Health became
restored, a moderate and augmenting fortune, laid in the foundations of
carefulness, came to us; and we at last emerged into daylight, again.
When in Parliament, in 1857, I made a speech in the House of Commons,
which some thought timely, upon the then pressing question of Indian
railways. Mr. Disraeli did me the honor to listen to what I had to say.
After his lamented death, one of his executors handed back to me, in an
envelope, endorsed in his own hand, the letters which I had written to
him in the years of the Manchester Athenaeum.
I may add, that Mr. Disraeli's ear was always open to me during the
struggles for the Intercolonial Railway as a means, and the
Confederation of the British Provinces in America as the great end, of
our efforts. He was strongly in favour of Confederation; and, just as
we owe the establishment of a Crown Colony in British Columbia to the
sagacity of Bulwer Lytton, so we owe the final realization of
Confederation, through the passing of an Act by the Queen, Lords, and
Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, to the Government, no less
sagacious on this question, of Lord Beaconsfield.
I think the following letters reflect no discredit upon my motives, -
neither self-seeking nor selfish. At the same time they are further
evidence of Mr. Disraeli's thorough kindness and feeling of justice
towards all who had, in his judgment, "deserved well of their country."
"LONDON,
"3rd August, 1867.
"DEAR SIR,
"On my return from Scotland yesterday I learnt, confidentially, that
you had been good enough to propose to present my name to the Queen for
the honour of knighthood, in consideration of my services in connection
with the union of the British North American Provinces under the Crown,
and with their Intercolonial Railway. And I see that a semi-official
statement to that effect is in some of the papers. Will you permit me
to thank you very sincerely for such a recognition of the services of a
political opponent whose known opinions will protect him from the
suspicion of receiving, and you from that of giving, an unworthy
reward.
"But the mail brings me tidings from Canada which convince me that the
French Canadian population at large look upon the course pursued
towards Messrs. Cartier and Langevin in the recent distribution of
honors as an act of indifference towards themselves. It might be
possible, therefore - but you will be the best judge - that the honor now
proposed for me might lead to an aggravation of this feeling of
dissatisfaction, which arises at the very inopportune moment of the
birth of the 'new Dominion.'
"I think, therefore, that I should be as deficient in public duty as in
generosity, if I did not evince my gratitude for your unsolicited
remembrance by saying that, should the difficulty I allude to be found
really to exist, I shall not feel myself slighted or aggrieved should
your kindness proceed no further, pending such an unfortunate state of
feeling.
