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Date: 1864-08-09
By: Edward Cardwell
Citation: Despatch from Right Hon. Edward Cardwell to Lieutenant Governor Richard Graves Macdonnell (9 August 1864) in Nova Scotia, Journal and Proceedings of the House of Assembly of the Province of Nova Scotia, Appendix No. 3—Union of the Colonies (1865).
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Downing Street, 9th August, 1864

SIR,—

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch, No. 3, of the l8th of July, and to convey to you my approval of the course you have taken in appointing Delegates to confer on the expediency of a Union of the Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. I also concur with Von in thinking that the official mission of the Delegates should be limited to the Union of the Lower Provinces. The wider question to which you refer is one on which the views of the Ministers of Canada have not yet been officially made known to me, and on which I am not yet prepared to enter; but I agree with you in the opinion which you express, that by proceeding with the consideration of the Union of the Lower Provinces you will be throwing no impediment in the way of a wider scheme, if hereafter such a scheme should appear to be desirable.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)          EDWARD CARDWELL.

Sir R. G. MACDONNELL, C. B.