ship, for Stokes was a smart lad, and a universal favorite. After evening quarters the funeral bell tolled, and the ship's company assembled to pay the last tribute to their late shipmate. The captain read the beautiful and impressive burial service, and on arriving at that portion, We therefore commit his body to the deep,' the corpse of the poor lad, wrapped in a hammock weighted by shot, with the Union Jack as a pall, was slid out of the port into the deep blue tide.' After this sad ceremony we continued all night under sail."

We wish God-speed to the gallant ship on her long pilgrimage: may she return safely, freighted with spoils of ocean more precious than the gold and silver that rewarded the enterprise of the brave old British buccaneers.

CURRENT EVENTS.

Two great public men in our Dominion have fallen by the hand of death-George Cartier and Joseph Howe. Of the two, the former name is the more historic. Descended from a brother of the celebrated discoverer and navigator, Jacques Cartier, he seems to have retained the energy and ability which made his relative famous. Born in 1815, he was yet, one might say, in the prime of his life when he was called to lay it down. He was educated at St. Sulpice College, Montreal, was married in 1846 to a lady of that city, having previously been called to the Bar in 1835. He was created Queen's Counsel in 1854. Cartier dallied with the muses and produced several songs of merit, one of which, "O Canada, Mon Pays!" is a fine lyric production. He has, as a politician, taken part in most of the great measures by which the Provinces of British America have been brought to their present condition and relations. In 1858 the Cartier-McDonald administration being in power, that Government adopted the Confederation of the British Provinces, the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, and the maintenance of the Queen's decision in favour of Ottawa as the permanent seat of the Government of Canada, as the prominent features of their policy. In 1858 Cartier proceeded to England to bring the two first named schemes under the attention of the Imperial authorities; as also the question of the annexation of the Hudson Bay territories. Sir George took part in the Conference relative to Confederation in Charlottetown and Quebec, and was one of the main agents in promoting and carrying out that scheme. But, indeed, there is hardly any measure which has lately occupied public attention in Canada in which he did not take a leading part. For many years he wielded the chief

political power in Quebec Province. Speaking the French, he endeared himself to the habitans, and master of English, he could influence those who knew no other tongue. Yet he had his reverses. At the last general election he was defeated in his own city and forced to seek another constituency. His political career has not, as is the rule, been acceptable to all parties, and was at times disagreeable to his own. The exigencies of politics frequently lead to a policy obnoxious to one's own party. Such was the case with Sir George. He was accorded a public funeral, against which, as an approval of the deceased man's policy, strong protests were made, and it is questionable whether a private one would not have called forth more sympathy. The dead, however, cares for none of these things. He rests in peace, while politicians quarrel round his bier and his grave.

ANOTHER great man has been taken from us by the hand of death, and another link which bound the Canada of to-day with the Canada of half a century since, has been broken. Few men will read of the death of Joseph Howe without a pang of deep and heartfelt sorrow. He had a reputation far wider than the Dominion, being known, through his writings and speeches, throughout Great Britain and the United States. And he had the rare faculty of making himself popular wherever he went. His genial bonhomie, his ready wit, his wonderful fund of information, his kindness of heart, and his complete self-possession, made him a favorite with all with whom he came in contact. And to these qualities he owes much of his success and usefulness as a public

man.

Mr. Howe was born in the Northwest Arm, Halifax, in 1804, so that he had almost reached the allotted age of three score years and ten. He came from a hardy, loyal stock. "During the old times of persecution," said he in one of his speeches, for Mr. Howe, like many other great men, was fond of talking about himself, "four brothers bearing my name, left the southern counties of England, and settled in four of the old New England States. Their descendants number thousands, and are scattered from Maine to California. My father was the only descendant of that stock, who, at the Revolution, adhered to the side of England. His bones rest in the Halifax churchyard. I am his only surviving son." He had but few opportunities for education when a lad, having to walk two miles to get to school in summer, and being kept at home in winter. But his father was a man of culture, and charged himself as far as time would permit, with his education. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to the printing business, and during his apprenticeship developed those talents for literary composition which have since distinguished him. He contributed to the press, over anonymous signatures, a number of

