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CANADA AND THE STATES RECOLLECTIONS 1851 to 1886.
"If the Maritime Provinces [of Britain] would join us,spontaneously, to-day—sterile as they may be in the soil under a skyof steel—still with their hardy population, their harbours, fisheries,and seamen, they would greatly strengthen and improve our position,and aid us in our struggle for equality upon the ocean. If we wouldsucceed upon the deep, we must either maintain our fisheries orABSORB THE PROVINCES."
E. H. DERBY, Esq, Report to the Revenue Commissioners of the United
States, 1866.
[Illustration: The Duke of Newcastle, K.G.]
In the absence of any formal Dedication, I feel that to no one couldthe following pages be more appropriately inscribed than to
Lady Watkin.
On her have fallen the anxieties of our home life during my manylong absences away on the American Continent—which Continent she once,in 1862, visited with me. My business, in relation to Canada, has, fromtime to time, been undertaken with her knowledge, and under her goodadvice; and no one has been animated with a stronger hope for Canada,as a great integral part of the Empire of the Queen, than herself.
E. W. WATKIN.ROSE HILL, NORTHENDEN,2nd May, 1887.
The following pages have been written at the request of many oldfriends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British ruleover the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America.
In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, insearch of health. In 1861 I went there on an anxious mission ofbusiness; and for some years afterwards I frequently crossed theAtlantic, not only during the great Civil War between the North andSouth, but, also, subsequent to its close. In 1875 I had to undertakeanother mission of responsibility to the United States. And, last year,I traversed the Dominion of Canada from Belle Isle to the Pacific. Ireturned home by San Francisco and the Union Pacific Railways toChicago; and by Montreal to New York. Thence to Liverpool, in thatunsurpassed steamer, the "Etruria," of the grand old Cunard line. Iended my visits to America, as I began them, as a tourist. This passagewas my thirtieth crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Within the period from 1851 to 1886, history on the North AmericanContinent has been a wonderful romance. Never in the older stories ofthe world's growth, have momentous changes been effected, and,apparently, consolidated, in so short a time, or in such rapidsuccession.
Regarding the United States, the slavery of four millions of the negrorace is abolished for ever, and the black men vote for Presidents. Agreat struggle for empire—fought on gigantic measure—has been won forliberty and union. Turning to Canada, the British half of the Continenthas been moulded into one great unity, and faggotted together, withoutthe shedding of one drop of brothers' blood—and in so tame and quiet away, that the great silent forces of Nature have to be cited, to find aparallel.
In this period, the American Continent has been spanned by three mainroutes of iro