(BURPEE] HOWE AND THE ANTI-CONFEDERATION LEAGUE 445 
taken rooms at the Westminster Palace Hotel, and the Archbishopf8 has a lodging 
in Charles Street. This is the position of the two hostile camps. 
The operations of the fortnight have not been very decisive. For a week every 
body thought and talked and wrote of little else than the monster procession of Work- 
ing People who were expected to march through London.® As I know that the two 
armies who marched through Washington took two days of seven hours each, and 
being 60 files deep, and less than 200,000 men, I felt some curiosity to see how 250,000 
marching six abreast, were to get through London in one day. Fortunately no such 
numbers came. The procession marched past the point from which McDonald and 
I saw it in something over an hour and a half, so that there could not have been more 
than 20 or 25,000. Of course great crowds of people turned out to see the show 
but everything passed off in an orderly manner, which was a great relief to every body. 
There have been rumors of a split in the Cabinet but they have been contradicted 
in the Standard by authority. It is not yet known whether there is or is not to be 
a Reform Bill.%° 
The state of Ireland gives a good deal of uneasiness. Troops are pouring in, 
and Ships of War watch the sea coast. Last year it was assumed that Fenianism was 
confined to a very small class. It seems now to be admitted that sympathy with the 
movement is very wide spread.” / 
I met Henry, Mitchell, Ritchey and Fisher” at a Festival given by the Scottish 
Hospital Association on the 30th Nov. The dinner, the loyal and National toasts 
and ordinary business of the Society, occupied the time till past 11. At the request 
of the Chairman I then gave one of their annual toasts “Scottish Literature,” and, 
without touching the subject of Confederation, wove into a speech of half an hour 
pictures of the Empire as a whole and of Nova Scotia in particular, all calculated to 
impress the idea that organization and not dismemberment should be the policy. 
Of course I did my best—how it was done Annand may give you some account. 
The Chairman and Lord Elcho*® came personally to congratulate me, and to invite 
me to their houses. I go to the seat of Lord Overstone™ with Colonel Lyndsay® on 
the 17th, and shall cultivate the acquaintance of Lord Elcho too as both are Members 
of Parliament. All the reporters had left before I rose, but the one on the Standard. 
You will see what he says of the speech. There are so many of these Dinners in 
London that the practice of the Press is to condemn them into a short space. In 
this case that was done by the only reporter who remained. About 12 ‘‘Our Colonial 
Guests” was given from the chair. We all stood up, and of course as I had said my 
say, we left the speaking to the other fellows. Before Peter Mitchell had spoken 
ten minutes half the Company dispersed. Henry followed in his lumbering way, 
and soon cleared the room. Ritchey appearing to be very much mortified and 
annoyed. We stood till Henry was done, and when Fisher rose as there were only 

#8 Thomas Connolly, Archbishop of Halifax (1814-1876). He was a warm personal friend of 
D’Arcy McGee, and a strong supporter of Confederation. 
89 See “‘The Reform Agitation,’”’ in McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, ch. 51. 
80 Gladstone had introduced his Reform Bill in March of this year. His Government was defeated 
in June. Disraeli’s Reform Bill was not brought down until February, 1867, and passed in August. 
#1 The Fenian Rebellion did not break out until February, 1867. It was finally crushed in March. 
McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, ch. 53. 
92 See Note 1. 
% Afterwards Earl of Wemyss. 
# Samuel Jones Loyd, Baron Overstone (1796-1883) economist and financier. Had been Whig 
member for Hythe; raised to peerage, 1850. 
% Charles H. Lindsay, born 1815. Entered the Army 1835. Served in the Crimea. Elected for 
Abingdon, 1865. A Liberal-Conservative, 
