but they did not know the great
object of my labour. The one end of my desire for wealth was that I
might discharge those debts and redeem my father's honour. Thank God,
sir, my exertions have not been in vain. Thank God, sir, I have long
possessed property far more than sufficient for all my desires. But,
as those gentlemen know, it is one thing in this country to have
property, and another to be able to withdraw a large sum of money from
a business in active operation; and many a night have I laid my head
on my pillow after a day of toil, estimating and calculating if the
time had yet arrived, when, with justice to those to whom I stood
indebted, and without fear of embarrassment resulting, I might venture
to carry out the purpose of my life. I have been accused of being
ambitious; I have been charged with aspiring to the office of prime
minister of this great country and of lending all my energies to the
attainment of that end; but I only wish I could make my opponents
understand how infinitely surpassing all this, how utterly petty and
contemptible in my thoughts have been all such considerations, in
comparison with the one longing desire to discharge those debts of
honour and vindicate those Scottish principles that have been
instilled into me since my youth. The honourable member for Cornwall
[John Sandfield Macdonald] is well aware that every word I have spoken
to-night has been long ago told him in private confidence, and he
knows, too, that last summer I was rejoicing in the thought that I was
at last in a position to visit my native land with the large sum
necessary for all the objects I contemplated, and that I was only
prevented from doing so by the financial storm which swept over the
continent. Such, sir, are the circumstances upon which this attack is
founded. Such the facts on which I have been denounced as a public
defaulter and refugee from my native land. But why, asked the person
who made the charge, has he sat silent under it? Why if the thing is
false has he endured it so many years? What, sir, free myself from
blame by inculpating one so dear! Say 'It was not I who was in fault,
it was my father'? Rather would I have lost my right arm than utter
such a word! No, sir, I waited the time when the charge could be met
as it only might be fittingly met; and my only regret even now is that
I have been compelled to speak before those debts have been entirely
liquidated. But it is due, sir, to my aged fathe