410 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
gleaned from the biographical sketches written by the late Principal 
Grant, his son William Lawson Grant, and J. W. Longley, and from 
the Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe edited by William An- 
nand in 1858, and republished with many additions under the editor- 
ship of J. A. Chisholm in 1909. 
Howe was over sixty years of age when he accepted the leader- 
ship of the party in Nova Scotia organized to fight Confederation. 
His motives in taking such a step at first seem inexplicable. In 
1849, in 1861, and even in 1864, he had supported with all his fiery 
eloquence the principle of Confederation. He was still an advocate 
of Maritime union, and of Imperial union—and yet in 1865 we find 
him waging a furious battle against the union of all the British North 
American colonies, or at any rate against any such union as was pro- 
posed by the Quebec Conference. The objections he professed to find 
on public grounds to the terms of the Quebec Resolutions are suff- 
ciently set forth in these letters to Stairs, and in his published Speeches. 
But no careful student of the character of Joseph Howe can avoid the 
conclusion that there were personal as well as public reasons for his 
extraordinary change of front. Howe was a man of brilliant parts, 
one of the few really great public speakers that British America has 
produced, and a born Jeader of men. He was a man of generous sym- 
pathies, a delightful companion, and a warm friend—as long as he was 
allowed to have things his own way. There lies the key to the puzzle. 
Howe was a supreme egoist. He had unlimited faith in his own judg- 
ment, and would brook no opposition. He would put every ounce of 
strength into a fight, if his place was at the front. He was content that 
anyone else should have the tangible rewards, but his must be the 
glory. He was a splendid captain, but an utterly impossible lieu- 
tenant. 
Unfortunately circumstances made it difficult or impossible for 
him to attend either the Charlottetown Conference or the Quebec 
Conference. Had he been there he would probably have thrown him- 
self heart and soul into the Confederation project. But he was not 
there, and in his place sat his one great rival in Nova Scotian politics, 
Charles Tupper. The scheme of Confederation probably owed more 
to the shrewd common sense, political sagacity and indomitable cour- 
age of Charles Tupper than to the qualities of any other of its fathers. 
So far at least as Nova Scotia was concerned, Tupper was the very 
embodiment of the movement. There remained in 1865 only one 
place in that movement for Howe, and that place he would rather 
perish than accept. In his own forcible language, he would “not play 
second fiddle to that damned Tupper.” But if he could not lead the 
forces of Confederation, and would not follow Tupper, there was still 
