League was mainly a
party counterblast to the Annexation Manifesto of 1849 and soon
disappeared. To this period, too, belong the writings of able
advocates of union like P. S. Hamilton of Halifax and J. C. Tache of
Quebec, whose treatises possess even to-day more than historical value.
Another notable contribution to the subject was the lecture by
Alexander Morris entitled _Nova Britannia_, first delivered at Montreal
in 1858 and afterwards published. Yet such propaganda aroused no
perceptible enthusiasm. In Great Britain the whole question of
colonial relations was in process of evolution, while her statesmen
were doubtful, as ours were, of what the ultimate end would be. That a
full conception of colonial self-government had not yet dawned is shown
by these words, written in 1852 by Earl Grey to Lord John Russell: '_It
is obvious that if the colonies are not to become independent states,
some kind of authority must be exercised by the Government at home._'

This decade, however, witnessed some {16} definite political action.
In 1854 Johnston, the Conservative Opposition leader in the Nova Scotia
legislature, presented a motion in these terms: 'Resolved, That the
union or confederation of the British Provinces on just principles,
while calculated to perpetuate their connection with the parent state,
will promote their advancement, increase their strength and influence,
and elevate their position.' This resolution, academic in form, but
supported in a well-balanced and powerful speech by the mover, drew
from Joseph Howe, then leader of the government, his preference for
representation in the British House of Commons. The attitude of Howe,
then and afterwards, should be examined with impartiality, because he
and other British Americans, as well as some English statesmen, were
the victims of the honest doubts which command respect but block the
way to action. Johnston, as prime minister in 1857, pressed his policy
upon the Imperial government, but met with no response. When Howe
returned to power, he carried a motion which declared for a conference
to promote either the union of the Maritime Provinces or a general
federation, but expressing no preference for either. Howe never was
pledged to federation as his fixed {17} policy, as so many persons have
asserted. He made various declarations which betokened uncertainty.
So little had the efforts put forth down to 1861 impressed the official
mind that Lord Mulgrave