"So far back as the year 1800, the Hon. Mr. Uniacke, a leading politician in Nova Scotia at that date, submitted a scheme of Colonial Union to the Imperial authorities. In 1815, Chief Justice Sewell, whose name will be well remembered as a leading lawyer of this city, and a far-sighted politician, submitted a similar scheme. In 1822, Sir John Beverley Robinson, at the request of the Colonial Office, submitted a project of the same kind; and I need not refer to the report of Lord Durham, on Colonial Union, in 1839. These are all memorable, and some of them are great, names. If we have dreamed a dream of Union (as some of you gentlemen say), it is at least worth while remarking that a dream which has been dreamed by such wise and good men, may, for aught we know, or you know, have been a sort of vision--a vision foreshadowing forthcoming natural events in a clear intelligence: a vision--I say it without irreverence, for the event concerns the lives of millions living, and yet to come--resembling those seen by the Daniels and Josephs of old, foreshadowing the trials of the future, the fate of tribes and peoples, the rise and fall of dynasties. But the immediate history of the measure is sufficiently wonderful, without dwelling on the remoter predictions of so many wise men. Whoever, in 1862, or even in 1863, would have told us that we should see even what we see in these seats by which I stand--such a representation of interests acting together, would be accounted, as our Scotch friends say, 'half daft'; and whoever, in the Lower Provinces, about the same time, would have ventured to foretell the composition of their delegations which sat with us under this roof last October, would probably have been considered equally demented. But the thing came about; and if those gentlemen who have had no immediate hand in bringing it about, and, therefore, naturally feel less interest in the project than we who had, will only give us the benefit of the doubt-- will only assume that we are not all altogether wrong-headed--we hope to show them still farther, though we think we have already shown them satisfactorily, that we are by no means without reason in entering on this enterprise. I submit, however, we may very well dismiss the antecedent history of the question for the present: it grew from an unnoticed feeble plant, to be a stately and flourishing tree; and, for my part, any one that pleases may say he made the tree grow, if I can only have hereafter my fair share of the shelter and the shade. But in the present stage of the question, the first real stage of its success --the thing that gave importance to theory in men's minds, was the now celebrated despatch, signed by two members of this Government and an honourable gentleman formerly their colleague (Hon. Mr. Ross), a member of the other House. I refer to the despatch of 1858. The recommendations in that despatch lay dormant until revived by the