ommending "a federative system, applied either
to Canada alone, or to the whole British North American provinces."
This was the day on which the Tache government was defeated. On the
subject of the negotiations which followed between Mr. Brown and the
government, there is a difference between the account given by Sir
John Macdonald in the House, and accepted by all parties as official,
and a letter written by Mr. Brown to a member of his family. The
official account represents the first movement as coming from Mr.
Brown, the letter says that the suggestion came from the
governor-general. It would seem likely that the idea moved gradually
from informal conversations to formal propositions. The governor had
proposed a coalition on the defeat of the Macdonald-Dorion government,
and he repeated the suggestion on the defeat of the Tache-Macdonald
government; but his official memorandum contains no reference to
constitutional changes. It would seem that there was a great deal of
talk of coalition in the air before Brown made his proposals, and
perhaps some talk of offering him an appointment that would remove him
from public life. But the Conservative ministers were apparently
thinking merely of a coalition that would break the dead-lock, and
enable the ordinary business of the country to proceed. Brown's idea
was to find a permanent remedy in the form of a change in the
constitution. When he made his proposal to co-operate with his
opponents for the purpose of settling the difficulties between Upper
and Lower Canada, his proposal fell upon minds familiarized with the
idea of coalition, and hence its ready acceptance. On his part, Mr.
Brown was ready to abate certain party advantages in order to bring
about constitutional reform. Mr. Ferrier, in the debate on
confederation, says that it was he who suggested that the proposal
made by Mr. Brown to Mr. Pope and Mr. Morris should be communicated to
the government. Ferrier gives a lively account of the current gossip
as to the meeting between Brown and the ministers. "I think I can
remember this being said, that when Mr. Galt met Mr. Brown he received
him with that manly, open frankness which characterizes him; that when
Mr. Cartier met Mr. Brown, he looked carefully to see that his two
Rouge friends were not behind him, and that when he was satisfied they
were not, he embraced him with open arms and swore eternal friendship;
and that Mr. Macdonald, at a very quick glance, saw ther