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Date: 1865-01-05
By: Richard Graves Macdonnell
Citation: Despatch from Lieutenant-Governor Richard Graves Macdonnell to Right. Hon. Edward Cardwell (5 January 1865) 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.3.
COPY of a DESPATCH from Lieut.-Governor Sir R. G. MACDONNELL, C.B., to the Right Hon.Edward Cardwell, M.P.

(No.49.)

Government House, Halifax, Nova Scotia,
January 5, 1865.
(Received Jan. 17, 1865.)

SIR,

WITH a view to enabling you, in ease of necessity, to refer readily to the speeches recently delivered at public meeting by the friends and opponents of the scheme of Federation proposed for the British American Provinces, i have had extracts made from the best reported speeches, and put them into a somewhat more convenient shape for reference than it left to be searched for through the various journals in which they have from time to time appeared.*

2. A considerable amount of ability has been exhibited on both sides, but the most practiced debaters as well as the most influential portion of the press have form the first been on the side of the Delegates, whilst the early publication of the reply of Her Majesty’s Government to Lord Monck on the same subject has given such an additional prestige and weight to the position and arguments of the Delegates and other friends of the measure, the unquestionably the result of the discussion has been in a great degree to disarm opposition, and also to prevent any effective organization on a great scale by the political opponents of Federation.

3. It has, however, been a great satisfaction to me to note throughout these discussions that neither party can be regarded as more loyally disposed than the other, but on both sides the tendency or supposed tendency of any suggested arrangement to promote or weaken the connexion subsisting between these Colonies and Great Britain is treated accordingly as a favourable or unfavourable feature in the scheme.

I have, &c.

(Signed) RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL,

Lieut.-Governor.

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