without doubt the nation of the United States.  Their present troubles are the result and the proofs of their success.  The people that were too great to be dependent on any nation have now spread till they are themselves too great for a single nationality.  No one now thinks that that daughter should have remained longer subject to her mother.  But the severance was not made in amity, and the shrill notes of the old family quarrel are still sometimes heard across the waters.

From all this the question arises whether that problem may ever be solved with reference to the Canadas.  That it will never be their destiny to join themselves to the States of the Union, I feel fully convinced.  In the first place it is becoming evident from the present circumstances of the Union, if it had never been made evident by history before, that different people with different habits, living at long distances from each other, cannot well be brought together on equal terms under one government.  That noble ambition of the Americans that all the continent north of the isthmus should be united under one flag, has already been thrown from its saddle.  The North and South are virtually separated, and the day will come in which the West also will secede.  As population increases and trades arise peculiar to those different climates, the interests of the people will differ, and a new secession will take place beneficial alike to both parties.  If this be so, if even there be any tendency this way, it affords the strongest argument against the probability of any future annexation of the Canadas.  And then, in the second place, the feeling of Canada is not American, but British.  If ever she be separated from Great Britain, she will be separated as the States were separated.  She will desire to stand alone, and to enter herself as one among the nations of the earth.

She will desire to stand alone; alone, that is without dependence either on England or on the States.  But she is so circumstanced geographically that she can never stand alone without amalgamation with our other North American provinces.  She has an outlet to the sea at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but it is only a summer outlet.  Her winter outlet is by railway through the States, and no other winter outlet is possible for her except through the sister provinces.  Before Canada can be nationally great, the line of railway which now runs for some hundred miles below Quebec to Riviere du Loup must be continued on through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to the port of Halifax.

When I was in Canada I heard the question discussed of a federal government between the provinces of the two Canadas, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.  To these were added, or not added, according to the opinion of those who spoke, the smaller outlying colonies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward’s Island.  If a scheme for such a government were projected in Downing Street, all would no doubt be included,