[puRPEE] HOWE AND THE ANTI-CONFEDERATION LEAGUE 439 
idiot as to embark in this crazy Confederacy with a mongrel crew half French and half 
English and certain to be sent to the bottom at the first broadside. 
With an enormous amount of shipping at sea Nova Scotia must belong to a great 
Naval Power. When England throws her off her destiny is inevitable, and nobody 
with the eye of a statesman in his head, can suppose that she will choose Ottawa for 
a Capital when she has lost London and can have New York, no further off than 
Ottawa; or that, with the Arsenals and Dockyards of Boston and Portsmouth at 
her very doors, she will commit the care of her commerce to the Canadians who have 
one paltry steamer in the Gulf in Summer and are frozen up for half the year. We 
go in for the Empire one and indivisible but when the old ship is broken up we are 
not such fools as to trust our lives in a crazy craft in which we are certain to be 
drowned. 
You kindly offer to bring Lord Carnarvon and I together. If you do we shall 
not talk Confederation, as it was arranged that we should not, till after the Canadians 
had arrived; and besides his Lordship is the best judge of when we should meet or 
whether we should meet at all. So far as I can discover, by his published speeches, 
Lord Carnarvon is dealing frankly and circumspectly with the subject, and if he 
does his duty by the Provinces I shall give him credit for it, even if I should never 
add the light of his countenance to my pleasant recollections of English social life. 
Believe me my dear Sir John, 
Sincerely yours, 
JOSEPH HOWE. 
Private. London, 
25 Saville Row 
Nov. 22, 1866. 
The Most Honorable 
The Marquis of Normanby. 
My dear Lord Normanbyf7 
I have read your letter, with the care and interest it naturally challenges from 
an old friend who will ever attach great weight to your Lordship’s opinions on any 
subject. Perhaps you will pardon me for troubling you with a few observations in 
reply. 
1. Any attempt to improve the Quebec Scheme was, from the first, opposed 
by all the parties who prepared it. In Canada, the Ministry refused to allow it to 
be debated or amended, clause by clause—Carried it en bloc and declined to submit 
it to the constituencies.f8 As late as the 27th of July last, the Ministers and their 
supporters, as you will see by the extract given in Mr. Annand’s pamphlet, declared 
that it should be rigidly adhered to. 
In New Brunswick, Mr. Tilly took the same line and only changed his tone when 
the scheme was rejected. 
In Nova Scotia, the Delegates attempted to bully every body who offered 
criticisms or improvements, and when I resented the attempt to make our people 

66 For some reason—he may have made himself believe it at the time—Howe’s arguments against 
Confederation seem to rest on the extraordinary idea that union of the colonies involved dis-union of 
the Empire. 
67 Second Marquis of Normanby (1819-1890). 
68 Macdonald wrote Tilley, October 8th, 1866, ‘‘It was agreed at Quebec that the resolutions then 
agreed to should be submitted by the several governments to their respective legislatures at the then 
next session, and if possible carried en bloc, and without alteration lest any chance should create the 
necessity for a new conference. Canada carried the resolutions according to promise.’’ Pope, Mem- 
oirs, 1, 305. See also Debates on Confederation, 15; Bourinot, Canada under British Rule, 210-11. 
