Nova Scotia and New Brunswick contemplated a legislative union of the maritime provinces, and a conference was called at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in the summer of 1864. Having in view a more comprehensive union, the Canadian Government sought and obtained admission to this conference, which was soon swallowed up in a larger scheme, and a conference of all the colonies was appointed to be held at Quebec in October. Delegates, thirty-three in number, were present from all the provinces, probably sent by the respective legislatures or governments, for I find no note of a popular election. The result of this conference was the adoption of resolutions as a basis of an act of confederation. The Canadian Parliament adopted this scheme after a protracted debate. But the maritime provinces stood out. Meantime the Civil War in the United States, the Fenian invasion, and the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty fostered a spirit of Canadian nationality, and discouraged whatever feeling existed for annexation to the United States. The colonies, therefore, with more or less willingness, came into the plan, and in 1867 the English Parliament passed the British North American Act, which is the charter of the Dominion. It established the union of the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and provided for the admission to the union of the other parts of British North America; that is, Prince Edward Island, the Hudson Bay Territory, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, with its dependency Labrador. Nova Scotia was, however, still dissatisfied with the terms of the union, and was only reconciled on the granting of additional annual subsidies. In 1868, by Act of the British Parliament, the Hudson’s Bay Company surrendered to the Crown its territorial rights over the vast region it controlled, in consideration of £300,000 sterling, grants of land around its trading posts to the extent of fifty thousand acres in all, and one-twentieth of all the fertile land south of the north branch of the Saskatchewan, retaining its privileges of trade, without its exclusive monopoly. The attempt of the Dominion Government to take possession of this north-west territory (Manitoba was created a province July 15, 1870) was met by the rising of the squatters and half-breeds under Louis Riel in 1869-70. Riel formed a provisional government, and proceeded with a high hand to banish persons and confiscate property, and on a drumhead court-martial put to death Thomas Scott, a Canadian militia officer. The murder of Scott provoked intense excitement throughout Canada, especially in Ontario. Colonel Garnet Wolseley’s expedition to Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) followed, and the Government authority was restored. Riel and his squatter confederates fled, and he was subsequently pardoned.