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is very dull and money scarce, but the true elements of recovery are at work, hard labour and frugality.

I intend going to the sea coast for a few days, and will take Montreal n my way, as I much desire to have a long talk with you.

If the York vacancy occurs there will be no trouble in arranging for your return if you will accept a seat for a West Canada constituency.

Yours most truly,

HON. L. H. HOLTON, Montreal.

GEORGE BROWN.

LETTER TO MR. HOLTON.

TORONTO, May 2, 1861.

MY DEAR HOLTON,-Except a short note to D. A. Macdonald, thanking him for keeping F-straight, this is the first time I have put pen to paper for nine weeks. I tried to write in ink, but it was like the scrawl of an old man of eighty. You must therefore be content with pencil. I have had a hard time of it. The disease had fastened upon me long before it became fully developed, and was undoubtedly caused by the great exertions I had to make to put my house in order, for there was no mercy. I thank Providence, I was not driven to my bed until the ship was safe inside the breakers in comparatively smoother water than it has known for years.

The paragraphs that appeared in the Globe about me were utterly absurd. When the inflammation of the pleura was overcome and the congestion of the liver reduced, I was to be well immediately, and I really felt I would be astir in a few days. The feeling was only the buoyancy of fever; as it lowered, my utter prostration soon appeared. Then I had to take nourishing food; but the digestive powers were so sadly impaired, that stimulants alone could be used. At present I am greatly better, and am able to ride out for an hour. A frightful cough still hangs, and I suffered a slight return of the congestive attack. The doctors want me to be off the moment I can stand the fatigue of journeying. I have resolved to go to the water cure establishment at Clifton Springs, near Rochester, I think a week or two there will set me on my feet again.

I am ashamed of all this egotism, but I wanted to have some friends reconcile the statements of the Globe with my real condition.

All

May 8th. So far I had written on the 2nd, when I had to stop from weariness. On Friday I had a consultation of physicians, which ended, 1 am sorry to say, unfavourably to my hopes of a speedy recovery. concurred in saying I must consider myself laid aside from business for some months, and that the utmost care must be taken to avoid falling into a state of permanent ill health.

I need not say how distressed I am by all this for myself and the party, as ministers are sure to take advantage of it in their election arrangements. Well, there is no help for it-nothing but submission, with the determined resolution that nothing shall be wanting to secure as speedy a recovery as possible.

I need not tell you how disgusted I am that Galt's bundle of misstatements should have escaped scathless. Of all the scandalous productions I ever met with, his opening chapter to the Public Accounts and his speech in opening the Budget are the worst. Such downright deceit I never met with from any man in a high position. I dictated an article for the Globe on the true balance for 1860, and another on the amount of the public debt;

perhaps you noticed them. I intended following them up with a complete analysis of his other statements, but have not strength to go at it. Did you notice his division of the rise of the public debt into three epochs: the amount during Hincks' administration, the amount during Cayley's, and the amount during his own? By barefaced jugglery he makes his own show but $5,000,000, when in fact it has been $23,000,000. Observe he takes credit for the full amount of the Sydenham loan, though, in fact, more than one-half of it was lying in London when he took office, and so on. It is utterly scandalous that out of 128 men not one rose to cast his false statements in his teeth. That disclosure by Dorion is most frightful. In any well-governed country it would be enough to produce a revolution. Yours ever faithfully,

HON. L. H. HOLTON, Montreal.

GEORGE BROWN,

LETTER TO MR. HOLTON.

TORONTO, Feb. 19, 1862.

MY DEAR HOLTON,-I congratulate you on the victory in the west. It really looked hopeless for some weeks, but now things promise well. There will be lots of northern men now; but, after all, have not the events of the last few months rather lowered your estimate of our neighbours? Has it not shown that there is something more needed to make up a great people than sharpness in business and agreeable social qualities? Has it not raised your estimate of the value of military power; of the faculty of commanding masses of men? Has it not proved the advantages of the people being taught to obey those placed in authority over them? I wish we had a chance to talk this over.

