unabsorbed, numerous, prosperous, powerful, and at peace. For myself I should prefer to die in that hope than to die President of the United States. (Cheers and applause.) Sir Oliver's biographer, C. R. W. Biggar, says of this speech: Quoted and discussed by almost every newspaper in Canada from Halifax to Vancouver, and also by the leading journals of Britain and the United States, Sir Oliver Mowat's speech at the Niagara Centennial Celebration sounded the death-knell of the annexation movement in Ontario. While Sir Oliver was speaking I was sitting close behind him, next to Mr. Wm. Kirby, who was a staunch loyalist and keen Imperialist. He was delighted and whispered to me, "Mr. Mowat has stolen your thunder," and again, "He is making your speech." I replied, "Yes, there will not be any need for me to say much now." And when I was called upon to speak after him I made a speech strongly supporting him but very brief, feeling, as I did, that he had done all that was necessary in that line. He was always impressed with the feeling of hostility in the United States. As I had been speaking upon that subject for years in unmistakable language, and was often abused for my outspoken comments, I was delighted on one occasion some years before at a Board of Trade banquet in the Horticultural Pavilion, Toronto, to hear him say positively "that the United States was a hostile nation." Afterwards in the cloak room I congratulated him warmly upon his speech, and thanked him for speaking so plainly about the hostility of the United States. Sir John A. Macdonald was standing by, and he turned playfully towards Mr. Mowat, and, shaking him by the shoulders, said, "Yes, Denison, did he not do well, the little tyrant?" This was in reference to the opposition papers having sometimes called him "the little tyrant." Mr. Mowat seemed highly amused, and I was much impressed by the evident kindly, almost affectionate, personal feeling between the two rival statesmen. The decided position taken by Mr. Mowat certainly had an immense influence upon the Liberal party, and in this he was ably seconded by the Hon. G. W. Ross, who on many occasions sounded a clear note in favour of British connection and Imperial consolidation. CHAPTER XVIII DISSOLUTION OF THE IMPERIAL FEDERATION LEAGUE IN ENGLAND On the 30th January, 1891, Sir Leonard Tilley, of New Brunswick, was appointed President of the League in Canada in place of D'Alton McCarthy, mainly through the instrumentality of Principal Grant, who was of the opinion that the course taken by Mr. McCarthy in opposition to the Jesuit Estates Act and his movement in favour of Equal Rights were so unsatisfactory to the French Canadians that the prospect of the League obtaining their support would be hopeless while he remained President. Sir Leonard Tilley was one of the Fathers of Confederation, and at the time Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick.