ere only too ready to embrace any new
opportunity of winning for themselves fame and rank on other fields of
glory. Among these disbanded soldiers were many Irishmen, and it soon
came to be known that bands of men could be collected in the United
States for the invasion of this country, with the avowed object of
driving the British flag from the American continent and substituting
the stars and stripes. It was impossible that the people of Canada could
view without emotion these preparations for their undoing, and in New
Brunswick, especially, which was the first province to be threatened,
the Fenian movement materially assisted in deciding the manner in which
the people should vote on this great question of confederation when it
came to be submitted to them a second time.

The House of Assembly met on March 8th, 1866, and the speech from the
throne, delivered by the lieutenant-governor, contained the following
paragraph: "I have received Her Majesty's commands to communicate to you
a correspondence on the affairs of British North America, which has
taken place between Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the
colonies and the governor-general of Canada; and I am further directed
to express to you the strong and deliberate opinion of Her Majesty's
government that it is an object much to be desired that all the British
North American colonies should agree to unite in one government. These
papers will immediately be laid before you." This paragraph was not
inserted in the speech without considerable pressure on the part of the
lieutenant-governor, and it excited a great deal of comment at the time,
because it seemed to endorse the principle of confederation, although
emanating from a government which had been placed in power as the result
of an election in which confederation had been condemned. When this
portion of the speech was read by the lieutenant-governor, in the
legislative council chamber, the crowd outside the bar gave a hearty
cheer,--a circumstance which never occurred before in the province of
New Brunswick, and perhaps not in any other British colony.

The members of the House favourable to confederation immediately took up
the matter, and dealt with it as if the government had thereby pledged
themselves in favour of that policy, and indeed there was a fair excuse
for such an inference. When the secret history of the negotiations
between the lieutenant-governor and his advisers, prior to the meeting