And so we are to have a session at last. What is to be the result of it? I am satisfied there is great disorganization in the ministerial camp. Vankoughnet has arrived by the Asia, and is expected to be gazetted Chancellor immediately. I greatly doubt his accepting it. If he does not Burns is to go into an equity court and Morris to become a puisne judge. John Ross openly declares he will not go to Quebec. He means to remain President of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, but he may lose that. Mr. Brydges is regularly installed in the Grand Trunk. He is trying to accomplish an increased postal subsidy by private arrangement with the members. I suspect the ministry have discovered they cannot carry it and are unwilling to risk trying it. What about the Intercolonial subsidy? The repudiation scheme, if they had one, has been fairly exploded. No one dreams here now that it can be touched, and even Hamilton is to cash up. I think the Globe has done good service to the state in that matter. The speakership is still subject of debate. I think Mr. Drummond the best man we can run, and I hope he will consent. What of Sicotte? Did you see or hear anything of him? I have seen a number of people from Waterloo county, and I feel confident he could be elected there without any trouble, should Foley elect to sit for Perth. I hear, however, that he talks of sitting for Waterloo. Singularly enough, I was strongly urging the necessity of having you in the House a few days ago among a party of our friends, when offered to resign for you. I have no doubt he means it, but we will see when the House meets if Foley comes to that determination. The Midland Division Convention gave Mr. McMaster the nomination, and I think he will accept. Mr. McGee was here some days, and I saw much of him; I was much pleased with him. He promised to see Dorion and you, and tell you all that is going on. What about the seat of government? Had our policy best be to stand

by Ottawa? It has been suggested to refuse more money to this government. What do you think I should do about the opening? Go down or write a letter? I am not inclined to go down, as it might be said I went to influence the choice of a leader or the adoption of some party policy. Pray advise. I hope it is true that you cross the Atlantic with Mrs. Holton in the summer. It would be so pleasant to go together and compare notes occasionally as to men and things. The session, I conclude, will not last longer than June, and if you take your seat this session, of course you could not leave till the House rose, and I could not wait so late, having business waiting me in England.

Yours faithfully,

HON. L. H. HOLTON,

Montreal.

GEORGE BROWN.

LETTER TO MR. HOLTON.

TORONTO, May 29, 1862.

MY DEAR HOLTON,-I was delighted beyond measure at the receipt of your letter. It is so refreshing to find that one of the old set at any rate sticks to the ship.

Believe me, that though I have not written, you have not been out of my mind for two consecutive hours in the last two weeks, and I have been more than once on the point of running down to consult you as to the course I should take. I was only deterred by fear of the construction that would be attached to my going east at such a moment. As it is, I would like much to have two hours with you, for who else to consult with I know not. My only reason for not writing was the necessity of sending a well-considered reply to that strange letter of McGee's. 1 am writing this at one o'clock in the morning, after a five hours' interview with Wilson and Foley. The conclusion I came to from all they have told me is that a greater set of incapables than the quartette was never got by accident into the government of any country. Would you believe it? They tell me their constitutional scheme is to be embodied in formal resolutions, and submitted for the adoption of parliament next session; that any modification of the plan will be adopted, and that they them selves will do their utmost to have representation by population made part of the scheme, and if necessary will resign, or take any other course the party desire! Foley says he will state the substance of this in his address, which he is to prepare to-morrow and submit to me for consider. ation. McDougall is to leave Quebec to-night, and will be here to-morrow night. Foley's address will be held over until he arrives and joins our consultation, so that it will not appear before Monday morning. I would do anything to have you here; is it not possible for you to come? It would be an immense relief if you did, it is so hard to tell how to act. There is no doubt that if I go into it, and stump the four counties, three of them at any rate will be beaten. But that would split the party, and bring on once more a most disagreeable personal warfare, which I wish to avoid of all things. I am keenly desirous of sticking to my business for a couple of years, and especially of getting myself off to England for a few months. To go into such a fight would knock everything on the head; but then, if we don't kill them their conduct may yet kill us as a party. If we could get the arrangement put before the public as an open question, and have it understood that resolutions (on which the whole relations of Upper and Lower Canada would come up) were to be presented to parliament next session, the complexion of affairs would be entirely changed. Only fancy the folly of these men telling the House and the public that

the matter was closed, when they could with so much more advantage have told the truth, if indeed it is the truth.

Sicotte must have been very closely run on his side of the question, when he got the worst side proposed for his colleagues from Upper Canada, to strengthen himself in Lower Canada. I will write you from day to day to inform you of our negotiations, in case you don't come up. In the meantime, I need not tell you how much I would value any suggestions you have to make for the Globe's guidance.

Ever faithfully yours,

HON. L. H. HOLTON, Montreal.

GEORGE BROWN.

LETTER TO MR. HOLTON.

TORONTO, June 2, 1862.

MY DEAR HOLTON, -I feel exceedingly obliged by your ready response to my unreasonable request, and only regret it was out of your power to come up. I cannot help feeling that the line of policy to be pursued by the Globe and by our staunch friends here was a question of no small difficulty and no light importance. Had I been able to discuss the whole matter with you, and we had arrived at a joint conclusion, all doubt would have been off my mind. The die is cast, however, and, right or wrong, I must stand by it.

