passion wrought of pride, love of dominion, national feeling, and the like, is far stronger than the silken bond of commerce. There is danger of war with Great Britain as soon as this war in America is over; and the question is, how far Canada will be able to aid herself? Because if she does not contribute largely to her own defence, it seems certain that British statesmen will not strive very strenuously to avert her doom. At the moment I write there is not, in a state of organised efficiency, one regiment of militia in the length, which is great, and the breadth, which is small, of Canada. Party violence has set at nought all warnings and all solicitations. The Canadians appear to rely on the traditions of the past, and on the result of the small campaigns in the war with America, without any appreciation of the vast changes which have taken place since. Northern Americans, reaching their boundaries with pain and many a toilsome march, filtered small corps upon their soil--far inferior in numbers and equipment to those which now represent the quota of the smallest state in the Union. In my letters from America I called attention to the significant fact that the northernmost point of the territory claimed by the Southern Confederacy was within 120 miles of the lake which forms the southern boundary of Canada. It may not be likely that the Confederacy will ever make good its claim to Western Virginia, and fix its standard in undisturbed supremacy at Wheeling, but it is nevertheless true that a strong passionate instinct urges the people of the North to consolidate the states of the West and those of the East by the absorption of Canada, which, with its lakes and its St. Lawrence, would be ample recompense for the loss of the South; and, with the South in the Union, would be the consummation of the dream of empire in which Americans wide-awake pass their busy restless lives. The Americans are well aware of the vast advantage of striking a sudden blow. The whole subject of Canadian invasion lies developed in well-considered papers in the bureau drawers of Washington. At the time of the Trent affair I was assured by an officer high in rank in the government that General Winfield Scott had come back from France solely to give the State the benefit of his counsels and experience in conducting an invasion of Canada; and I cannot think it doubtful that the Federal Government would, in four or five weeks after a declaration of war with England, be prepared to pour 120,000 or 150,000 men across the British frontier. What has Canada done to meet the danger? In May, 1862, the Honourable John Macdonald proposed that a minimum of 30,000 men or a maximum of 50,000 men should be enrolled and drilled for one month every year for three or for five years, but it was considered that Canada could not spare so large a number of men from the pursuits of trade, and above all of agriculture, during the open season when drill would be practicable. The