Ontario by a few
votes, and did not again sit in parliament until he was appointed to
the Senate in 1874. In the early years of the Dominion a member might
sit both in the House of Commons and in the legislature of his
province. So it was that at this election Edward Blake was returned
from South Bruce to the Ontario legislature and from West Durham to the
House of Commons. Other members who occupied seats in both bodies were
Sandfield Macdonald, John Carling, Alexander Mackenzie, and E. B. Wood.
Cartier's success in Quebec left his opponents only fifteen seats out
of sixty-five. The stars in their courses fought for the government;
and had it not been for Nova Scotia, where the victorious and hostile
forces were pledged to repeal, the consolidation of the Dominion could
have gone forward without hindrance.

To deal with 'that pestilent fellow Howe,' to use Macdonald's phrase,
was a first charge upon the energies of the government. The history of
the repeal movement in Nova Scotia, {154} with all its incidents and
sidelights, has yet to be written. It was but one of the
disintegrating forces which Macdonald found so hard to cope with, that
in a moment of discouragement he seriously thought of withdrawing from
the government and letting others carry it on. A large portion of the
year 1868 was occupied with the effort to reconcile the Nova Scotians.
Instead of abating, the anti-confederate feeling in that province grew
more bitter. A delegation headed by Howe and Annand went to England to
demand repeal from the Imperial authorities. To counteract this move
the Dominion government sent Charles Tupper to present the other side
of the case. None of the passages in his political life reflect more
credit upon him than his diplomacy upon this occasion. He had already
declined, as we have seen, a seat in the Cabinet. Later, he had
further strengthened his reputation by refusing the lucrative office of
chairman of the commission to build the Intercolonial Railway. This
fresh display of independence enabled him to meet the repeal delegates
on ground as patriotic as their own, for it had shown that in this
crisis they were not the only Nova Scotians who wanted nothing for
themselves.

{155}

Tupper's first step on reaching London was to call on Howe. 'I said to
him,' writes Tupper, 'I will not insult you by suggesting that you
should fail to undertake the mission that brought you here. When you
find out, however,