Canada and the States | Page 8

this end doubtless the
Canadian Government would co-operate with the Government of this
country, and would make large sacrifices for the Grand Trunk in
consequence. The enterprise could only be achieved by the

co-operation of the two Governments, and by associating with the
Railway's enterprise some large land scheme and scheme of
emigration."

The visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the Maritime Provinces,
in 1860, had evoked the old feeling of loyalty to the mother country,
damaged as it had been by Republican vicinity, the entire change of
commercial relations brought about by free trade, and sectional
conflicts. And the Duke, at once startled by the underlying hostility to
Great Britain and to British institutions in the United States --which
even the hospitalities of the day barely cloaked--and gratified beyond
measure by the outbursts of genuine feeling on the part of the colonists,
was most anxious, especially while entrusted with the portfolio of the
Colonies, to strengthen and bind together all that was loyal north of the
United States boundary.
Walking with Mr. Seward in the streets of Albany, after the day's
shouts and ceremonies were over, Mr. Seward said to the Duke, "We
really do not want to go to war with you; and we know you dare not go
to war with us." To which the Duke replied, "Do not remain under such
an error. There is no people under Heaven from whom we should
endure so much as from yours; to whom we should make such
concessions. You may, while we cannot, forget that we are largely of
the same blood. But once touch us in our honour and you will very
soon find the bricks of New York and Boston falling about your
heads." In relating this to me the Duke added, "I startled Seward a good
deal; but he put on a look of incredulity nevertheless. And I do not
think they believe we should ever fight them; but we certainly should if
the provocation were strong." It will be remarked that this conversation
between Seward and the Duke was in 1860. That no one, then, expected
a revolution from an anti-slave-state election of President. Still less did
the people, of either England or the United States, dream of a
divergence, consequent on such an election, to end in a struggle, first
for political power, and then following, in providential order, for
human freedom. A struggle culminating in the entire subjection of the
South, in 1865, after four years' war--a struggle costing a million of
lives, untold human misery, and a loss in money, or money's worth, of
over a thousand millions sterling.

In our many conversations, I had always ventured to enforce upon the
Duke that the passion for territory, for space, would be found at the
bottom of all discussion with the United States. Give them territory, not
their own, and for a time you would appease them, while, still, the very
feast would sharpen their hunger. I reminded the Duke that General
Cass had said, "I have an awful swallow ('swaller' was his
pronunciation) for territory;" and all Americans have that "awful
swallow." The dream of possessing a country extending from the Pole
to the Isthmus of Panama, if not to Cape Horn, has been the ambition of
the Great Republic--and it is a dangerous ambition for the rest of the
world. We have seen its effects in all our treaties. We have always been
asked for land. We gave up Michigan after the war of 1812. We gave
up that noble piece, the "Aroostook" country, now part of the State of
Maine, under the Ashburton Treaty in 1841. We have, again, been
shuffled out of our boundary at St. Juan on the Pacific, under an
arbitration which really contained its own award. The Reciprocity
Treaty was put an end to, in 1866, by the United States, not because the
Great West--who may govern the Union if they please--did not want it,
but because the Great West was cajoled by the cunning East into
believing that a restriction of intercourse between the United States and
the British Provinces would, at last, force the subjects of the Queen to
seek admission into the Republic. So it was, and is and will be; and the
only way to prevent aggression and war was, is, and will be, to "put our
foot down." Not to cherish the "peace-in-our-time" policy, or to indulge
in the half-hearted language, to which I shall have hereafter to
allude--but to combine and strengthen the sections of our Colonial
Empire in the West--to give to their people a greater Empire still, a
nobler history, and a prouder lot: a lot to _last_, because based upon
institutions which have stood, and will stand, the test of time and
trouble. Unfortunately