demanded of the Governor-General that he should agree to make no appointment, and no offer of an appointment, without previously taking the advice of his council." . . . In other words, that the patronage of the Crown should be surrendered to the council. The Governor-General replied that he would not make any such stipulation, and could not degrade the character of his office, nor violate his duty, by such a surrender of the prerogative of the Crown. Gentlemen, we had those words fresh in our memories, and we perfectly understood how they could be made to apply to us, if we asked a pledge of a dissolution. We had a salutary recollection of the long years of misrule that resulted from the trick of 1843, and we were willing to risk our being turned out of office within twenty-four hours, but we were not willing to place ourselves constitutionally in a false position. We distinctly contemplated all that Sir Edmund Head could do and that he has done; and we concluded that it was our duty to accept office, and throw on the Governor-General the responsibility of denying us the support we were entitled to, and which he had extended so abundantly to our predecessors. True, we might have declined office without an explanation, but we all felt, I believe, that this would have been very injurious to our position before the country, and that no option was left, consistent with our dignity and the interests of the public, but to be sworn in.

I need not tell you that we had not taken possession of the council chamber an hour, when the war commenced against us. The late ministers had telegraphed all over the country for their friends; a special train was run on Sunday over the Grand Trunk to bring them up in time; and the Governor-General's name was freely used in assuring certain members that if the new government were voted down from the start there would be no dissolution of parliament, but let them get over the session, and that dread alarm of such a House, a dissolution, was inevitable. With the ten ministers absent from the House, and many of our friends away unsuspicious of so unprecedented a proceeding, a vote of want of confidence in the new government was immediately moved at the instigation of the late ministers, and sustained, I need hardly remind you, by these gallant gentlemen with dastardly assaults, false and fierce, against absent men. No doubt we will live to repay them, but I trust in more manly fashion. The following morning the cabinet advised a dissolution. His Excellency demanded reasons in writing. They were furnished; our advice was refused, and we instantly resigned. Not in a hundred and fifty years of English history, nor in the whole history of Canada, can a single case be found in which men in our position were refused a dissolution. When His Excellency called on me to form a government, well he knew that I was in the minority of the House, and that I had so assailed the electoral frauds by which so many of the members were returned, that it was next to impossible to proceed without a general election. Why then expose us to the mockery of a hollow invitation? And why not say frankly at once that he would not grant a dissolution? Mr. Hincks went to the country in 1851; at the opening of his second session he was defeated, but the Governor-General came down suddenly and prorogued the House, and gave him one more chance

for life.

The McNab government followed in September, 1854; in 1855 three members retired, and His Excellency consented to a reconstruction; in 1856 the government was beaten twice and twice resigned; but His Excellency would not accept, and Ross, Drummond and Cauchon, nay, the Premier himself, were all driven out, but still a reconstruction was allowed, with Colonel Taché at the head. In 1857 Lemieux, Territt, Ross, and the Premier were all driven away; but another reconstruction was at once granted, with Mr. Macdonald as Prime Minister. Unable to fill up the vacant offices, suddenly and inconveniently, in the middle of the financial crisis, Mr. Macdonald demanded a general election, and at once he obtained it. And though three ministers were beaten in Upper Canada, still His Excellency permitted the thing to go on by the aid of irresponsible members of the Upper House, and an office left vacant from pure inability to fill it up. He permitted a session of five months to be wasted by the utter incapacity of his advisers; he submitted to all their departmental blundering and mismanagement; but he refused to the opposition the only favour they asked, a fair appeal to the people against the misdeeds of his late ministers. If a designed intention had existed to get the leaders of the opposition out of the House, and then pass the numerous obnoxious bills before parliament, no more direct way could have been taken than that followed by His Excellency.

