cided to dissolve and present the Quebec
resolutions to a newly elected legislature, a blunder in tactics due,
it may be, to over-confidence. The secrecy which had shrouded the
proceedings of the delegates at first was turned to account by their
opponents, who set in motion a campaign of mendacity and
misrepresentation. The actual terms became known too late to
counteract this hostile agitation, which had been systematically
carried on throughout the province. The bogey employed to stampede the
electors was direct taxation. The farmers were told that every cow or
horse they {98} possessed, even the chickens in the farmyard, would be
taxed for the benefit of Canada. Worse than all, it was contended, the
bargain struck at the honour of the province, because, as the subsidy
was on the basis of paying to the provinces annually eighty cents per
head of population, the people were really being sold by the government
like sheep for this paltry price. The trusted Tilley, easily first in
popular affection by reason of his probity and devotion to public duty,
was discredited. His opponent in the city of St John, A. R. Wetmore,
illustrated the dire effects of Confederation in an imaginary dialogue,
between himself and his young son, after this fashion: 'Father, what
country do we live in?'--and, of course, the reply came promptly--'My
dear son, you have no country, for Mr Tilley has sold us all to the
Canadians for eighty cents a head.' Time and full discussion would
have dissipated the forces of the anti-confederates. But
constituencies worked upon by specious appeals to prejudice are
notoriously hard to woo during an election struggle. There existed
also honest doubts in many minds regarding federation. Enough men of
character and influence in both parties joined to form a strong
opposition, while one of Tilley's {99} colleagues in the ministry,
George Hathaway, went over to the enemy at a critical hour. The
agitation swept the province. It was not firmly rooted in the
convictions of the people, but it sufficed to overwhelm the government.
All the Cabinet ministers, including Tilley, were beaten. And so it
happened that, when the Canadian ministers were in the full tide of
parliamentary success at home, the startling news arrived that New
Brunswick had rejected federation, and that in a House of forty-one
members only six supporters of the scheme had been returned from the
polls.

Equally alarming was the prospect