"If the Maritime Provinces [of Britain] would join us,
spontaneously, to-day - sterile as they may be in the soil under a sky
of 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 would
succeed upon the deep, we must either maintain our fisheries or
ABSORB THE PROVINCES."
E. H. DERBY, Esq, Report to the Revenue Commissioners of the United
States, 1866.
In the absence of any formal Dedication, I feel that to no one could
the following pages be more appropriately inscribed than to Lady Watkin.
On her have fallen the anxieties of our home life during my many
long absences away on the American Continent - which Continent she once,
in 1862, visited with me. My business, in relation to Canada, has, from
time to time, been undertaken with her knowledge, and under her good
advice; 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.
PREFACE.
The following pages have been written at the request of many old
friends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British rule
over the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America.
In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, in
search of health.
