THE GROWTH OF CANADA 269 



the bitterness of the war-time was making a 

 resort to arms far from improbable. Under 

 these circumstances all the statesmen and other 

 classes who were devoted to the British con 

 nection were stimulated to strenuous action. 



The Maritime Provinces meanwhile had been 

 for some years discussing the idea of a union 

 among themselves. Their motives were in some 

 measure the same as those that were operative 

 in Canada, and in some respects peculiar to 

 themselves. A conference on the subject be 

 tween delegates from New Brunswick, Nova 

 Scotia, and Prince Edward Island took place in 

 1864, just at the time when the political situa 

 tion in Canada was most critical. The Cana 

 dian ministry, a coalition of George Brown, 

 the ablest Radical, and John A. Macdonald, the 

 astute Conservative leader, seized the oppor 

 tunity and effected the transformation of the 

 conference of the Maritime Provinces into a 

 more comprehensive body in which delegates 

 from Canada and Newfoundland were included. 

 The larger conference met at Quebec in October, 

 1864, and formulated a series of resolutions out 

 of which, after long and varied discussion in 

 each province and at London, was shaped the 

 constitution of the Dominion of Canada. The 



