The commercial classes in the Eastern and Western States were, on the whole, favourable to an enlargement of the treaty, so as to bring in British Columbia and Vancouver Island, now colonies of the Crown, and to include certain other articles the produce of both countries, but the real cause of its repeal was the prejudice in the North against the provinces for their supposed sympathy for the Confederate States during the War of the Rebellion. A {377} large body of men in the North had brought themselves foolishly to believe that the repeal of the treaty would, sooner or later, force the provinces into annexation. A raid made by a few rash Confederates who had found refuge in Canada, on the St. Albans Bank, in the State of Vermont, deeply incensed the people of the North, though at no time could it be proved that the Canadian authorities had the least suspicion of the proposed expedition. On the contrary, they brought the culprits to trial, placed companies of volunteers along the frontier, and even paid a large sum of money in acknowledgment of an alleged responsibility when some of the stolen money was returned to the robbers on their release by a Montreal magistrate. When we review the history of those times and consider the difficult position in which Canada was necessarily placed, it is remarkable how honourably her government discharged its duties of a neutral between the belligerents. No doubt the position of Canada was made more difficult at that critical time by the fact that she was a colony of Great Britain, against whom both North and South entertained bitter feelings by the close of the war; the former mainly on account of the escape of Confederate cruisers from English ports, and the latter because she did not receive active support from England. The North had also been much excited by the promptness with which Lord Palmerston had sent troops to Canada when Mason and Slidell were seized on an English packet on the high seas, and the bold tone held by some Canadian {378} papers when it was doubtful if the prisoners would be released.