172 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA : 
insisted upon it that the island was not within 
the limits of the British dominions. The 
“ rica, and thereby the rays of the sun have acted more 
f ‘ powerfully upon the earth* these benefits have tended 
rt greatly to soften the winter season } so that peopling Ca- 
tf nada* for which we are much obliged to you* is a double 
“ advantage to us. First* it is settling and populating a coun- 
tc try* that must* sooner or later* from the natural order of 
ts things, become a part of our empire} and secondly* it is 
immediately meliorating the climate of the northern 
* e states/’ &c. 
The greatest empires that have ever appeared on the face 
of the globe* have dissolved in the course of time} and no 
one acquainted with history will* I take it for granted* pre¬ 
sume to say* that the extended empire of Britain, all power¬ 
ful as it is at present* is so much more closely knit together 
than any other empire ever was before it* that it can never fall 
asunder: Canada* I therefore suppose* may* with revolving 
years* be disjointed from the mother country* as well as her 
other colonies} but whenever that period shall arrive* which 
I trust is far distant* I am humbly of opinion that it will not 
form an additional knot in that extensive union of states 
which atpresent subsist on the continent of North America} 
indeed* were the British dominions in North America to be 
dissevered from the other members of the empire the ensu¬ 
ing year* I am still tempted to imagine* that they would not 
become linked with the present federal American states} and 
for the following reasons: 
First* because the constitution of the federal states* which 
is the bond that holds them together* is not calculated for 
such a large territory as that which the present states* to** 
gether with such an addition, would constitute. 
The constitution of the states is that of the people* who* 
through their respective representatives* assembled together 
at some one place* must decide upon every measure that is to 
be taken for the public weal. This place* it is evident* ought 
