city of Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. According to Article XXIII. the commissioners were to be appointed in the following manner: One by the Queen of England, one by the President of the United States, and the third by both acting jointly; but in event of a failure to agree, the representative at London of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary was to name the third. Owing to the delays which are inseparable from such weighty diplomatic undertakings, the commission did not assemble until June, 1877, from which time until November of the same year, the quiet Nova Scotian capital was the scene of another of those remarkable contests between the two great English nations of the world, in which words, not swords, were the weapons employed, and dollars, not deaths, the only damage that might be suffered.

The commission was constituted as follows: Sir A. T. Galt, a Canadian statesman of note, named by the Queen of England; Hon. Ensign H. Kellogg, named by the President of the United States; and Her Majesty and the President having failed to coincide on the third, His Excellency, M. Maurice Delfosse, Belgian Minister at Washington, was named by the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. The Hon. Dwight Foster attended as Agent of the United States, and Francis Clare Ford, Esq., as Agent of the Queen, each having associated with him a brilliant group of counsel learned in the law, while secretaries, official reporters, and other clerical assistants combined to make up quite an imposing gathering. It is not possible to follow the proceedings of this commission, interesting and important as they were. Suffice it to say, that on the 23d November, 1877, the commissioners by a majority report, their United States colleague dissenting, awarded the sum of $5,500,000 to England as compensation for the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under the terms of the Washington Treaty. This amount, after some demur on the part of the United States, was subsequently paid, and the much-vexed Fisheries Question slumbered in undisturbed peace until last year it was once more brought to life by the action of the United States government in giving notice that it did not desire the treaty to extend beyond the time limited therein. On the 30th June, 1885, therefore, the treaty expired, and now for the third time the Convention of London comes to the front, as the only authority whereby the mutual relations of Canada and the United States may be determined.

The present aspect of the Fisheries Question does not come within the scope of this article, but before closing my brief review of its past history, I hasten to express the hope, if not indeed the confidence, that warmly argued as it may be by statesmen and editors, it will once more find a

settlement through the same peaceful processes as have hitherto distinguished it. The convention of 1818, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, the Washington Treaty of 1871, and the Halifax Commission of 1877, when placed side by side with the Geneva Tribunal at which the Alabama claims found harmonious adjustment, present a picture that every rightthinking subject of Great Britain and the United States, those two peerless sister nations, must look upon with unbounded pride; and the lesson that picture teaches is one which the world greatly needs to learn in these days of myriad armies, and marvelous machinery for the slaughter of men. In the language, let us trust prophetic, of the superb peroration with which the late Mr. S. R. Thompson, the most eloquent perhaps of all the brilliant array of counsel there assembled, brought to a close his address before the Halifax Commission: "The spectacle presented by the Treaty of Washington and the arbitrations under it, is one at which the world must gaze in wonder and admiration. While nearly every other nation of the world settles its difficulties with other powers by the dreadful arbitrament of the sword, England and America, two of the most powerful nations upon the earth, whose peaceful flags of commerce float side by side in every quarter of the habitable globe, whose ships of war salute each other almost daily in every clime, and on every sea, refer their differences to the peaceful arbitrament of Christian men, sitting without show or parade of any kind. in open court. On the day that the Treaty of Washington was signed by the High Contracting Parties an epoch in the history of civilization was reached. On that day the heaviest blow ever struck by human agency fell upon that great anvil of the Almighty, upon which in His own way, and at His appointed time, the sword and the spear shall be transformed into the ploughshare and the reaping-hook."

Gracdonald Ocley

Marine Department, Ottawa, June, 1886.

THE SPEECHES OF HENRY CLAY

By common consent Daniel Webster is the representative of American public life. His possibilities were great. He moved in that stage of our national growth, which determined the cast of political thought and fixed the lines of constitutional interpretation. Endowed with profound intellect, an imposing mien and a magnificent chance, he could become one of the great of the race. This was the basis of his career, and he wrought as became it. Such is the reverential homage of his countrymen and the acknowledgment of culture beyond the sea. To detract from his just fame would be unpatriotic; yet we are vain of his memory. The profusion of fulsome eulogy pronounced upon him has been such as to obscure the other great characters of his day. Admiration has grown to panegyric, and panegyric to an adulation that not long ago prompted a noted writer to say that when Daniel Webster walked down State Street the buildings about him looked small. Appreciation does not require his deification, but justice to others demands that his fame be not exclusive. With him in the national councils were associated an array seldom surpassed in brilliancy or ability. Their names are familiar, though but little else. The works of Daniel Webster alone are studied, admired, and declaimed. They alone have become a component part of our literature. A few of his orations are classic, and will doubtless remain so. But turning to those who were equally conspicuous, and whose labors were as useful and lasting, we find their volumes dust-covered on the shelves, rarely mentioned and more rarely perused.

The cause of the superior regard for Webster's works may be readily assigned. Parliamentary speeches, to which most public men are confined, cannot as a rule contain the elements of lasting literary excellence. We do not search for it in tomes of talk upon tariffs, public lands, and internal improvements. But Webster's renown in speech, though mostly acquired in this field, now rests mainly upon studied discourses on occasions afforded only to a Massachusetts man and in the literary center of America. Thus a literature by itself has grown around them and their author, and much of it from the unchecked admiration of his literary neighbors and constituents. Time enough has not elapsed to dull this glamor, and it may be long before the illustrious New Englander shall pose more naturally in the general opinion. But time will eventually strip from his shoulders the robes of exaggerated praise and reveal a form more humanly noble.

Webster's distinction is triple-the chief source of his pre-eminence.

Yet as a jurist he must yield to Marshall; as a constructive statesman, to Hamilton; and as a political leader and debater, to Henry Clay. For nearly fifty years Clay was the most conspicuously-admired and abused man in the United States-such are the conditions of political leadership. Considering that whole period, he was its most potent political factor, and has left most marks upon its history. Entering national politics in time to lead the incitement of the war with England he continued in the public service until he died at his post, almost an octogenarian, still hopeful for his country and unsoured by his fortunes. His adequate biography has not been written; few pens have been busied in his behalf, and little of him or his works is known at large beyond the lingering magic of his name and the traditions of his political sway.

It is not proposed here to dissect his political creed or political measures. Whatever the criticism, they deserve attentive study in the light of his surroundings, mindful that he wrought shoulder to shoulder with Webster, maintaining the same principles and supported by the same party. With these considerations let us open his neglected works.

His productions are essentially speeches. They were made to secure votes and the popular approval of the measures they advocated. They contain no studied grandiloquence and no flaming passages on American institutions, liberty, and patriotism. They furnish little for the emulous schoolboy to declaim or to test the epic range of the English tongue. So they are not orations, sumptuous, classic, and grand, reared as polished monuments to astonish the eye of posterity; they caught the ear. They are left as they fell amidst crowded benches animated with extempore life; careless of their future as literature, he did not revise and varnish to appease the taste of the coming makers of books and biography. For this reason largely, they may seem here and there more partisan than philosophical, and, though by this means they best reflect the spirit of the time, they suffer in comparison with the more elaborate efforts of Webster, who by contemporary evidence was Clay's inferior in the exigencies of political debate.

Clay was a political genius; Webster, the incarnation of an intellect. One, the natural leader of political action; the other, the selected representative of a New England constituency. One, ardent and constructive; the other, cold, logical, and analytic. One inspired affection; the other, awe of his mental strength. One chose the field for a political fight; the other led on the charge of the heavy dragoons. One carried his friends on his shoulders, and the other was carried on. the shoulders of his friends. Webster was the offspring of a silent and black-browed Puritan, from

whom he inherited his characteristics. Maternal love and paternal aid supplied the means of a liberal training according to the highest standards of the day. In the center of culture and commerce, law held attractions and opportunies fitting the bent of young Webster's mind. Conscious of his powers and expectant of his future, he spurned humble but lucrative place, as a bar to his ambition. And with such hopes and helps was molded the mind to expound the Constitution and become the intellectual pride of the nation.

Some degrees of latitude south (where rugged winters are unknown) his great colleague came into the world; if in the midst of slavery and aristocracy, still with warm and impetuous Virginian blood in his veins. Fatherless, indigent and ignorant, he was soon thrown out for himself "to steer his course as he might or could." With next to no schooling he became the "Slashes mill-boy," then a grocery-man's clerk, then copyist to the prothonotary. With this practical training and his rare natural parts, he caught a Chancellor's eye, became his amanuensis and gained a venerable friend. Amidst such propitious surroundings his genius unfolded. He heard the eloquent Henry on his native heath and caught the inspiration. With brief preparation he procured his license to practice. law and emigrated to the West. "I remember how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make £100 Virginia money per year; and with what delight I received my first fifteen shilling fee. My hopes were more than realized. I immediately rushed into lucrative practice." Intuitive sense and perception were his tutors. With these and his power of speech, as native to him as hemp to Kentucky, he won an admiration and a following which soon pervaded the Union.

Nativity, training and mental composition, made the two men a complete antithesis. Webster repelled; Clay attracted, and the story was once current that a leading opponent refused introduction to Clay for fear of his address. The grand, grave and haughty Webster was admired at a distance for his mental stature; Clay was beloved by his enthusiastic adherents, and the long personal influence he exerted has no example in the history of modern politics.

The result was natural. When the Constitution was to be construed through the function of argument, Webster was a master; but when a dissentient people were at the verge of disunion, Clay could calm the storm. When politics of banking and finance were to be calmly discussed, Webster had no superior; but when the dignity of the flag was insulted, our seamen impressed and our commerce destroyed, Clay could raise the tempest of indignation and stir the people to resistance and war.