The settlement of the North-West Territory, the Louisiana and Florida purchases, the annexation of Texas, and the acquisition from Mexico are examples of the adaptation of our form of government for expansion, to absorb and unite, to enrich and build up, to ingraft in our body politic adjacent countries, and while strengthening the older States, confer prosperity and development to the new States admitted into this brotherhood of Republican States. . . . With a firm conviction that this consummation most devoutly to be wished is within the womb of destiny, and believing that it is our duty to hasten its coming, I am not willing, for one, to vote for any measure not demanded by national honour that will tend to postpone the good time coming, when the American flag will be the signal and sign of the union of all the English-speaking peoples of the continent from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Ocean. I ask that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. I drew attention to this speech in a letter to the Toronto _Globe_ on the 26th September, 1888. After quoting a number of extracts from it, I went on to say, "This man is honest and outspoken. He is trying to entice us by kindly methods to annexation, which would be the annihilation of Canada as a nation; but does not his whole argument prove the absolute correctness of the view I took of Commercial Union at the Imperial Federation meeting, and does it not prove that his co-worker Wiman, being a Canadian, was acting the part of a traitor, in trying to betray his native country into a course which could only end in placing it absolutely in the hands of a foreign and hostile Power?" A few days later another incident occurred showing the active interest that was being taken in the annexation movement. Senator Sherman's speech was delivered on the 18th September, 1888; on the 29th of the same month, Erastus Wiman sent the following telegram to a number of the Canadian newspapers: NEW YORK, _29th Sept._ I deem it my duty to say that information from Washington reaches me of a reliable character to the effect that the Senate Committee of Foreign Affairs has, during the past few days, in furtherance of the views of its Chairman, Senator Sherman, been discussing the question of inviting the Dominion of Canada to join the United States. So far have matters progressed that it is not at all unlikely that a resolution will be reported for concurrent action of both Houses, declaring it to be the duty of the President to open negotiations with Great Britain, looking to a political union between the English-speaking nations on this continent. The condition attending the invitation of Canada is understood to be that the United States would assume the entire public debt of the Dominion, estimated at $300,000,000.