ofessed to be his friends, and
who were ready to applaud whatever he said or did. Being accepted as a
leader when a mere youth because he had made a few eloquent speeches, he
missed the wholesome discipline which most men have to undergo before
they achieve fame. He would have been a greater and wiser man if he had
been spared the unthinking flattery which was too lavishly bestowed upon
him. Yet, after all has been said by those who would seek to minimize
his merits, the fact remains that this son of New Brunswick stood for
years as the foremost champion of the rights of the people, and that it
is impossible to deny him a place among the great men who have assisted
to build up Canada.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The Aroostook War arose out of the unsettled boundary question
between Maine and New Brunswick. There was a large area on the St. John
River, the ownership of which was in dispute, and in 1839 the difficulty
came to a head in consequence of the governor of Maine undertaking to
solve the question in his own way by taking possession of the territory.
Governor Fairfield, of Maine, sent eighteen hundred militiamen to the
front and Sir John Harvey, the governor of New Brunswick, issued a
proclamation asserting the right of Great Britain to guard the territory
while it was in dispute, and calling on the governor of Maine to
withdraw his troops. Fairfield denied the right to issue a counter
proclamation and called on the state for ten thousand men. Sir John
Harvey then sent Colonel Maxwell with the 36th and 69th Regiments and a
train of artillery to the upper St. John to watch the movements of the
militia. A large force of New Brunswick militia was also embodied and
sent to the front. Fortunately, President Van Buren sent General
Winfield Scott to Maine with full power to settle the difficulty. He got
into a friendly correspondence with Sir John Harvey, which led to an
understanding by which the troops on both sides were withdrawn and all
danger of war averted. The boundary question was afterwards settled by
the Ashburton Treaty.

[Illustration: S. L. Tilley]

SIR LEONARD TILLEY

CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE AND BUSINESS CAREER

The political career of Samuel Leonard Tilley did not begin until the
year that brought the work of Lemuel Allan Wilmot as a legislator to a
close. Both were elected members of the House of Assembly in 1850, but
in the following year Wilmot was elevated to the bench, so that the
p