sentative personality. The man's history becomes the history of his time. Thus Canadians will always associate with the figure of their great leader the group of events which transformed their country from a number of isolated colonies, provincial in thought and policy, into a consolidated and selfreliant Dominion, filled with those hopes of a vast future which are naturally inspired by the possession of one-half. of a great continent. Even before the end of his life Macdonald had come to be looked upon as embodying, more than any one else, the spirit and purpose of the Canadian people. The tradition is one which seems likely to grow with the growth of the Dominion and with the fuller and more general recognition of the significance of the work he did and of the critical character of the period in which that work was accomplished. My aim in this volume will be to bring this tradition within the limits of true historical perspective, so far as this is possible in a limited space and in dealing with events still close at hand. I wish to outline concisely, but at the same time clearly, the career of the man who guided the destinies of my country through the anxious years which preceded Confederation and the difficult and not untroubled ones which followed the union of the provinces. For such a condensed biography there seems a distinct need. Sketches of Macdonald's career were PREFACE written during his life, but mainly for party purposes and with a strong party bias. The two large volumes in which, since his death, Mr. Pope has ably redeemed the trust committed to him of being the literary executor of his old chief, and those in which Colonel Macpherson has embodied many of his uncle's most important speeches, may be recommended to all who have the wish and the opportunity to study the details of Canadian politics. To both I have been constantly indebted. But either of these works is too voluminous, in these days of many books, for readers who can only spare the time to master essential facts. It is for such readers that this short biography is intended. I hope that in trying to condense I have not become obscure; that in the effort to be brief, no fact of major significance has been omitted. It is not an easy task to separate in all cases the false from the true, or to form an impartial judgment in writing of a man whose every public word and deed was regarded from a party point of view at a period when party passion was extreme; whose actions and purposes are perhaps as unfairly judged by the adulation of supporters as by the hostile interpretation of opponents. It may be a century before the final biography of Macdonald can be written, and his true place among contemporary statesmen assigned to him on clear historical grounds. Meanwhile, an attempt to separate the kernel of his achievement as a statesman from the husk of political controversy, in which the work of public men is so often hidden, may serve a patriotic purpose. It is in this belief that the present volume has been prepared. I have to acknowledge valuable assistance given to me in the preparation of Chapters V, VI and VII, by Mr. W. L. Grant, Beit Lecturer in Colonial History in the University of Oxford; assistance which he was specially qualified to give through his own studies of contemporaneous Canadian history made in connection with the biography of his distinguished father, the late Principal Grant. I must also gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. W. D. Le Sueur, whose sound judgment and full knowledge have been of inestimable advantage in the revision of the MS. and proof. London, August, 1907. G. R. P. |