As he went about London in the days that followed, widely received and entertained in both political and business circles, he discovered how little indeed was known about Canada. “The ignorance of English politicians about Canadian affairs,” he decided, “is about as astounding as the helpless dependence of the capitalists on the nod of a few bell-wethers.”7 But he was glad to learn how things were actually handled at the centre of empire: “It is very funny, and very instructive!”8 At the same time he found the feeling against the United States in the London world he moved in “something horrible – and it is as senseless as it is bitter”.9 As for the policy of The Times, he wrote to Holton: “It seems to be nothing but a mean pandering to the passions of the people, without regard to the hostile feeling that will arise in future years between the nations.”10
Nevertheless, the Canadian visitor could only appreciate the ready kindness he was shown on every hand, even among those city business men deeply involved in financing the ruinous Grand Trunk Railway. “The truths told by the Globe in the last ten years,” Brown noted dryly, “have not prevented the Barings, and Glyns and Chapmans etc., being very civil – and those who escaped Grand Trunk benefits particularly so.”11 In truth, he was perhaps disposed to be a little more civil to the Grand Trunk himself, since the recent reform and reorganization that Edward Watkin had sought to carry through would take the railway somewhat out of Canadian politics and put it more effectively under a directing board representing the major British interests behind the Company. Furthermore, that spring the Globe had welcomed the appointment of C. J. Brydges as the new Canadian general manager of the line. He was known as an efficient and experienced railway man, having been manager of the well-run Great Western, in which capacity George Brown had long had business dealings with him over Bothwell.12
Yet Brown still remained suspicious of the ultimate aims of Grand Trunk enterprise, fearful that its plans for recovery and extension would again turn out to be at public expense, that they would mean still further raids on the debt-encumbered Canadian treasury. It was, no doubt, in a mood of considerable scepticism that he went along to a crowded meeting of Grand Trunk shareholders, held in the well-known London Tavern on August 8.13 Its purpose was to ratify new arrangements that Watkin had negotiated with the Canadian government to enable the railway to continue operating. Thomas Baring presided as Chairman of the Board, while Brown joined the throng of some 800 unhappy but still hopeful investors, as they listened to speeches by leading Grand Trunk financiers. Watkin was the most effective, deftly switching from talk of staving off foreclosure on the railway to bold pronouncements on completing its “original design”, a line to the Atlantic through British territory, to be complemented thereafter by a line to the Pacific. At the end, he won his ratification by a large majority, and the shareholders dispersed, presumably comforted and heartened. But the Canadian Reformer, lacking enthusiasm for railway extension so brightly promised out of bankruptcy, only had his doubts confirmed.
He learned, however, that hopes for railway expansion were echoed in high places, when the Duke of Newcastle requested his presence at an interview in Downing Street. Brown must have been impressed to have the Colonial Secretary lay the imperial government’s considerations frankly before him; “a most satisfactory interview”, he termed it.14 Emphatically, he told Holton: “Whatever small politicians and the London Times may say, you may depend on this – that the government and the leaders of the opposition perfectly understand our position, and have no thought of changing the relation between Canada and the Mother Country. On the contrary, the members of the government (with the exception of Gladstone) are set upon the intercolonial road and a grand transit route across the continent!”15 If the imperial power were behind the scheme, might this not change its prospects? And if the North West were thus to be opened, might not the railway to the Atlantic be managed as well?
One thing at least Brown felt was certain gain, after his discussions with Newcastle. “His scruples about Rep by Pop are gone entirely,” he reported happily, “and it would have done even Sandfield good to hear his ideas on the absurdity of the double majority.”16 There was another good sign. Alexander Galt, Canada’s former Minister of Finance, was in England that same summer; Brown at last made peace with his old enemy, whose financial policies he had so often led in criticizing. And Galt, he found, “goes in now for constitutional changes stiff”.17 Prospects for altering the Canadian union were looking better and better.
A month and more thus passed in England, though marred by the poignant news that his mother had died suddenly but peacefully while his ship had been at sea. “But for the sad thought,” he recorded, “that never more will I see my beloved Mother – ever recurring – my visit would have been one of intense pleasure throughout.”18 He had enjoyed being a welcomed visitor and privileged observer, and had no less benefited from exchanging views in the spacious atmosphere of London, so different from the cramped confinement of a colony. None the less, the stamp of Canada was on him strongly, and most clearly in his resentment of the widespread lack of comprehension in the motherland of his country across the Atlantic. He declined repeated invitations to speak, for, as he said stoutly: “I have no idea of defending Canada before the English people, and defence would be the only possible attitude at this moment.”19 Even when he moved on to his native Scotland early in September, and wandered through “the old loved spots” in Edinburgh, he felt no impulse to turn back from the land of his adoption. “I needed nothing to ‘reconcile’ me to Canada,” George Brown wrote, “but after all I have seen, I say now as earnestly as ever – Canada for me!”20
2
In Edinburgh there were many friends, of course, and many happy meetings with old cronies – although he found that “the sad, sad blanks tell the tale of twenty-five years”.21 Yet one connection here that Brown renewed began to take on growing significance as the days went by: his link with the Nelsons, the wealthy Edinburgh publishing family whose handsome, hospitable mansion, Abden House in the suburb of Newington, was a substantial indication of the achievements of their big Hope Park printing works near by. William and Thomas Nelson, sons of the first Thomas Nelson, the late founder of the firm, had been George Brown’s schoolmates at the high school many years before.22 Brown had run into Tom Nelson in London, in fact, and the latter had written to his sister Anne at Abden House that it was “not unlikely that George Brown of Toronto will come and spend a week with us”.23 He did come to stay, and did not move far away thereafter. For in Anne Nelson he found an attraction that would not let him go. Suddenly, surprisingly, the confirmed bachelor of forty-three was falling very much in love.
Anne was worth it; she was entirely worth it. Some ten years his junior, she was light-hearted, lively, and engaging, yet no less intelligent and firm-minded for that. Her glossy dark hair was pulled back tightly in the heavy chignon of the 1860s from her glowing, fair-complexioned Scottish countenance, her clear eyes shone warmly, her sensitive mouth smiled easily. She loved company and busy activity, but best of all her affectionate nature loved the intimate group of family and friends that gathered at Abden House. George Brown himself, happiest in a close-knit group of family intimates, could readily feel at home among the cordial Nelsons – and above all in Anne’s presence. She was the charming centre of a companionable circle that included her older brothers, William and Tom, the younger John and James, and her sister Jessie.
Anne, however, was far more than the devoted, contented daughter of a prosperous Edinburgh household, and Brown admired her all the more for it. She was quite widely travelled and certainly well cultivated. She had studied in Germany, knew the language, and still kept in touch with German friends in Heidelberg.24 She had lived in Paris in her early twenties, and had written a conscientious journal of her grand tour from Paris to Avignon, Marseilles, and Nice, from Genoa to Milan and Switzerland, and on