could not be provided to the extent required, seeing that they
would be left nearly empty for every alternate space of four years.
Indeed, it needs but little argument to prove that the plan adopted
must have been a thoroughly uncomfortable plan, and the wonder is
that it should have been adopted. Lower Canada had undertaken to
make all her leading citizens wretched, providing Upper Canada
would treat hers with equal severity. This has now gone on for
some twelve years, and as the system was found to be an unendurable
nuisance, it has been at last admitted that some steps must be
taken toward selecting one capital for the country.

I should here, in justice to the Canadians, state a remark made to
me on this matter by one of the present leading politicians of the
colony. I cannot think that the migratory scheme was good but he
defended it, asserting that it had done very much to amalgamate the
people of the two provinces; that it had brought Lower Canadians
into Upper Canada, and Upper Canadians into Lower Canada, teaching
English to those who spoke only French before, and making each
pleasantly acquainted with the other. I have no doubt that
something--perhaps much--has been done in this way; but valuable as
the result may have been, I cannot think it worth the cost of the
means employed. The best answer to the above argument consists in
the undoubted fact that a migratory government would never have
been established for such a reason. It was so established because
Montreal, the central town, had given offense, and because the
jealousy of the provinces against each other would not admit of the
government being placed entirely at Quebec, or entirely at Toronto.

But it was necessary that some step should be taken; and as it was
found to be unlikely that any resolution should be reached by the