They were the pioneers; they made the wilderness a garden; and their children entered into a large inheritance. More inharmonious still was the immigration from south of the border, of persons brought up on the Declaration of Independence and Fourth of July oratory. Colonel Cruikshanks's researches have proved how numerous they were and how disaffected. Mrs Moodie found {164} them and the Americanized natives just as disagreeable in Ontario as Mrs Trollope did in Cincinnati, and for the same reasons. Except the Loyalists, all these elements were divided in their political affections and ideals. Their leaders saw only two possibilities. British connection was the sheet-anchor of the old colonial Tories; but their vision of the country's future was an aristocracy, a landed gentry, a decorous union of church and state--in short, a colonial replica of old Tory England. On the other hand, the Radical leaders, French and English alike, saw before them only an independent republic, or fusion with the United States. How limited was the vision of both time has made blindingly clear. The instinct of the nascent nation decided for the golden mean, and chose the middle path. Canada has stood firm by the Empire--how firm let the blood-soaked trenches of Flanders attest--and yet she had stood just as firmly by the creed of democracy and her determination to control her own affairs. One son of the soil had a vision wider than that of his contemporaries. Years before the rebellion the editor of a Halifax newspaper saw the scattered, jarring British colonies {165} united under the old flag, and bound together by fellowship within the Empire. He saw iron roads spanning the continent and the white sails of Canadian commerce dotting the Pacific. Canadians of this day see what Howe foresaw--the eye among the blind. Let it be repeated. In those old days there were no Canadians of Canada. Confederation had to be achieved, a new generation had to be born and grow to manhood, before a national sentiment was possible. These new Canadians saw little or nothing of provinces with outworn feuds and divisions. They saw only the Dominion of Canada. Their imagination was stirred by the ideal of half a continent staked out for a second great experiment in democracy, of a vast domain to be filled and subdued and raised to power by a new nation. In spite of many faults and failures and disappointments, Canadians have been true to that ideal. The Canada of to-day is something far grander than the Mackenzies and Papineaus ever dreamed of; she has disappointed the fears and exceeded the hopes of the Durhams and the Elgins; and she stands on the threshold, as Canadians firmly trust, of a more illustrious future. {166} BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The following are a few of the works which should be consulted: Lord Durham, _Report on the Affairs of British North America_ (1839). Sir Francis Hincks, _Reminiscences_ (1884). Dent, _The Last Forty Years_ (1881).