When the motion was presented to appoint delegates to a conference at Charlottetown, to consider a legislative union for the three maritime provinces, the skies were serene. The idea met with a general, if rather languid, approval. There was not even a flavour of partisanship about the proceedings, and the delegates were impartially selected from both sides. The great Howe regarded the project with a benignant eye. At this time he was the Imperial fishery commissioner, and it was his duty to inspect the deep-sea fishing grounds each summer in a vessel of the Imperial Navy. He was invited to go to Charlottetown as a delegate, and declined in the following terms: I am sorry for many reasons to be compelled to decline participation in the conference at Charlottetown. The season is so far advanced that I find my summer's work would be so seriously deranged by the visit to Prince Edward Island that, without permission from the Foreign Office, I would scarcely be justified in consulting my own feelings at the expense of the public service. I shall be home in October, and will be very happy to co-operate in {48} carrying out any measure upon which the conference shall agree. A more striking evidence of his mood at this juncture is afforded by a speech which he delivered at Halifax in August, when a party of visitors from Canada were being entertained at dinner. I am not one of those who thank God that I am a Nova Scotian merely, for I am a Canadian as well. I have never thought I was a Nova Scotian, but I have looked across the broad continent as the great territory which the Almighty has given us for an inheritance, and studied the mode by which it could be consolidated, the mode by which it could be united, the mode by which it could be made strong and vigorous while the old flag still floats over the soil.[2] In the time close at hand Howe was to find these words quoted against him. Meanwhile they were a sure warrant for peace and harmony. In addressing the Assembly Tupper stated that his visit to Canada during the previous {49} year had convinced him that for some time the larger union was impracticable. He had found in Upper Canada a disinclination to unite with the Maritime Provinces because, from their identity of interest and geographical position, they would strengthen Lower Canada. Lower Canada was equally averse from union through fear that it would increase the English influence in a common legislature. Tupper favoured the larger scheme, and looked forward to its future realization, which would be helped, not hindered, by the union of the Maritime Provinces as a first step. Other speakers openly declared for a general union, and consented to the Charlottetown gathering as a convenient preliminary. The resolution passed without a division; and, though the members expressed a variety of opinion on details, there was no hint of a coming storm.