even a Dibdin. Our purpose and our manliness are alike failing.

In our opinion, no man spoke truly out in the House of Lords but the Earl of Winchilsea; and we agree with him, that the present House of Commons is not possessed of the confidence of the British nation. Mr. Roebuck talks of fools, and invites the world to write him down an ass in all but the epidermis which allows that ass to toy good naturedly with thistles; but who believes that the Roman Catholic peers and gentlemen of England would ever, in the event of a civil war, be neutral, or take arms against the Pope? There is no mild form of Popery extant-the body of a man cannot be Protestant and his soul Papist. We hear that the Pope is quite comfortable as to any possible result of his advisers' policy in England. Could he anticipate, even by a forty Minto power of mistaken acquiescence, such a bland measure as that of Lord John Russell?

FEBRUABY 12TH, 1851.

JONATHAN WILL SEE ABOUT IT.

THE PROPOSED BRITISH RAILWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA.

SEVERAL American papers have been forwarded to us containing notices of "Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved"—a work in which a grand scheme of relief to England has been laid before the public, combined with various plans for the reformation of the Church, the diminution of taxes, and the regeneration of the country. This more than "suggestive book," as it was termed by the

Globe, whose chief feature is founded on the pamphlets of Major Carmichael-Smyth, which ought at once to have arrested the attention of our "patriotic" (!) statesmen and capitalists, has excited the fears and jealousies of our keen rivals in the United States. Alas! they little estimate the narrow-minded policy, the small colonial craft, the petty bigotry, and jobbing incapacity, which will prevent England from seizing upon every real advantage that is left to her, or they would not alarm themselves. They do not know that Greece, or Sardinia, are of more importance to us than Canada, or Nova Scotia. They are not aware that a Bishop in New Zealand is our salvation, and an "Exhibition" the gilded egg of our goose, or they would not be on the qui vive to anticipate us. However, they do see the vast importance of the propositions which are here neglected, or treated with contempt, by the superficial irony of an Athenæum hackwriter. An account of this proposed grand undertaking is given in the American Traveller, quoted from the National Intelligencer and the New York Commercial Advertiser. These papers do not seem to find anything very impossible in the scheme, should it once be undertaken. We give below two notices, in the Statesman and the Daily Evening Transcript, which show the estimation in which the ideas are held, which are contained in this volume :

PACIFIC RAILROAD PROJECTS.

"In the United States' House of Representatives, on Thursday, a motion to suspend the rules in order to introduce a resolution granting the use of the House to Asa Whitney, to explain his project for a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific, resulted in the suspension of the rules, and the adoption of a resolution granting to Mr. Whitney the use of the House for next Saturday evening.

"An octavo volume of 556 pages has been just published in London,

entitled 'Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved: By F. A. Wilson and Alfred B. Richards,' the object of which is the advocacy of a scheme for building a railroad from Halifax, across Canada, to the Pacific. It is developed at length and with great force of argument. This route (say the writers) is fifteen hundred miles shorter than that proposed by Mr. Whitney. The work, they estimate, will cost £5,000 per mile, or £14,000,000 for the whole. They would have it built by removing, at first the convicts, and then the paupers, of Great Britain, and employing them in the work, the entire cost of which will be less than half the present annual expense of pauperism in the United Kingdom. At the same time Canada should be incorporated with the Kingdom-not as a colony, but as an integral part, the same as Ireland and Scotland.

"It is proposed that twenty thousand convicts should be placed at once upon the road to work it, and that the paupers of the United Kingdom be colonized upon the line, and there sustain themselves by their own labour. It is estimated that five millions of the British population can be spared from home, and that this is the very material to build the proposed road. The adoption of this plan, it is claimed, will regenerate Great Britain, cure all her maladies, relieve her of her burdens, and give her the command of the commerce of the world."-Boston Daily Evening Transcript.

"A book of 550 pages has been published in London, with plates and a map of North America down to the 40th degree of north latitude, detailing the plan of a railroad across Nova Scotia and the Canadas, from Halifax to the Pacific. The idea is magnificent. The route from Halifax to Quebec is already surveyed. The distance from England to China by this proposed road is shown to be fifteen hundred miles shorter than the nearest route across the United States. The cost of the road is estimated at £14,000,000, averaging £5,000 a mile. To build it 20,000 convicts are to be set at work at once; paupers are to be sent over, and Canada is to be raised to great dignity in the United Kingdom. Five millions of people can be spared from England, Ireland, and Scotland, to settle along the route and populate it to the Pacific. The scheme is to relieve Great Britain of her pauper burdens, regenerate the old Monarchy, and establish her firmly on the American continent. Jonathan will see about it !”—Boston Statesman.

In this country, with a few exceptions, "Britain ReIdeemed and Canada Preserved" has met with the most bitter opposition. The plan itself has been ridiculed, because it interferes with the paltry interests of those who are con

cerned in all the fatal piddling details of an emigration, which, at present, drains the country of her best resources, without even the hope of return or profit. Our Government contents itself with merely getting rid of population—no matter how. The bottom of the sea, a rival country, or the Antipodesit is all one to them. "Britain Redeemed" has not scrupled to lash the impotence of the age and the schisms of a bloated Church, whilst it prognosticates the now-impending ruin, and entreats, perhaps ironically, a voluntary purification at the hands of the Church herself. It has spoken out the truth manfully, therefore it has made enemies. The grossest, most vulgar abuse was heaped upon it by such a publication as the Colonial Review-probably in the hands of Colonial imbecility directing the sordid reviewer. One of its authors was accused, in the above publication, of deriving his idea from the prisoners indicted at the Old Bailey for duck-stealing, although, it is insinuated, the luckless man had himself no briefs-a mere looker-on upon chicanery, not a professor. He never wore wig and gown in that Court, even upon a single occasion. The remark, therefore, as a malicious lie, was worthy of the worst days of the Satirist. The Athenæum did not hesitate to attack the work with direct falsehood. The Economist out-stepped the usual limits of reviewing to descant upon the impossibility of a sale, and to lecture Mr. Longman on suffering the rash authors to rush on their fate-although it is obvious that the Economist could know no more about the sale than its authors were likely to be aware of the valuable "property" enjoyed in the Economist. Such was the feeling exhibited by Englishmen with regard to a work which certainly had no apparent motive but the prosperity and glory of England. The opinions of a rival nation are, in such a case, worth some

thing. All we can say or predicate is this, that when her noble possessions in North America have been suffered to glide away from the grasp of Great Britain by a curious imbecility, or are wrested from her by her own vicious and corrupt administrators and advisers, then, and not until then, will the magnitude of the game she might have played in the world's annals be appreciated. Perhaps the dull reaction and stagnation which will ensue at the close of the "World's Fair," will leave her time to see that the lesson of the American war was entirely thrown away upon legislators not less obstinate but more degenerate than those who spurned the negotiation of Franklin, disregarded the death of Chatham, and, finally, crowned injustice with stupidity, cruelty, and defeat.

OUR NORTH AMERICAN PROSPECTS AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

WE are glad to observe that the question of the British North American Railway has been brought before the House of Lords, and that Mr. HowE, whose mission from Nova Scotia we have so often noticed, is on the point of seeing his object in coming to this country accomplished. Both Earl Grey and Lord Stanley have spoken upon a subject much more interesting to the nation, if its benefit be considered, than Papal aggression; and we trust now that the ball will be kept up; that Colonial jobbing will be strangled by this infant Hercules of design, and that the whole of that gigantic plan, which we have so long advocated, will in due time be carried out-viz., the incorporation of our North American Colonies with Great Britain, and the formation of a line

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