difficulty that he was re-elected for the county of Hants as a minister of the crown.  He remained in the government until May, 1873, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia.  The worries of a long life of political struggles, and especially the fatigue and exposure of the last election in Hants, had impaired his health and made it absolutely necessary that he should retire from active politics.  Only a month after his appointment, the printer, poet and politician died in the famous old government house, admittance to which had been denied him in the stormy days when he fought Lord Falkland.  It was a fit ending, assuredly, to the life of the statesman, who, with eloquent pen and voice, in the days when his opinions were even offensive to governors and social leaders, ever urged the right of his countrymen to a full measure of self-government.

Canada and all other parts of the British empire were deeply shocked on an April day of 1868 by the tragic announcement of the assassination of the brilliant Irishman, Thomas D’Arcy McGee on his return late at night from his parliamentary duties.  He had never been forgiven by the Irish enemies of England for his strenuous efforts in Canada to atone for the indiscretion of his thoughtless youth.  His remains were buried with all the honours that the state could give him, and proper provision was made for the members of his family by that parliament of which he had been one of the most notable figures.  The murderer, Thomas Whelan, a member of the secret society that had ordered his death, was executed at Ottawa on the 11th February, 1869.

SECTION 2.—­Extension of the Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. 1869-1873.

The government and parliament, to whom were entrusted the destinies of the federation of four provinces, had a great work to accomplish in the way of perfecting and extending the Dominion, which was necessarily incomplete whilst its western territorial limits were confined to the boundaries of Ontario, and the provinces of British Columbia on the Pacific coast and of Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence remained in a position of isolation.  The provisions of the British North America Act of 1867 provided in general terms for the addition of the immense territories which extend from the head of Lake Superior in a north-westerly direction as far as the Rocky Mountains.  Three great basins divide these territories; Hudson Bay Basin, with probably a drainage of 2,250,000 square miles; the Winnipeg sub-basin tributary to the former, with nearly 400,000 square miles; the Mackenzie River basin with nearly 700,000 square miles.  The Winnipeg basin covers a great area of prairie lands, whose luxuriant grasses and wild flowers were indented for centuries only by the tracks of herds of innumerable buffaloes on their way to the tortuous and sluggish streams which flow through that wide region.  This plain slopes gently towards the arctic seas into