Foley and Wilson, when with me first, both maintained they had sacrificed nothing, and were as ready to vote for representation by population now as ever. When I asked Wilson what he would do if a vote on it came up next session, he said he would vote for it unless it were put as a vote of want of confidence; and that if a majority of the West Canada members would vote for it in the latter shape he would resign. Foley doubted how they would act in the former case, but was clear that if the motion in the latter case came from Tom Ferguson or J. H. Cameron, they would not regard it. However, they both agreed that resolutions embody. ing the new policy were to be laid before parliament next session; that the whole question of the constitutional relations between Upper and Lower Canada would then come up; and that if an advance could then be obtained, or the party asked them to take a certain course, even at the risk of office, they would go heartily into it. I seized this declaration, and asked if they would put this in their addresses? They both agreed to do so. Foley was to write his address out and show it to me on Friday forenoon, and when McDougall arrived that evening, to have a consultation as to the best means of putting matters in a more satisfactory shape.

Foley did bring me his address on Friday, but he found it very difficult to put his ideas in such a shape as would suit the purpose here and not offend his Lower Canada colleagues. After a good deal of debate we agreed to let the matter rest until McDougall arrived. He arrived on Friday night, as arranged, and was with me from half-past eleven till near three o'clock. After telling him my mind very plainly, we discussed the whole subject fully. He repeated all that Foley and Wilson said, and agreed to stand by it, but he refused positively to put it in his address, or to have it in any address.

Our discussion had evidently opened his eyes to the difficulty of putting the double majority delusion in formal resolutions, and made him shrink from pledging himself to submit them to the House.

Would it not be rich to have the whole constitution clanged by the simple will of twelve gentlemen who happened for the time to hold the

twelve state offices? McDougall evidently felt his oats, but Gordon caught a different impression. I was very candid with him and the others, but of course as courteous and friendly as the case would admit of. Among other things, McDougall stated that Howland only held office temporarily, and that I was looked for as his successor. I scouted this suggestion, and asked him how it came that you were not made Minister of Finance, as we had all intended in the event of a crisis. He said because Sandfield and Sicotte were against it. He admitted the concern could not go on as it was, and that he looked on it as a mere make-shift.

The question now was what course should be taken? Start candidates against all four, and run out as many as possible? or permit them to go in unopposed, and hold them up to the mark under the stimulus of bit and spur? I had nobody to consult with but Gordon. We deliberated long, and finally concluded that the latter course was the best for the country and the party under all the circumstances. Friday's Globe contained no allusion to the matter, and Saturday's gave a gentle hint to the North York meeting that there were two sides to the question of rejecting them. This morning's paper discussed the double majority humbug. We shall quietly fall into the attitude of independent but hearty support on all but the one question. I will ask no favours from them for anyone, and will stand ready heartily to aid them to the best of my ability, with the one reservation that on the constitutional question they are to be coerced on every occasion.

Now for the reasons that led me to this conclusion. To oppose the re-election of the new ministers would have been to split the party once more, not only in the five counties, but all over the province. The best men of the country would have gone with us, but a large section would have been estranged. It was no slight responsibility to face this result. Then, supposing that could be got over, where were the men to run? Several excellent men were available to run, but not such men as were necessary for the crisis. Suppose us successful at all the elections, who was there to carry out in the House the bold policy that such a result would render necessary? The worst of it is that nearly all our friends in the House had been committed to a partial support of the government, notwithstanding their retrograde policy, and might regard such success as a censure on themselves. I felt that to give effect to the movement I must run myself, and carry out in the House what had been begun in the country; this I was determined not to do. Then came the fear that our success might possibly kill the ministry, and bring back the corruptionists. I shrank from the responsibility of risking that. It could not be forgotten that the present men would certainly effect great practical reforms; and especially that while the old set would have been entirely beyond our reach if once reinstalled, the present men will always be less or more within reach if they stray from the right path. On the other hand, was there much chance of the present concern lasting long? And if it fell, would there not be a general election? With the party committed, partly, to this monstrous policy, would we not be swept from existence as a party? Moreover, was not the credit of the country and the honour of the liberal party at stake in the conduct of these four men and the reception given them by their constituents? And if returned unopposed, would it not be saying as plainly as possible that Upper Canada was quite content to set aside her claims for just representation and take a miserable delusion in its place? We weighed the whole matter seriously and maturely, and concluded to take the course I have already sketched. I hope our conclusion was right. Assuredly we arrived at it with a strong desire to do that which seemed best for the weal of the country.

Now, my dear Holton, the best news I have heard is that you are coming out for Huntingdon; I entreat you to do so; there could be no

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