_On her have fallen the anxieties of our home life during my many
long absences away on the American Continent--which Continent she once,
in 1862, visited with me. My business, in relation to Canada, has, from
time to time, been undertaken with her knowledge, and under her good
advice; and no one has been animated with a stronger hope for Canada,
as a great integral part of the Empire of the Queen, than herself._

_E. W. WATKIN._
_ROSE HILL, NORTHENDEN,_
_2nd May, 1887._




PREFACE.


The following pages have been written at the request of many old
friends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British rule
over the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America.

In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, in
search of health. In 1861 I went there on an anxious mission of
business; and for some years afterwards I frequently crossed the
Atlantic, not only during the great Civil War between the North and
South, but, also, subsequent to its close. In 1875 I had to undertake
another mission of responsibility to the United States. And, last year,
I traversed the Dominion of Canada from Belle Isle to the Pacific. I
returned home by San Francisco and the Union Pacific Railways to
Chicago; and by Montreal to New York. Thence to Liverpool, in that