[BURPEE] HOWE AND THE ANTI-CONFEDERATION LEAGUE 461 
sibilities. We must now look to the American Continent only for our future. If 
the Americans let us alone we may work on under Confederation for a few years, 
but will they let us alone. We shall see. I fear that they will use our fisheries which 
we cannot need long and will not defend, exclude our staples by high duties, harras 
our frontiers with Fenian raids and vexed questions, till our resources are exhausted 
and our trade is cut up, and finally force us to buy peace and free trade by a sacrifice 
of our premature independence. This it appears to me is the future before us. I 
hope I may be mistaken, but whatever comes we have done our best to maintain 
the happy state of things which existed and our consciences are clear, however the 
changes which are inevitable may affect our feelings or our interests. With kind 
regards to all friends 
Believe me Sincerely Yours 
JOSEPH HOWE 
London March 15 
1867 
I deeply regret that my news in respect of Confederation should be of the most 
unpleasant description. 
As king Francis exclaimed after his disastrous defeat at Pavia, “All is lost except 
our honour.” 
Everything was done, that was possible to be done, be sure of that, but if one 
had come from the dead he would not have got the English Parliament even to look 
at both sides of the question. 
The only people who really cared anything about the matter, were precisely the 
people whose interest it was to put it forward. 
The Grand Trunk influence had a powerful effect on the Government, who being 
weak were glad enough to bargain about votes for a Reform Bill on condition of a 
Confederation policy. ; 
More than that I find among English Politicians a growing fear of the United 
States which is really humiliating. English Statesmen have made up their mind not 
to fight a land battle on this continent for they know just as well as we do that they 
could never keep the Yankee troops on their own side of the frontier and that it 
would be one of the costliest campaigns into which Britain could drift. 
They are under the impression that if they do not own a foot of soil in America 
the Yankees cannot come over to attack them without positive peril—and they are 
therefore willing upon any pretext to turn us adrift. “I would not care” said a 
member of Parliament to me “if Grant were in Montreal to morrow so long as we were 
not bound to find soldiers to drive him out. He would not hurt you if you were not 
joined to us; and he could never hurt us there; while he would ruin himself by coming 
to us on board ship.” 
Mr. Oliphant? M.P. for Stirling who was Lord Elgin’s secretary in Canada, 
and who ought to know British America well enough to distinguish the interests of 
the Maritime Provinces from Canada, in conversation with me declared that Con- 
federation would have his support because it would take these Provinces off Eng- 
land’s hands, on which they were a useless and dangerous incumbrance. As to our 
local losses he was perfectly indifferent. He admitted that our people seemed against 
the scheme, but he thought that an additional reason why the scheme should go for- 
139 Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888). 
