Those whose recollection runs back to that time have witnessed changes in this Province difficult to realize as having taken place during the fifty years which have intervened. The first settlers found themselves in a position which, owing to the then existing state of things, can never occur again. They were cut off from communication, except by very slow and inadequate means, with the older and more advanced parts of America, and were, therefore, almost totally isolated. They adhered to the manners and customs of their fathers, and though they acquired property and grew up in sturdy independence, their habits and modes of living remained unchanged. But now the steamboat and locomotive brought them into contact with the world outside. They began to feel and see that a new state of things had been inaugurated; that the old paths had been forsaken; that the world had faced about and taken up a new line of march. And, as their lives had theretofore been lives of exigency, they were skilled in adapting themselves to the needs of the hour. Men who have been trained in such a school are quick at catching improvements and turning them to their advantage. It matters not in what direction these improvements tend, whether to agriculture, manufactures, education, or government; and we shall find that in all these our fathers were not slow to move, or unequal to the emergency when it was pressed upon them. One of the dearest privileges of a British subject is the right of free discussion on all topics, whether sacred or secular--more especially those of a political character--and of giving effect to his opinions at the polls. No people have exercised these privileges with more practical intelligence than the Anglo-Canadian. It must be confessed that half a century ago, and even much later, colonial affairs were not managed by the Home Government altogether in a satisfactory manner. At the same time there can hardly be a doubt that the measures emanating from the Colonial Office received careful consideration, or that they were designed with an honest wish to promote the well-being of the colonists, and not in the perfunctory manner which some writers have represented. The great difficulty has been for an old country like the mother land, with its long established usages, its time-honoured institutions, its veneration for precedent, its dislike to change, and its faith in its own wisdom and power, either to appreciate the wants of a new country, or to yield hastily to its demands. British statesmen took for granted that what was good for them was equally beneficial to us. Their system of government, though it had undergone many a change, even in its monarchical type, was the model on which the colonial governments were based; and when the time came we were set up with a Governor appointed by the Crown, a Council chosen by the Governor, and an Assembly elected by the people. They had an Established Church, an outcome of the