436 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
A great deal of the work will have been done by the publication of the Pamphlets, 
and I am in great hopes that we may be able to leave by the end of the month unless 
some unforeseen necessity for a longer stay arises. 
I fear that there is some mistake about the Petitions. McDonald®! and 
Garvie” write as though 40,000 Signatures have been sent. There may be that 
number but we have not received them. We have only received two batches since 
Annand came over about 34 or 35,000 in all. If there are any more we should have 
them without delay. 
You will see that a writer in the Diplomatic Review has hit the nail square on the 
head, and accuses Lord Monk of Treason for attempting to make new nations out 
of the Empire.** 
With kind regards to all friends. 
Believe me, 
Sincerely Yours, 
JOSEPH HOWE. 
London, 
25 Saville Row, 
Nov. 9, 1866. 
Wm. J. Stairs, Esq. 
My dear Stairs, 
After I wrote you yesterday we discovered that the Standard* (the organ of 
the Government) had along article endorsing my views of the Organization of the 
Empire, We have other indications that the subject is received with favor in in- 
fluential quarters. The Receiver General of Victoria, who is here and who is much 
with Carnarvon, wrote to me to say that he entirely approved of my policy. The 
Canadian News, though opposed to us stoutly on Confederation, does the same. 
If no other good comes of it a diversion will be made that may be fatal to Confed- 
eration, at all events till we get an election, and perhaps lead to the whole subject 
being referred to a Committee of the House of Commons which could not collect 
evidence and report under two years. 
The Daily News of yesterday contains another spiritted and damaging assault 
on the Canadians and in this morning’s number there is an article signed a ‘Tax 
‘ Payer” which gives them some home truths. 
In the London Examiner® of this morning there is a long letter from Montreal 
in which the writer makes some curious revelations anent the Canadian School ques- 

51 Hugh McDonald, born Antigonish, N.S., 1827. Represented Inverness in N. S. Legislature 
Sat in House of Commons 1867-73. President of Privy Council 1873. Judge of Supreme Court of 
N. S., 1873-93. Died 1899. 
82 William Garvie, one of the Secretaries of the League. Died 1872. 
5 Howe in his pamphlet Confederation considered in Relation to the Interests of the Empire, quotes 
Lord Monck’s speech on closing the last session of the Canadian Parliament: ‘‘Referring to the 
proposed confederacy, His Lordship describes it as ‘that new nationality of which you will form a part, 
and the dimensions of which will entitle it to a first place amongst the powers of the world.’"" Lord 
Monck (1819-1894) was the last Governor of Canada before Confederation, and the first Governor- 
General of the new Dominion. His deep interest in the Confederation movement is revealed in his 
correspondence with Macdonald. Pope, Memoirs, I. 299-303; 372, 373. 
54 Founded 1827. Changed from morning to evening paper in 1857, when it was acquired by James 
Johnson. Tory in politics. 
55 Founded 1808 by John and Leigh Hunt. The latter edited the paper for several years. He was 
fined five hundred pounds in 1813, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, for describing the Prince 
Regent as ‘‘a corpulent Adonis of fifty.”’ John Morley was editor of the Examiner between 1859 and 
1864. It ceased publication in 1880. 
