CHAPTER V.

_A British Railway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific_.


("ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS," 1861.)

My letter of the 15th November, 1860, to a friend of Mr. Thomas Baring,
then President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, gives concisely my
general notions of opening up the British portion of the Great
Continent of America. A while later a leading article written by me
appeared in the "Illustrated London News" of the 16th February, 1861.
The article was headed, "A British Railway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific." I will here quote a portion of it:--

"'I hope,' said her Majesty, on proroguing Parliament in 1858, 'that
the new Colony on the Pacific (British Columbia) may be but one step in
the career of steady progress by which my dominions in North America
may be ultimately peopled in an unbroken chain, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, by a loyal and industrious population.' The aspiration, so
strikingly expressed, found a fervent echo in the national heart, and
it continues to engage the earnest attention of England; for it speaks
of a great outspread of solid prosperity and of rational liberty, of
the diffusion of our civilization, and of the extension of our moral
empire.