When the election was going on, my brother said one day to me, "I think I shall defeat Mowat by four or five hundred." I replied, "Your majority will be nearer two thousand than one thousand." He said, "That is absurd; there never was such a majority in the city." I answered, "I know the feeling in Toronto," and using a cavalry simile said, "She is up on her hind legs, pawing the air, and you will see you will have nearly two thousand." The figure was one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine, the largest majority in Ontario, I believe, in that election. The election supported the Macdonald Government with a large majority in the House and practically finished the attempt to entrap Canada into annexation through the means of tariff entanglements. Although dangerous intrigues went on for several years, they were neutralised by the loyal work of Sir Oliver Mowat and the Hon. G. W. Ross. CHAPTER XVII CONTEST WITH GOLDWIN SMITH Professor Goldwin Smith was the foremost, and most active, dangerous, and persistent advocate and leader of the movement for annexation to the United States that we have ever had in Canada. After leaving Oxford in 1868 he went to the United States, where he lectured at Cornell University for two or three years. Having taken part in a controversy in the Press over the Alabama question, in which he took the side of Great Britain, he aroused a good deal of hostility and criticism in the United States. In 1871 he removed to Toronto where he has ever since resided. He had some relatives living in Toronto in the suburb then known as Brockton. My father and I, two uncles, and a cousin then lived in that district, in which my house is situated, and we had a small social circle into which Mr. Goldwin Smith was warmly welcomed. He shortly after bought a house from my father near to his place, and we soon became close friends. In my father's lifetime Mr. Smith belonged to a small whist club consisting of my father, my uncle Richard, Major Shaw, and himself. After my father's death I took his place, and we played in each other's houses for some years, until Mr. Smith married the widow of Wm. Henry Boulton and took up his home in "The Grange." The distance at which he lived from us was then inconvenient, and in a few months we discontinued the club.