men, whose intellectual equal he
knew himself to be, roused him the more because he felt it to be in a
sense justified. America by rebellion had risen to manhood; was Nova
Scotia by loyalty to be doomed to inferiority? At first independence
attracted him, but by the date of his letters to Grey he had come to
believe in 'annexation to our mother country' as a better choice,
though he reiterated that independence would be preferable to the
indefinite endurance of the present position. The change might come
gradually, but come it must. Colonial regiments; a colonial navy, if
only of a few frigates; colonial representation in the Imperial
parliament, the colonies sending 'to the House of Commons one, two, or
three members of their cabinets, according to their size, population,
and relative importance.'

This idea of Imperial Federation goes back to the days before the
American Revolution, and was brought in with them by the Loyalists. It
was a much greater favourite with the 'Family Compact' than with the
Reformers, and was urged alike by John Beverley Robinson in Upper
Canada and by Haliburton in {109} Nova Scotia, from whom Howe probably
derived it. But though not its originator, Howe was at least its
eloquent exponent, and he did much to rouse Nova Scotians to the
conviction that some remedy for their inferiority must be found.

At the end of his second letter he boldly speaks in a way which must
have endeared him to Lord Grey's heart. The transportation of
criminals had long been a recognized part of British policy, but at
this time it was breaking down before the growth of the penitentiary
system in England and the colonial dislike of the system. South Africa
had just been brought to the verge of rebellion by the arrival of a
shipload of gallows-birds; armed colonists had forbidden them to land,
and very rough messages had been sent home to Lord Grey. It may be
imagined with what joy the harassed colonial secretary welcomed a
proposal of Howe that selected convicts, confined for light offences,
should be lent to Nova Scotia for work under military supervision along
the more unsettled portions of the line. Their continuance in the
country was evidently expected, for Howe said: 'If a portion of
comparatively wilderness country were selected for the experiment, the
men {110} might have sixpence per day carried to their credit from
colonial funds while they laboured, to accumulate till their earnings
are suffic