The delegates from the Maritime Provinces {62} returned home full of enthusiasm, but increasingly uncertain about the securing of the necessary capital. At this stage Joseph Howe came to the front. He had much earlier, in 1835, before entering parliament, taken the lead in advocating a local railway from Halifax to Windsor, but had not been prominent in recent discussions. He now urged strongly that the province of Nova Scotia should itself construct the section of the European and North American which lay within its borders. He proposed further to seek from the Imperial government a guarantee of the necessary loan, in order that the province might borrow on lower terms. The Colonial Office, while expressing its approval of the Portland scheme, declined to give a guarantee any more than a cash contribution. Nothing daunted, Howe sailed for England in November 1850, and by persistent interviews, eloquent public addresses and exhaustive pamphlets, caught public favour, and in spite of Cabinet changes in London secured the pledge he desired. In the official reply of the Colonial Office Howe was informed that aid would not be given except for an object of importance to the Empire as a whole, and that accordingly {63} aid was contingent upon securing help from New Brunswick and Canada to build the whole road from Halifax to Quebec. Major Robinson's line need not be followed if a shorter and better could be secured; any change, however, should be subject to the approval of the British government. 'The British Government would by no means object to its forming part of the plan that it should include provision for establishing a communication between the projected railway and the railways of the United States.' The colonies were to bear the whole cost of the loan, and were to impose taxes sufficient to provide interest and sinking fund, and thus ensure against any risk of loss to the United Kingdom. Howe returned triumphant. The British government would guarantee a loan of L7,000,000, which would build the roads to Portland and to Quebec and perhaps still farther west. He hastened to New Brunswick, and won the consent of its government to the larger plan, went on to Portland and allayed its murmurs, and with E. B. Chandler of New Brunswick reached Toronto, then the seat of government of the province of Canada, in June 1851. His eloquence and the dazzling {64} offer of cheap and seemingly unlimited capital soon won consent. The representatives of the three provinces agreed to construct the road from Halifax to Quebec on joint account, while Canada would build the extension from Quebec to Montreal, and New Brunswick the extension to the Maine border, each at its own risk, but in all cases out of the L7,000,000 guaranteed loan.