And to cap the climax of the affair, on dismissing our government, he sent for a gentleman-and he a Lower Canadian-to form a new one who had not and never had one follower in the House, and who was only known to public life as the author of the famous Grand Trunk prospectus, offering 11 per cent. dividend to all who were fortunate enough to get shares! I submit to you that a grievous wrong has been done throughout this matter, and 1 ask you if you will not show your condemnation of such work by returning me again with an overwhelming majority? I ask you if the government I formed ought not to have had a fair trial; that at least we should have had time to appear in our seats to vindicate our policy and if so, I urge you to put all your hands to work, and we will get another and better opportunity ere many months elapse. In one way this strange crisis has done great good; we have found a method of settling the differences between Upper and Lower Canada; we have formed a strong party in opposition, in both sections, on the basis laid down by the late government; and when parliament meets a few months hence, the effect will soon be shown.

Gentlemen, I had a great deal more to say, but I am exhausted with heat and recent indisposition, and I can proceed no further. I shall address you many times in the course of the election contest, and it only now remains for me to thank you very cordially for your kind attention.

ANTI-SLAVERY.

The following speech was delivered by Mr. Brown, at Toronto, on the evening of February 3rd, 1863, in moving the second resolution. Its delivery was frequently interrupted by the hearty plaudits of the large and enthusiastic audience.

MR. BROWN said: I have frequently enjoyed the privilege of addressing my fellow-citizens in the public halls of our city, but I say sincerely that I never before experienced such heartfelt pleasure in appearing on a public platform as I do on this occasion. The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada has been many years in existence, but I see around me not a few who, long before its establishment, were the earnest and untiring friends of the down-trodden slave. For twenty-five years many of us have striven together to promote the cause of emancipation, and long, long years we laboured almost without hope to arouse our neighbours to the frightful position they occupied in the eyes of the Christian world, and to goad them on, if possible, to some vigorous efforts towards the suppression of the inhuman traffic that disgraced their land. How earnestly did we watch every passing event in the republic that promised some little amelioration to the condition of the slave, or some additional influence to the friends of emancipation. Sad, hopeless work it appeared to be for many, many years. But at last light broke in upon the scene, and now what a change has passed over the whole picture! What man among us ten years ago, ay, five years ago, ever hoped to live to see the day when the cause of emancipation would occupy the position it does at this moment in the American republic.

For several years it has happened that I have not been able to be present at the annual meetings of this society; but well do I recollect the work we had on hand at the last meeting I attended. Our work then was to mark and deplore the increasing power of the slave interest over the federal government, to denounce the infamous Fugitive Slave Law as a disgrace to civilization, and to express our hearty sympathy with the noble but inconsiderable band of true men throughout the republic who were standing firm for the cause of liberty. That was a very short time ago; but what an entire revolution have these few brief years witnessed. Now we have an anti-slavery president of the United States. Now we have an anti-slavery government at Washington. Now we have an anti-slavery congress at Washington. Already slavery has been abolished in the District of Columbia. At last a genuine treaty for the suppression of the slave trade has been signed at Washington with the government of Great Britain,

and for the first time in her history the penalty of death has been enforced in the republic for the crime of man-stealing. Then, the black republics of Hayti and Liberia have been recognized by the United States as independent powers; and, even more important still, the vast territories of the United States have been prohibited by law from entering the republic except as free states. And the climax was reached a month ago when Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States, proclaimed that from that moment every slave in the rebel states was absolutely free, and that the republic was prepared to pay for the freedom of all the slaves in the loyal states. The freely elected government and legislature of the United States have proclaimed that not with their consent shall one slave remain within the republic.

