloquent Irishmen and astute Scotchmen, all, thoroughly conversant with Canadian interests, met in a convention summoned to discharge the greatest responsibilities ever entrusted to any body of men in Canada.

The chairman was Sir Etienne Paschal Tache, who had proved in his youth his fidelity to England on the famous battlefield of Chateauguay, and had won the respect of all classes and parties by the display of many admirable qualities.  Like the majority of his compatriots he had learned to believe thoroughly in the government and institutions of Great Britain, and never lost an opportunity of recognising the benefits which his race derived from British connection.  He it was who gave utterance to the oft-quoted words:  “That the last gun that would be fired for British supremacy in America would be fired by a French Canadian.”  He lived to move the resolutions of the Quebec convention in the legislative council of Canada, but he died a few months before the union was formally established in 1867, and never had an opportunity of experiencing the positive advantages which his race, of whose interests he was always an earnest exponent, derived from a condition of things which gave additional guarantees for the