Events are crowding upon us faster than we are aware. Let us look back over the past few months. First came the Commercial Union movement, apparently originated by a Canadian in the interests of Canada, but which is now shown to have been a Yankee plot worked by a renegade with the object of producing annexation. Then came the repudiation of the Fisheries Treaty by the Republican party, followed by the Retaliation proclamation of the Democratic President; then came the almost unanimous passage of the Retaliation Act in the United States House of Representatives after a long succession of speeches by members of both political parties violently abusive and unreasonably hostile to Canada. Then came the speech of Senator Sherman exposing the hostile policy of a hundred years. Then the discussion of negotiations for annexation in the Committee of Foreign Relations, and to-day Senator Sherman's interview, in which he says, "Political union is necessary or war is inevitable." At this moment the Presidential election is being fought out on the question as to which party is most hostile to England and Canada, and unless a marked change comes over the people of the United States, it will not be many years before we shall be fighting for our existence as a free people on this continent. Senator Sherman's last warning is straight to the point, and cannot be overlooked or misunderstood. I then went on to urge that we must forget all party differences, that we should unite in the face of the common danger, that a firm and united front might save us all the horrors of war, pointing out that "at the Trent affair if there had been treason in Canada, or the least sign of division in our ranks, we would have had war." A number of letters in favour of annexation appeared in the _Globe_, and I became much alarmed, for the writers signed their names. I felt that if the discussion went on unchecked it would in time have a certain effect upon the wobblers and the unreliable. I had studied carefully the American Revolution, and was of the opinion that the whole success of that movement was due to the fact that the loyal men, and the law-abiding men, did nothing themselves, but relied upon the constituted authorities to check a movement that in the end robbed them of their property, deprived them of all their civil rights, and drove them penniless into exile. I felt that as far as I was concerned I would leave no stone unturned to prevent such a fate befalling Canada through supineness or indifference. At the annual dinner of the Caledonian Society of Toronto, on the 30th October, 1888, I responded to the toast of "The Army, Navy, and Volunteers." The _Empire_ of the 31st October reported my speech as follows: