Page:The Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt.djvu/106

LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR A. T. GALT nial Office declined briefly but emphatically to give aid in any shape or form, and the hopes of the colonists were once more dashed.

In the same month that Earl Grey's despatch killed the northern route project, July, 1850, there came an invitation to the public and business men of the Maritime Provinces to attend a great railway convention at Portland, Maine. It will be recalled that John A. Poor, the originator of the Portland-Montreal railway, had also dreamed of a road from Portland through St. John to Halifax. The "European and North American," it was held, would make Halifax the port for all the passenger and light freight traffic for the continent, bringing New York, via Portland and Halifax, within less than a week's distance of Liverpool. This was not all. It would give as good connection for all commercial purposes, between Montreal and the Maritime Provinces, as the Robinson route: the Robinson route formed the east and north sides of a great square and the Portland route the south and west sides, with the advantage that the west side, or the Portland-Montreal feared, (see letter to Brooks and Hale, p. 138) lookedline, was already built. The convention ⁠was designed [sic] to enlist the interest of Maine and the adjoining provinces in this southern project.

From an oratorical point of view, the convention was a great success. All agreed that the European and North American was a splendid project, and all joined in inter-twining flags and pledging toasts on this first occasion that the sons of the Loyalists and the sons of their old opponents had met in common cause. But when it came to a discussion of ways and means enthusiasm halted. Maine had exhausted its resources in building roads to Montreal and Boston, and the provincial capitalists could not raise a tithe of the $12,000,000 required.

At this juncture Joseph Howe came forward. He had hitherto been too deeply absorbed in political and constitutional warfare to give much time to railway projects, 80