pieces in prose and verse during his apprenticeship. In 1827 he purchased the Weekly Chronicle, changing its name to the Acadian, and commenced his regular connection with the press. Two years afterwards he disposed of his share in the Acadian, and purchased the Nova Scotian, which he continued to edit until 1841. During the early months of his editorial career, he paid but little attention to politics. But those were stirring times, and an ardent nature like his could not long keep aloof from the all-engrossing questions of the day. Having once entered upon political discussion he became an earnest and vigorous opponent of the abuses by which he found himself surrounded. The result was a libel suit on the part of the Magistracy of Halifax. Mr. Howe always took pleasure in telling the story of this suit. He was as yet comparatively little known, and his powers as a speaker were not even suspected. When he received the writ he consulted two or three professional men, but they all shook their heads, regarded the case as a decidedly bad one, and advised a retractation and apology. Young Howe, however, felt that to retract would be to destroy his influence in the future. He knew he was right; that the cause in which he was battling was the cause of popular freedom, and he resolved to brave all consequences. The result we give, from memory, in his own words, as he related the story some ten years ago to the writer of this article: "If you cannot undertake my defence, with hope of success, will you lend me your law books treating of the question of libellous publications?' I got the books, locked myself up for nearly seven weeks for study, taking no exercise, and abstracting all the time possible from business. Then came the sittings of the Court. On the afternoon before the trial, I abandoned myself to a long tramp near the water's edge, and to fresh air. And on the morning of the eventful day I took my seat, dressed in the unusual garb of a black suit, among the lawyers within the railing, not much concerned at the evident amusement I created. The case was opened; the Crown officer made out a terribly hard case against me; the publication was proved, and I was called upon for my defence. I had had time to scan the faces of the jurymen during the proceedings, and had placed myself on tolerably good terms with them. I opened my address, and was pleased to find that I at once challenged attention; as I proceeded with my plea of justification, which was the popular wrong which had been committed and the popular right to be vindicated, I saw a tear steal from the eyes of two or three of the jury, and I felt myself safe in their hands. My address occupied some hours in the delivery, and when I sat down the burst of applause from the crowded court-room, which no threatenings of authority were able to suppress, told me my case was won, if I could only get a decision before the impression had time to wear off. I was horrified to find, then, that neither the Crown officer nor the Judge was willing that I should have

this advantage, and the Court adjourned. Next morning the Attorney-General delivered a tremendous phillipic against me, and the Judge in his charge uttered one scarcely less terrible. But it was no use; the jury, with scarcely any delay, brought in a verdict of acquittal; the people carried me on their shoulders in triumph from the Court House, and at the next election returned me as their representative from the County of Halifax."

Mr. Howe remained a member of the Legislature of his own Province, without intermission, until 1863, representing, during that time, Halifax, Cumberland, and Hants. He labored with untiring zeal and with wonderful tact, for the establishment of responsible government, and to him, perhaps more than to any other single man, was due the change in the colonial policy of the Empire. He was the recognised leader of the liberal party in his own Province. And while waging the most uncompromising warfare against the colonial policy of the empire, and the maladministration to which that policy had given rise, he never uttered a disloyal sentiment, or spoke a word which could by any process of perversion be construed into an attack upon British connection. Thoroughly liberal and popular in his opinions, he was an Imperialist of the most decided character. He held, as a first article of political faith, the greater union of the Empire, by the representation of the Colonies in the great Parliament at Westminster; and to his latest hour he never swerved from the opinion that the best interests of the British nation would be subserved by such closer union.

Mr. Howe was known personally to old Canada by his earnest advocacy of the Intercolonial Railway, and by his speeches in that behalf in 1849. His great speech at Detroit, on the subject of the reciprocity treaty, in 1865, won for him renewed applause from the people of this and the western Province of the Dominion, and stamped him as the most vigorous orator at that important gathering of the leading commercial minds of the continent. His opposition to the scheme of confederation in his own Province, made his name familiar in the late political discussions in this country; and the almost entire sweep of his own Province against the scheme, electing eighteen out of the nineteen members to the first Parliament of Canada against it, was a striking proof of his power and popularity. In the presence of an accomplished union, having regard to the future interests of Canada, he consented to submit the grievances of which he complained on behalf of his Province to the fair consideration of the Government, and an arrangement was made by which he thought the people of Nova Scotia must be satisfied. Mr. Howe was then offered and accepted a seat in the Cabinet. He has been charged with having sold himself for this position. This was not so. Whatever faults Joseph Howe had, and being human he was not without them, he was not mercenary. In a long career of public usefulness, he has

never been charged with the crime of having an itching palm. He laboured hard in his country's service, and, with talents which might have made him rich, he has died a poor man. He entered office at the pressing solicitation of the Government. Having expressed himself satisfied with the re-arrangement of the financial terms, so far as they affected Nova Scotia, it was right that he, the leader of the Anti-Confederates, should show his good faith by accepting office and thus giving a guarantee to the country that the agitation was at an end, and to his friends that their interests were safe in the hands of a government of which he was a member. It was practically the same motive which induced Sir John MacDonald in 1864 to insist upon Mr. Brown taking a seat in the Cabinet, and the position was accepted by the veteran Nova Scotian in the same spirit as by the Upper Canada Clear Grit Leader. When he returned to his County for re-election, he was met, as was to be expected, by the strongest opposition. He lived long enough to find himself elevated to the highest position in his native Province, and that by the common consent and amid the warmest congratulations of men of all parties. Unfortunately, he has not lived long enough to enjoy, for any time, his well-won honours. He has gone from us, leaving upon the history of his country the stamp of his energy, ability and patriotic devotion, and bequeathing to his friends the record of a long and laborious life spent in the interests of his fellow-men.

(For the foregoing estimate of Joseph Howe we are indebted to the Montreal Gazette.)