What is to become of the existing Governments of Provinces? How regulate the contentions which may arise between Provincial Parliaments and Provincial Ministers and Provincial Governors by the action of the Federal Parliament and of the representative of the Crown at the seat of Government? The difficulties we foresee may never come to pass, and others far greater, of which we have no foresight, may arise; but for all this the Confederation presents the only means now available, as far as we can perceive, for securing to the Provinces present independence and a future political life distinct from the turbulent existence of the United States. A glance at the map will reveal the extent of the Empire which rests upon the Lakes with one arm on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, whilst its face is wrapped in a mantle of eternal snow; but it tells us no more. No reasoning man can maintain that the people whom a few years will behold as numerous as the inhabitants of these islands, will be content to live permanently under the system of the Colonial Office. That system is probably the only one our Constitution permits us to adopt; but it is nevertheless the policy, if not the duty, of this State to foster the youth and early life of the colonies we have founded, and to protect them, as far as may be, from the evils which shall come upon them in consequence of their present connection with Great Britain. Despised, neglected, and abandoned, the Provinces would feel less irritation against their conquerors than against their betrayers, and England might regret with unavailing sorrow the indifference which left her without a foot of land or a friend in the New World. Generosity not inconsistent with justice may yet lay the foundations of an enduring alliance where once there was only cold fealty and unsympathising command. A powerful State may arise whose greatest citizens shall be proud to receive such honours as the Monarch of England can bestow, whose people shall vie with us in the friendly contests of commerce, and stand side by side with us in battle. And when the inevitable hour of separation comes, the parting will not then be in anger. A Constitutional Republic, in which Monarchy would have been possible but for the prudence of the mother-country, may exist without any hatred of Monarchy or of England; and the people, born with equal rights to pursue liberty and happiness, would love the land from which flowed the sources of so many substantial blessings. I hope that my apprehensions may prove ill-founded, and that the dangers to which our North American possessions now, and England herself and the peace of the world hereafter, are in my opinion exposed, may be for ever averted. WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL. TEMPLE, _January, 1865_. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE