The census returns seem to cause great satisfaction to our enemies. The progress has not been as fast as some could wish, and the exodus of our people is much talked of. The only trouble I find is that the exodus is not as extensive as it should be. The man who cannot get on here, or who is dissatisfied with Canada or her institutions, is right to go to the country he likes best. It does not cost much to go, and, if he wishes, by all means let him go. The man to be despised is he who, dissatisfied here, remains here, and, using the vantage ground of residence in the country, exerts every effort to injure and destroy it. If a few of this class would join the exodus, instead of doing all they can to increase it, it would be a blessing, and in the end increase materially both our population and our prosperity. Strength does not consist so much in numbers as in quality. When Hannibal was crossing into Italy he called for volunteers to stay behind to garrison some posts; not that he required them, but because he desired to rid himself of the half-hearted. Some thousands volunteered to remain. He then considered his army much stronger than when it was more numerous, because the weak element was gone. Shakespeare, that great master of human nature, puts the same idea in Henry V.'s mouth on the eve of Agincourt, when in the face of fearful danger: Oh, do not wish one more; Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host That he who hath no stomach to this fight Let him depart; his passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us. It is this very exodus of the dissatisfied from Canada that makes our people more united and determined. We have about 5,000,000 of people anyway, about equal to the population of England when she faced Spain, about equal to the population of Prussia when, under Frederick the Great, she waged a triumphant war against a combination of Powers of about 100,000,000.