Was I not right, then, when I said that we ought to rejoice together to-night? I congratulate you, Mr. Chairman (Rev. Dr. Willis), on the issue of your forty years' contest here and on the other side of the Atlantic on behalf of the American slave. I congratulate the venerable mover of the first resolution (Rev. Dr. Burns), who for even a longer period has been the unflinching friend of freedom. I congratulate the tried friends of emancipation around me on the platform, and the no less zealous friends of the cause throughout the hall, whose well-remembered faces have been ever present when a word of sympathy was to be uttered for the downtrodden and oppressed. Who among us ever hoped to see such a day as this? And does it not well become us to meet as we are now doing to proclaim anew our earnest sympathy with the friends of freedom in the republic, our hearty gratification at the great results that have been accomplished, and our gratitude to the men who nave staked life and fortune on the effort to strike shackles from the bondman. I care not to pry narrowly into the motives of all those who have contributed to bring about this great change in the republic. I care not to examine critically the precise mode by which it has been brought about. I care not to discuss the arguments by which it has been promoted or defended in the republic. What to us signifies all this? We see before us the great fact that the chains have already fallen from the hands of tens of thousands of human chattels; we see that if the policy of the present government at Washington prevails, the curse of human slavery will be swept from the continent for ever; and our hearts go up with earnest petitious to the God of battles that He will strengthen the hands of Abraham Lincoln and give wisdom to his councils.

But we have yet another duty to perform. In the face of all the wonderful progress that the anti-slavery cause has made in the United States -in defiance of the decided emancipation measures of Mr. Lincoln's gov ernment-it is the fact, the strange and startling fact, that professing abolitionists-nay, genuine abolitionists, men who have done much for the cause of negro emancipation--are to be found, both here and in Great Britain, who not only refuse their sympathy to Mr. Lincoln, but regard the slave-trafficking government of Jefferson Davis with something very much akin to sympathy and good-will.

As you are aware, I have recently returned from a visit to Great Britain, and 1 am bound to say that I was astonished and grieved at the feeling with which I found the contest now waging in the United States generally regarded. In my six months' journeyings through England and Scotland I had opportunities of conversing with a very large number of persons in all positions of life, and I am sorry so say that, while there were many marked exceptions among men of thought and influence, the general sympathy was very decidedly on the side of the south. I entirely agree with you, that this feeling has not originated from any change in the popular mind of Great Britain on the subject of African slavery; on the contrary, I believe that the hatred of slavery, and the desire for emancipation all over the world, are nearly as strong as ever. In almost every one of the hundreds of discussions in which I was a participator, it was again and again repeated by all that, could they believe African slavery to be the cause of the civil war, and that Mr. Lincoln was sincerely desirous of bringing the horrid traffic to an end, they would promptly and heartily give their sympathy to his cause. But the truth is, that the systematic misrepresentation of the London Times and other journals, commenced shortly after the outbreak of the civil war and diligently kept up ever since, has perverted the public mind of Great Britain, and the most amaz ing misconceptions as to the true nature of the struggle are everywhere met with, and that even among the most candid and generous-minded

men.

I have said, that to this general state of feeling there are many eminent exceptions-that there are many men in Britain who perfectly comprehend the whole merits of the contest, and pre-eminent among them, I believe, stand the members of the British cabinet. I entirely agree with you, that the whole policy and conduct of the British government throughout the war has been worthy of all praise; and I do think it is much to be regretted that our neighbours across the lines have not viewed aright the wise course it has pursued, but have permitted their journals and some of their public speakers to indulge in accusations as groundless as impolitic. When the impartial history of this civil war shall be written, that page of it which will record the part taken in it by the British government-its dignified disregard of contumely, its patient endurance of commercial distress and individual suffering and destitution directly resulting from the war, its firm persistent resistance of the seductions of other powers to intrude unasked in the domestic feuds of the republic-will, I am persuaded, stand out as an imperishable monument to the wisdom and justice of the men who held the helm. Whatever misconceptions may exist among the people, there have been no misconceptions on the part of the British government; firmly and discreetly it has pursued the only course open to it, that of scrupulous neutrality. That the sympathies of the people of England have not been with the north in the present struggle-that those who urged the American people to throw off the disgrace of slavery have not acted up to their own principles when their advice was followed and the contest came --that aid and encouragement have been largely given to the slaveocracy