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He now opened negotiations with the American capitalists through M'Mullen, came to terms, and then sought associates in Canada.
The following are a few brief extracts from letters addressed by Sir Hugh Allan to various American associates during 1872: Thinking that as I had taken up the project there must be something very good in it, a very formidable opposition was organized in Toronto, which for want of a better took as their cry 'No foreign influence; no Yankee dictation; no Northern Pacific to choke off our Canadian Pacific, and others equally sensible.... I was forced to drop ostensibly from our organization every American name, and put in reliable people on this side in place of them.... Mr M'Mullen was desirous of securing the inferior members of the Government, and entered into engagements of which I did not approve, as I thought it was only a waste of powder and shot.
M'Mullen became interested, and with his Chicago partners endeavoured to enlist the aid of the men behind the Northern Pacific Jay Cooke, General Cass, W. B. Ogden, T. A. Scott, and others. M'Mullen soon found that Waddington had exaggerated his influence, and that the government was not yet prepared to discuss terms.
M'Mullen and his associates, angry at this treatment, conveyed rumours to Opposition leaders, and finally Allan's confidential correspondence, stolen by a clerk in the office of J. J. C. Abbott, Allan's solicitor, was made public. The fat was in the fire. With the political controversy which followed we are not here concerned.
Alfred Waddington, enthusiast rather than practical promoter, sought at Ottawa a charter for the road he had done so much to secure, but his bill went no further than a first reading. At Ottawa he was met by G. W. M'Mullen, a Canadian residing in Chicago, who was visiting the Dominion on a canal deputation.
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