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Date: 1866-06-21
By: Arthur Gordon
Citation: Despatch from Lieutenant Governor Arthur Gordon to Right Hon. Edward Cardwell (21 June 1866) in UK, Parliament, Correspondence respecting the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces (London: George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1867).
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No. 27.

COPY of a DESPATCH from Lieut.-Governor the Hon. ARTHUR GORDON to the Right Hon. EDWARD CARDWELL, M.P.

(No.53.)

Fredericton, June 21, 1866.
(Received July 14, 1866.)
(Answered, No.6, July 20, 1866, page 122.)

SIR,

I HAVE the honour to enclose herewith a copy of the Speech with which i this day opened the session of the Provincial Legislature.

I have, &c.

(Signed) ARTHUR H. GORDON.

The Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P.,
&c. &c. &c.

Enclosure in No. 27.

EXTRACT from the SPEECH of his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor on opening the Session.

HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL,
MR. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.

THE Address of the Legislative Council to Her Majesty the Queen, on the subject of the Union of the British North American Provinces, agreed to during the last session, was duly transmitted by me to England to be laid at the foot of the Throne, and I am commanded to inform you that Her Majesty has been pleased to receive the same very graciously.

The adoption and the reception by me for transmission to Her Majesty of this Address, led to events which rendered it in my opinion expedient to dissolve the then existing General Assembly. I have now much satisfaction in resorting to your assistance and cooperation at the earliest possible moment : although I regret that it should be necessary to call you together at a period of the year which must, I fear, render your assembling a matter of much personal inconvenience to some among you.

Her Majesty’s Government have already expressed their strong and deliberate opinion, that the Union of the British North American Provinces under one Government is an object much to be de desired. The Legislatures of Canada and of Nova Scotia have formed the same judgement : and you will now shortly be invited to express your concurrence with or dissent from the view taken of this great question by those Provinces.

HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.,
MR. SPEAKER, and GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY,

The question which you are now called together specially to consider is one of the most momentous ever submitted to a Colonial Legislature. Your deliberations will, I doubt not be undertaken with a due sense of the importance of the interests they involve, and the solemn responsibilities which by your decision you incur, and will, I trust, be conducted with a sole view to the interests of the community at large. That the determination at which you arrive may be one calculated to promote the welfare and happiness, not of this Province, only but of all Her Majesty’s subjects throughout the whole extent of the wide-spread dominions of the Queen on this Continent, is my earnest hope and prayer.