Me by last mail that the Parliament had as yet not begun
business.
"If you agree to this, I will send the papers and my remarks to the
Land Commissioners at once, and see you (after getting their report) on
Wednesday next, or any day after it, except Friday.
"Pray let me hear by return.
"Yours very sincerely,
"NEWCASTLE."
"DOWNING STREET,
"6 May, 1863.
"MY DEAR MR. WATKIN,
"I hope and believe that the despatches in their final shape, as they
went out to N. Columbia on Friday last, and to Canada on Saturday, were
quite what you and the proposed 'N. W. Transit Company' would wish.
"I added words which (without dictation) will be understood as implying
'No Intercolonial, no Transit.'
"If you happen to be in this neighbourhood any day between 3 and 4.30,
I shall be glad to see you, though I have nothing at all pressing to
say.
"Yours very sincerely,
"NEWCASTLE."
CHAPTER IX.
The Right Honorable Edward Ellice, M.P.
I have alluded to this remarkable man under the soubriquet attached to
him for a generation - "the old Bear." I assume that when his son, who
for many years represented the Scotch constituency of the St. Andrews
Burghs, grew up, the father became the "old" and the son the "young"
Bear. Mr. Ellice was the son of Mr. Alexander Ellice, an eminent
merchant in the City of London. Born, if the "Annual Register" be
accurate, in 1789, he died at the end of 1863. It is strange that he
began life by uniting the Canadian fur trade with that of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and just lived long enough to witness the sale and
transfer of the interests he had, by a bold and masterly policy,
combined in 1820. Leaving Canada, Mr. Ellice joined the Whig party, and
was returned to Parliament for Coventry in 1818; and, with the
exception of the period from 1826 to 1830, he retained his seat till
the day of his death. Marrying the youngest sister of Earl Grey, of the
Reform Bill - the widow of Captain Bettesworth, R.N. - who died in 1832,
leaving him an only son; and, in 1843, the widow of Mr. Coke, of
Norfolk, he became intimately connected with the Whig aristocracy.
In Mr. Ellice's evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1857, on
the Hudson's Bay Company, I find that, in answer to a question put by
Mr. Christy, M.P., as to the probability of a "settlement being made
within what you consider to be the Southern territories of the Hudson's
Bay Company?" - he replied, "None, in the lifetime of the youngest man
now alive." Events have proved his error. Mr. Ellice was a man of
commanding stature and presence, but, to my mind, had always the
demeanour of a colonist who had had to wrestle with the hardships of
nature, and his cast of countenance was Jewish.
