“If I urge upon you the importance of speedily resuming measures for some better military organisation of the inhabitants of Canada than that which now exists, it must not be supposed that Her Majesty’s Government is influenced by any particular apprehension of an attack on the Colony at the present moment, but undoubtedly the necessity for preparation which has from time to time been urged by successive Secretaries of State is greatly increased by the presence, for the first time on the American Continent, of a large standing army, and the unsettled condition of the neighbouring States. Moreover, the growing importance of the Colony, and its attachment to free institutions, make it every day more essential that it should possess in itself that without which no free institutions can be secure--adequate means of self-defence. The adequacy of those means is materially influenced by the peculiar position of the country. Its extent of frontier is such that it can be safe only when its population capable of bearing arms is ready and competent to fight. That the population is ready, no one will venture to doubt; that it cannot be competent, is no less certain, until it has received that organisation, and acquired that habit of discipline which constitute the difference between a trained force and an armed mob. The drill required in the regular army, or even in the best volunteer battalion, is not necessary, nor would it be possible, in a country like Canada, for so large a body of men as ought to be prepared for any emergency; but the Government should be able to avail itself of the services of the strong and healthy portion of the male adult population at short notice, if the dangers of invasion by an already organised army are to be provided against. “We have the opinions of the best military authorities, that no body of troops which England could send would be able to make Canada safe without the efficient aid of the Canadian people. Not only is it impossible to send sufficient troops, but if there were four times the numbers which we are now maintaining in British North America, they could not secure the whole of the frontier. The main dependence of such a country must be upon its own people. The irregular forces which can be formed from the population, know the passes of the woods, are well acquainted with the country, its roads, its rivers, its defiles: and for defensive warfare (for aggression they will never be wanted), would be far more available than regular soldiers. “It is not therefore the unwillingness, or the inability of Her Majesty’s Government to furnish sufficient troops, but the uselessness of such troops without an adequate militia force, that I wish to impress upon you.