ed to hurry the debates to a
close, prorogue parliament, and send a committee of the Cabinet to
England {106} to confer with the Imperial authorities on federation,
defence, reciprocity, and the acquisition of the North-West
Territories. This programme was adhered to. The four ministers who
left for England in April were Macdonald, Brown, Galt, and Cartier.
The mission, among other results pertinent to the cause of union,
secured assurances from the home authorities that every legitimate
means for obtaining the early assent of the Maritime Provinces would be
adopted.[4] But the calamities of 1865 were not over. The prime
minister, Sir Etienne Tache, died; and Brown refused to serve under
either Macdonald or Cartier. He took the ground that the coalition of
parties had been held together by a chief (Tache) who had ceased to be
actuated by strong party feelings or personal ambitions and in whom all
sections reposed confidence. Standing alone, this reasoning is sound
in practical politics. Behind it, of course, was the unwillingness of
Brown to accept the leadership of his great rival. Macdonald then
proposed Sir Narcisse Belleau, one of their colleagues, as leader of
the government. Brown assented; and the coalition was {107}
reconstituted on the former basis, but not with the old cordiality.
The rift within the lute steadily widened, and before the year closed
Brown resigned from the ministry. His difference with his colleagues
arose, he stated, from their willingness to renew reciprocal trade
relations with the United States by concurrent legislation instead of,
as heretofore, by a definite treaty. Although his two Liberal
associates remained in the ministry, and the vacancy was given to
another Liberal, Fergusson Blair, the recrudescence of partisan
friction occasioned by the episode was not a good omen. Brown,
however, promised continued support of the federation policy until the
new constitution should come into effect--a promise which he fulfilled
as far as party exigencies permitted. But the outlook was gloomy.
There were rocks ahead which might easily wreck the ship. Who could
read the future so surely as to know what would happen?

[1] _Confederation Examined in the Light of Reason and Common Sense_,
by Martin I. Wilkins.

[2] _Intercolonial Trade our only Safeguard against Disunion_, by R. G.
Haliburton. Ottawa, 1868.

[3] Howe's biographers have dealt with this episode in his life in a
ve