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.
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