They believed they would lose by amalgamation; that they would forfeit their privileges, and be deprived of the advantages they enjoyed in the free import of American produce. When it became known that the Government really had a project for the union of the provinces, Mr. Papineau, the Speaker of the Assembly, was dispatched to England with a petition against the proposed amalgamation, and it was deferred for a time. Financial difficulties increased the ill-temper of the governed, and the harshness and resolution of the Government widened the breach between them. Squabbles and ill-blood sprang up with greater vehemence and animosity every day, and the seeds of the evil which came to maturity in 1837, if not then first planted, were certainly invigorated. The energies of the English, Scotch, and Irish emigrants who flocked into the north were not to be repressed by these malign influences. The citizens of the old world pushed their way into Upper Canada, and finding lakes and rivers unfit for navigation, projected and carried out canals, and already grasped the probability of landing cargoes of Canadian wheat in Liverpool, from vessels loaded at Kingston and Montreal. The Imperial negotiators who renounced all the claims which they might have preferred in behalf of Canada on the peace of 1815, would probably have failed to secure for the province a port on the sea, although the British, who held so large a portion of the State of Maine, might have fairly sought some equivalent for it. At all events no strenuous effort was made to obtain such an advantage--nor was there any attempt on our part to ascertain what the precise boundaries were which the Americans claimed. We will just see how a British negotiator many years later consented to draw a line which placed the land communications of the mother country with the provinces in war time at the mercy of an enemy for many miles of its course--Canadian interests and Imperial considerations being alike neglected--peace and war alike hampered, by want of foresight, prudence, or statesmanlike consideration. The increasing prosperity of Canada forced her to enter into closer relations with the United States, and to accede to arrangements with the Federal Government, which were of course regulated by Imperial agency, and which were not always characterised by wisdom. But there was no alternative--at least not one which could then be adopted. The idea of a great confederation of the British Provinces, which would enable Canada to avail herself of the ports of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, if it presented itself at all, was seen to be surrounded by embarrassing obstacles and conflicting sentiments. The skill in the conception, and the energy displayed in the execution, of the canal system, which is the grandest and most extensive in the world, have made a practicable passage of more than 2000 miles from Anticosti up to Superior City; and works