Document Information

Date: 1866-06-30
By: Edward Cardwell
Citation: Despatch from Right Hon. Edward Cardwell to Viscount Monck (30 June 1866) in UK, Parliament, Correspondence respecting the Proposed Union of the British North American Provinces (London: George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1867).
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).

No. 14.
COPY of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. EDWARD CARDWELL, M.P., to Viscount MONCK

(No. 70.)

Downing Street, June 30, 1866.

MY LORD,

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship’s Despatch of the 8th instant, No.48,* in which you enclose to me a copy of the speech with which you had that day opened the session of the Canadian Parliament.

I have read with great interest your tribute to the spirit displayed by the people of Canada, in their ready response to your proclamation calling out for active service a large portion of the volunteer militia force. You justly told your Parliament that the spirit thus evineed by the people of Canada had received the approval of Her Majesty’s Government, who had not failed to appreciate as it deserved the loyalty of all classes of Her Majesty’s subjects throughout the North American Provinces.

Her Majesty’s Government deplore with you the loss of life and suffering entailed upon the gallant body of volunteers who resisted the invasion of Her Majesty’s territory by a band on lawless maranders, and cordially approve the satisfaction with which you speak of the friendly course adopted by the President of the United States of America.

It is with especial gratification that I observe the reference you have made to the great question of the Union of the British North American Provinces. I rejoice to learn that the recent proceedings of the Legislature of Nova Scotia, and of the Legislative Council of New Brunswick, together with the result of the recent elections of members of the Legislative Assembly in that province, fully warrants the confident expectation you express that at some very early period the noble buildings in which for the first time you then addressed the Parliament of Canada will receive a Parliament not confined to an assembly of the representatives of Canada alone, but embracing those of all the colonies of the British North America.

I have, &c.
(Signed) EDWARD CARDWELL.

Viscount Monck,
&c. &c.