But all was not so fair in the provinces by the sea. Before the Canadian legislature prorogued, the Tilley government had been hurled from power in New Brunswick, Joseph Howe was heading a formidable agitation in Nova Scotia, and in the other two provinces the cause was lost. It seemed as if a storm had burst that would overwhelm the union and that the hands of the clock would be put back. [1] See the remark of McCully of Nova Scotia that the delegates should take the matter into their own hands and not wait to educate the people up to it--Pope's _Confederation Documents_, p. 60. [2] November 23, 1864. {97} CHAPTER IX ROCKS IN THE CHANNEL In the month of March 1865, as the Canadian debates drew to a close, ominous reports began to arrive from all the Maritime Provinces. An election campaign of unusual bitterness was going on in New Brunswick. The term of the legislature would expire in the following June; and the Tilley government had decided to dissolve and present the Quebec resolutions to a newly elected legislature, a blunder in tactics due, it may be, to over-confidence. The secrecy which had shrouded the proceedings of the delegates at first was turned to account by their opponents, who set in motion a campaign of mendacity and misrepresentation. The actual terms became known too late to counteract this hostile agitation, which had been systematically carried on throughout the province. The bogey employed to stampede the electors was direct taxation. The farmers were told that every cow or horse they {98} possessed, even the chickens in the farmyard, would be taxed for the benefit of Canada. Worse than all, it was contended, the bargain struck at the honour of the province, because, as the subsidy was on the basis of paying to the provinces annually eighty cents per head of population, the people were really being sold by the government like sheep for this paltry price. The trusted Tilley, easily first in popular affection by reason of his probity and devotion to public duty, was discredited. His opponent in the city of St John, A. R. Wetmore, illustrated the dire effects of Confederation in an imaginary dialogue, between himself and his young son, after this fashion: 'Father, what country do we live in?'--and, of course, the reply came promptly--'My dear son, you have no country, for Mr Tilley has sold us all to the Canadians for eighty cents a head.' Time and full discussion would have dissipated the forces of the anti-confederates. But constituencies worked upon by specious appeals to prejudice are notoriously hard to woo during an election struggle. There existed also honest doubts in many minds regarding federation. Enough men of character and influence in both parties joined to form a strong opposition, while one of Tilley's {99} colleagues in the ministry, George Hathaway, went over to the enemy at a critical hour. The agitation swept the province. It was not firmly rooted in the