England Has Warned Us By Several Matters Of Fact, According To Her Custom, Rather Than Verbiage, That The Colonies Had Entered Upon A New Era Of Existence, A New Phase In Their Career.

She has given us this warning in several different shapes - when she gave us 'Responsible Government' - when she adopted

Free Trade - when she repealed the Navigation Laws - and when, three or four years ago, she commenced that series of official despatches in relation to militia and defence which she has ever since poured in on us, in a steady stream, always bearing the same solemn burthen- 'Prepare! prepare! prepare!' These warnings gave us notice that the old order of things between the Colonies and the Mother Country had ceased, and that a new order must take its place. About four years ago, the first despatches began to be addressed to this country, from the Colonial Office, upon the subject. From that day to this there has been a steady stream of despatches in this direction, either upon particular or general points connected with our defence; and I venture to say, that if bound up together, the despatches of the lamented Duke of Newcastle alone would make a respectable volume - all notifying this Government, by the advices they conveyed, that the relations - the military apart from the political and commercial relations - of this Province to the Mother Country had changed; and we were told in the most explicit language that could be employed, that we were no longer to consider ourselves, in relation to defence, in the same position we formerly occupied towards the Mother Country. Then, Sir, in the second place, there came what I may call the other warning from without - the American warning. Republican America gave us her notices in times past, through her press, and her demagogues, and her statesmen, but of late days she has given us much more intelligible notices - such as the notice to abrogate the Reciprocity Treaty, and to arm the lakes, contrary to the provisions of the Convention of 1818. She has given us another notice in imposing a vexatious passport system; another in her avowed purpose to construct a ship canal round the falls of Niagara, so as 'to pass war vessels from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie;' and yet another, the most striking one of all, has been given to us, if we will only understand it, by the enormous expansion of the American army and navy. I will take leave to read to the House a few figures which show the amazing, the unprecedented, growth (which has not, perhaps, a parallel in the annals of the past) of the military power of our neighbours, within the past three or four years. I have the details here by me, but shall only read the results, to show the House the emphatic terms of this most serious warning. In January, 1861, the regular army of the United States, including of course the whole of the States, did not exceed 15,000 men.

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