You will easily believe that, after all the exertions which I have made, it is with feelings of deep disappointment that I find myself thus suddenly deprived of the power of conferring great benefit on that province to which I have referred; of reforming the administrative system there, and eradicating the manifold abuses which had been engendered by the negligence and corruption of former times, and so lamentably fostered by civil dissensions. I cannot but regret being obliged to renounce the still more glorious hope of employing unusual legislative powers in the endowment of that province with those free municipal institutions, which are the only sure basis of local improvement and representative liberty, of establishing a system of general education, of revising the defective laws which regulate real property and commerce, and of introducing a pure and competent administration of justice. Above all, I grieve to be thus forced to abandon the realisation of such large and solid schemes of colonisation and internal improvement, as would connect the distant portions of these extensive colonies, and lay open the unwrought treasures of the wilderness to the wants of British industry and the energy of British enterprise. ... Our exertions, however, will not, cannot be thrown away. The information which we have acquired, although not as yet fit for the purposes of immediate legislation, will contribute to the creation of juster views as to the resources, the wants and the interests of these colonies, than ever yet prevailed in the mother country. 37. THE EVILS OF THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM (1839).[4] =Source.=--The open letters of Joseph Howe of Nova Scotia to the Colonial Secretary, Lord John Russell, 1839, printed in Howe's _Speeches and Public Letters_, Vol. II. Boston, 1858.