ability have been severely
censured, if it had not cost him his commission: as it was, I believe,
he received the thanks of the Admiralty. You will also, no doubt,
remember well the lively discussion the sight of this great steam ship
caused amongst us, and how earnestly I expressed my wish, that the
people of Halifax should bestir themselves, and not allow, without a
struggle, British mails and British passengers thus to be taken past
their very doors.[see Note 3] And now that we have lived to see
established what we then discussed (and about which the pen of the
Clockmaker's companion was not idle),[see Note 4] the great steam ship
road from and to Liverpool and Halifax, you will not perhaps be
astonished that (like the fly on the wheel) so humble an individual as
your old fellow passenger should have fancied when steaming (as he has
since often done) over the waves of that same Atlantic, that he too[see
Note 5] had had something to say in creating all the smoke he saw rising
before him. Of one thing, however, he is certain--that his companions,
Fairbanks, Howe and Haliburton (no insignificant names), had determined,
before leaving the Tyrian, that as soon as they reached London they
would wait upon the Colonial minister--point out to him the necessity
and importance of a steam communication from the mother country to her
children in the west, and plead the cause of Halifax;[see Note 6] and,
if I am not mistaken, Fairbanks and Howe proceeded first to Liverpool to
make some inquiries about expense, &c. &c. Be this however as it may, it
is all now matter of no consequence--the great nautical high road
between England and her North American Colonies has long been
established beyond a question, and the enterprising Cunard has shown by
his splendid steam vessels, that it may be depended upon beyond a doubt,
as a regular, a safe and an easy communication.[see Note 38] To him,
therefore, are due the thanks of the public, and the credit of
accomplishing this much wished-for route.

"Whilst others bravely thought, he nobly dar'd."

But, my dear friend, in an age like the present, shall such a victory
content us? most assuredly not! The time has come when our great
Colonial land route of travelling must reach from Halifax to Frazer's
River, from the Atlantic to the Pacific--and there is still a grand and
a noble undertaking that must yet be accomplished--must be performed by
Great Britain and her colonies--an undertaking