statistics clearly showed that the western section exceeded French Canada both in population and wealth. A demand was persistently and even fiercely made at times for such a readjustment of the representation in the assembly as would do full justice to the more populous and richer province. The French Canadian leaders resented this demand as an attempt to violate the terms on which they were brought into the union, and as calculated, and indeed intended, to place them in a position of inferiority to the people of a province where such fierce and unjust attacks were systematically made on their language, religion, and institutions generally. With much justice they pressed the fact that at the commencement of, and for some years subsequent to, the union, the French Canadians were numerically in the majority, and yet had no larger representation in the assembly than the inhabitants of the upper province, then inferior in population. Mr. George Brown, who had under his control a powerful newspaper, the _Globe_, of Toronto, was remarkable for his power of invective and his tenacity of purpose, and he made persistent and violent attacks upon the conditions of the union, and upon the French and English Conservatives, who were not willing to violate a solemn contract. The difficulties between the Canadian provinces at last became so intensified by the public opinion created by Mr. Brown in Upper Canada in favour of representation by population, that good and stable government was no longer possible on account of the close division of parties in the legislature. Appeals were made frequently to the people, and new ministries formed,--in fact, five within two years--but the sectional difficulties had obviously reached a point where it was not possible to carry on successfully the administration of public affairs. On the 14th June, 1864, a committee of the legislative assembly of Canada, of whom Mr. Brown was chairman, reported that "a strong feeling was found to exist among the members of the committee in favour of changes in the direction of a federal system, applied either to Canada alone or to the whole of the British North American provinces." On the day when this report was presented, the Conservative government, known as the Taché-Macdonald ministry, suffered the fate of many previous governments for years, and it became necessary either to appeal at once to the people, or find some other practical solution of the political difficulties which prevented the formation of a stable government. Then it was that Mr. Brown rose above the level of mere party selfishness, and assumed the attitude of a statesman, animated by patriotic and noble impulses which must help us to forget the spirit of sectionalism and illiberality which so often animated him in his career of heated partisanship. Negotiations took place between Mr. John A. Macdonald, Mr. Brown, Mr. Cartier, Mr. Galt, Mr. Morris, Mr. McDougall, Mr. Mowat, and