is best
powers; and he had failed. His failure wrecked his trust in British
and Canadian statesmen, and in the great business interests of England.
It did more; it hardened and coarsened his nature. Not that the
deterioration was sudden or complete. Some of his most beautiful
poetry, some of his finest speeches, were written subsequently. But
the weakening had set in, and when in after years he was again called
on to face a great crisis, it showed itself with fatal results.

[1] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 169.

[2] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 113, 115.

[3] See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_, chap. iv, and _The War with the
United States_, chap. iv.

[4] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 130-1.

[5] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 169-70.

[6] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 140.

[7] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, p. 171.

[8] See _The Railway Builders_ in this Series.

[9] Chisholm, _Speeches and Letters_, vol. ii, pp. 289-90.

{121}

CHAPTER VI

BAFFLED HOPES

Foiled in the great scheme, the government of Nova Scotia nevertheless
went ahead with its policy of provincial railway construction, and in
1854 Howe, to the surprise of many, withdrew from the Executive to
accept the post of Railway Commissioner. His motives were probably in
part a desire to provide for his family, which his personal
extravagance and political honour alike had kept in a continual state
of penury, and in part that disgust at partisan bickering which so
often seizes upon provincial politicians in their hours of reflection.

He had long had a great desire to enter the Imperial civil service. In
the four years between June 1855 and June 1859 the colonies were
administered by no less than six secretaries of state: Lord John
Russell, Sir William Molesworth, Mr H. Labouchere, Lord Derby, Sir E.
Bulwer Lytton, and the Duke of {122} Newcastle. To each of them Howe
wrote long letters setting forth his claims to office. To Lord John
Russell he says: 'I have exhausted the range of ambitions which that
province [Nova Scotia] affords'; and he asks to be made a permanent
under-secretary at the Colonial Office, a rank corresponding to the
Canadian title of deputy minister. Later in the year, when in London
on a provincial mission, he again approached Lord John Russell, writing
to him two long letters and having at least one intervi