The _New York World_ in the early part of 1890 "instructed its correspondents in Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec to describe impartially the political situation in Canada in regard to annexation to the United States." The report charges Premier Mercier with being "a firm believer in annexation as the ultimate destiny of the Dominion of Canada," but he "is too shrewd a politician to openly preach annexation to his fellow countrymen under existing circumstances." The report also quotes the Toronto _Globe_ as saying that the Canadian people "find the Colonial yoke a galling one," and that "the time when Canadian patriotism was synonymous with loyalty to the British connection has long since gone by." The concluding paragraph of the _World's_ article is the most suggestive and insolent: Nobody who has studied the peculiar methods by which elections are won in Canada will deny the fact, that five or six million dollars, judiciously expended in this country, would secure the return to Parliament of a majority pledged to the annexation of Canada to the United States. The leading men in this conspiracy in Canada were Edward Farrer, Solomon White, Elgin Myers, E. A. Macdonald, Goldwin Smith, and John Charlton, the two latter being the only men of any prominent status or position in the movement, and after a time Charlton left it. These men were avowed annexationists, while there were a great many in favour of commercial union who did not believe that it would result in annexation, or did not care, and there were numbers who were ready to float with the stream, and quite willing to advocate annexation if they thought the movement was likely to succeed. When the Continental Union Association was formed in 1892, Goldwin Smith accepted the Honorary Presidency in Canada, for the organisation had its principal strength in New York, where a large number of prominent and wealthy men joined its ranks, Francis Wayland Glen being the Secretary. Glen became angry at the defection of some Liberal leaders after they obtained office, and gave the names of the organisers in a letter to the Ottawa _Evening Journal_ of the 13th September, 1904, as follows: Charles A. Dana, Andrew Carnegie, John Jacob Astor, Ethan Allen, Warner Miller, Edward Lauterbach, Wm. C. Whitney, Orlando B. Potter, Horace Porter, John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Oswald Ottendorfer, Cornelius N. Bliss, John D. Long, Jno. B. Foraker, Knute Nelson, Jacob Gallinger, Roswell P. Flower, Joseph Jno. O'Donohue, Chauncey M. Depew, John P. Jones, Wm. Walter Phelps, General Butterfield, General Henry W. Slocum, General James H. Wilson, General Granville W. Dodge, Charles Francis Adams, Oliver Ames, Seth Low, Bourke Cochrane, John C. McGuire, Dennis O'Brien, Charles L. Tiffany, John Clafflin, Nathan Straus, and Samuel Spencer. In the list we received in addition to these there were others, nearly 500 in all.