While Mr. Goldwin Smith was working so earnestly against the interests of the Empire, and while many were leaning towards Commercial Union, and some even ready to go farther and favour annexation, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Oliver Mowat, then Premier of Ontario, saw the danger of the way in which matters were drifting. I often discussed the subject with him, and knew that he was a thorough loyalist, and a true Canadian and Imperialist. He often spoke despondingly to me as to what the ultimate outcome might be, for, of course, the majority of the men who at the time favoured Commercial Union were among his supporters, and he would therefore hear more from that side than I would. In spite of his uneasiness, however, he was staunchly loyal. Mr. Biggar, his biographer, relates that just before the Inter-Provincial Conference in October, 1887, an active Liberal politician, referring to his opposition to Commercial Union, said to Mr. Mowat in the drawing-room of his house on St. George Street, "If you take that position, sir, you won't have four per cent. of the party with you." To which the reply came with unusual warmth and sharpness, "I cannot help it, if I haven't one per cent. I won't support a policy that will allow the Americans to have any--even the smallest--voice in the making of our laws." On the evening of the 18th February, 1891, in the election then coming on, Mr. Mowat spoke at a meeting in the Horticultural Pavilion, Toronto, and again his strong loyalty spoke out. He said among other things, "For myself I am a true Briton. I love the old land dearly. I am glad that I was born a British subject; a British subject I have lived for three score years and something more. I hope to live and die a British subject. I trust and hope that my children and my grand-children who have also been born British subjects will live their lives as British subjects, and as British subjects die." Sir Oliver Mowat's clear and outspoken loyalty prevented the Liberals from being defeated in Ontario by a very much greater majority than they were. During the summer of 1891, however, the annexation movement assumed a still more active form. Mr. Goldwin Smith was doing his utmost to stir up the feeling. Solomon White, who had been a Conservative, and was a member of the Ontario Legislature, induced a public meeting in Windsor, where he lived, to pass a resolution in favour of annexation. Encouraged by this, Mr. White arranged for a meeting in Woodstock in Mr. Mowat's own constituency of South Oxford, in the hope of carrying a resolution there to the same effect. While there was a feeling to treat the meeting with contempt, Mr. Mowat with keener political insight saw that such a course would be dangerous, not only to the country but to the Liberal party as well, and he wrote a letter on the 23rd November, 1891, to Dr. McKay, M.P.P., who represented the other riding of the county of Oxford in the House of Assembly. He wrote: