THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC LETTERS OF THE HON. JOSEPH HOWE. EDITED BY WILLIAM ANNAND, M.P.P. VOLUME FIRST. BOSTON: JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY. HALIFAX: A. & W. MACKINLAY. MONTREAL: B. DAWSON & SON. LONDON: SAMPSON, LOW, SON & CO 1858. Checked PUBLIC PREFACE. FOR nearly twenty years I have been the intimate friend of the gentleman, some of whose speeches and letters I have undertaken to edit and publish. Many of the speeches, included in this collection, I have heard delivered. Some of the public letters have been read in my presence, in the Legislature, amidst spontaneous expressions of high approbation, even from the writer's political opponents. The effects produced upon the public mind, and upon the affairs of his native Province, by Mr. Howe's mental and bodily labors, no man better than myself, perhaps, can fairly estimate. Both as a Legislator, and as a public journalist, my opportunities for observation and experience have been ample; and, from a very extensive acquaintance and intercourse with persons from all parts of British America, of all shades of politics, I have no reason to think that I over estimate the opinion entertained by his countrymen of his talents and exertions. My object is to preserve, while preservation is possible, the sentiments and opinions of a remarkable man, who has figured during an eventful period of our Provincial history; to enable my cotemporaries—the men and women of the present day — peruse again, and to estimate for their literary merit, or oratorical value, productions that formerly stirred their blood, or largely influenced their affairs; to give to the rising generation the means by which to judge, not only of the intellectual calibrc of the race they are to succeed, but of the true character 3 |