One member of the Ontario Government met me on the street about this time, and took me to task for speaking so strongly on the question of Commercial Union and Unrestricted Reciprocity. I gave him an emphatic reply that I would follow my own course in the matter. Another prominent gentleman, since a Senator, and now a preferential tariff supporter, also spoke to me on the street, and said, "Certainly people should be allowed to discuss annexation or independence as they liked." I denied this vehemently, and declared they could not have either without fighting, and I told him plainly that if he meant to secure either he had better hang me on a lamp-post, or otherwise, if it became a live issue, I would hang him. I had made up my mind that if there was to be any of the work that the "Sons of Liberty" resorted to in the United States before the Revolution, we of the loyal party would follow their example and do it ourselves. Sir Oliver Mowat, then Premier and Attorney-General, once spoke to me, advising me not to be so violent in my language. My reply was that if the matter became dangerous I would resign my Police Magistracy one day, and he would find me leading a mob the next. Sir Oliver Mowat was a thorough loyalist, and at heart I think he fully sympathised with me. Early in November, 1888, there was a large Convention of Dentists held in Syracuse, New York State, which Dr. W. George Beers, of Montreal, attended. At the banquet a toast was proposed, "Professional Annexation." Dr. Beers replied in an eloquent, loyal, and manly speech, which voiced the Canadian feeling. It was copied into many Canadian papers, and printed in pamphlet form and circulated broadcast throughout the country. He told them: "Just as you had and have your croakers and cowards we have ours, but Canada is not for sale. . . . Annexation as a serious subject has received its doom, and in spite of the intoxication of senatorial conceit on the one side, and the croaking of malcontents and tramps on the other, Canada is loyal to the Mother Country from whose stout old loins both of us sprang." And after describing the extent and resources of the British Empire, he said: "Sharers in such a realm, heirs to such vast and varied privileges, Canadians are not for sale." During December, 1888, I spoke at a large meeting at Ingersoll on the 6th with Mr. J. M. Clark, on the 11th at Lindsay with Mr. James L. Hughes, and on the 20th at a meeting of the Toronto League.