dress with which he once more entered public life, at the end of
1847, betrays everywhere hatred of the British government, a decided
inclination for things American, and a strong dash of European
revolutionary sentiment, revealed in declamations over _patriotes_ and
_oppresseurs_.[36] Round him gathered a little band {332} of
anti-clericals and ultra-radicals, as strongly drawn to the United
States as they were repelled by Britain. Even after Papineau had
reduced himself to public insignificance, the group remained, and in
1865 Cartier, the true representative of French-Canadian feeling, spoke
of the _Institut Canadien_ of Montreal as an advocate, not of
confederation, but of annexation.[37]

After the years of famine in Ireland, there was more than a possibility
that, in Canada, as in the United States, the main body of Irish
immigrants would be hostile to Britain, and Elgin watched with anxious
eyes for symptoms of a rising, sympathetic with that in Ireland, and
fostered by Irish-American hatred of England. Throughout the province
the Irish community was large and often organized--in 1866 D'Arcy M'Gee
counted thirty counties in which the Irish-Catholic votes ranged from a
third to a fifth of the whole constituency.[38] Now while, {333} in
1866, M'Gee spoke with boldness of the loyalty of his countrymen, it is
undoubtedly true that, in 1848 and 1849, there were hostile spirits,
and an army of Irish patriots across the border, only too willing to
precipitate hostilities.

For the rest, there were Americans in the province who still thought
their former country the perfect state, and who did not hesitate to use
British liberty to promote republican ends; there were radicals and
grumblers of half a hundred shades and colours, who connected their
sufferings with the errors of British rule, and who spoke loosely of
annexation as a kind of general remedy for all their public ills. For
it cannot be too distinctly asserted that, from that day to this, there
has always been a section of discontented triflers to whom annexation,
a word often on their lips, means nothing more than their fashion of
damning a government too strong for them to assail by rational
processes.

The annexation cry found echoes throughout the province, both in the
press and on the platform, and it continued to reassert its existence
long after the outburst of 1849 had ended. Cartwright declares that,
even after 1856, he discovered in Western Ont