When the Crimean war broke out, the British troops were required for it, and Canada was called upon to raise a militia force for her own needs. This she did. Ten thousand men were organised, armed, uniformed, and equipped at her expense. They were called the Active Militia, and were drilled ten days in each year. The assumption of responsibility had an effect upon the country, and when the Trent difficulty arose the force was increased by the spontaneous action of the people to about thirty-eight thousand men. Four years later the Fenian raids took place upon our frontier, and were repulsed, largely by the efforts of the Canadian Militia. All this appealed to the imagination of our youth, and as confederation was proclaimed the following year the ground was fallow for sowing seeds of a national spirit. The effect of confederation on the Canadians was very remarkable. The small Provinces were all merged into a great Dominion. The Provincial idea was gone. Canada was now a country with immense resources and great possibilities. The idea of expansion had seized upon the people, and at once steps were taken looking to the absorption of the Hudson's Bay Territory and union with British Columbia. With this came visions of a great and powerful country stretching from ocean to ocean, and destined to be one of the dominant powers of the world. CHAPTER II CANADA FIRST PARTY AND HUDSON BAY TERRITORY It was at the period when these conditions existed that business took me to Ottawa from the 15th April until the 20th May, 1868. Wm. A. Foster of Toronto, a barrister, afterwards a leading Queen's Counsel, was there at the same time, and through our friend, Henry J. Morgan, we were introduced to Charles Mair, of Lanark, Ontario, and Robert J. Haliburton, of Halifax, eldest son of the celebrated author of "Sam Slick." We were five young men of about twenty-eight years of age, except Haliburton, who was four or five years older. We very soon became warm friends, and spent most of our evenings together in Morgan's quarters. We must have been congenial spirits, for our friendship has been close and firm all our lives. Foster and Haliburton have passed away, but their work lives. The seed they sowed has sprung at last, And grows and blossoms through the land.[1]