Government of the United States had purposely and of malice aforethought committed this outrage, nor did he speak of it to increase irritation; but did it not show how wrong the Government had been in leaving the interests of this country so long without representation? What, in fact, was the use of an embassy at all if our ambassador was not at his post? The Embassy at Washington was now the most important of our diplomatic establishments abroad. We ought to place there the ablest man we could find, regardless of all party or personal considerations. The people of the United States knew our own estimate of our own officials well, and they took it as a slight if we did not send to Washington a man of the first rank as a diplomatist. He would appeal to the noble lord at the head of the Government to consider the suggestion he had ventured to make, and not to allow the country to embark, without any attempt at negociation, in an expenditure of which this was but the first beginning if the policy of it should be forced upon the House. Our fellow-subjects in Canada ought to be assured that, if an unjust war broke out, this country would stand by them at all hazards; but that assurance was quite consistent with the attempt which, he hoped, would be made after all, to neutralize the frontier and the lakes and to re-establish the Reciprocity Treaty. The House would, he felt assured, do nothing to raise up bitter feelings between the British Provinces and the United States, nor to alienate still further two peoples of common origin, who, for the sake of civilization itself, ought, as far as possible, to be one and united in the interests of commerce and of peace."