he best means of
appreciating, and who could bear witness at least, if they please to
do so, to the spirit, intentions, and motives with which I have
administered your affairs; some with whom I have been bound by the
ties of personal regard. And if reciprocity be essential to enmity,
then most assuredly I can leave behind me no enemies. I am aware that
there must be persons in so large a society as this, who think that
they have grievances to complain of, that due consideration has not in
all cases been shown to them. Let them believe me, and they ought to
believe me, for the testimony of a dying man is evidence, even in a
court of justice, let them believe me, then, when I assure them, in
this the last hour of my agony, that no such errors of omission or
commission have been intentional on my part. Farewell, and God bless
you." Before I proceed to review some features of his administration
in Canada, to which it has not been possible to do adequate justice in
previous chapters of this book, I must very briefly refer to the
eminent services which he was able to perform for the empire before he
closed his useful life amid the shadows of the Himalayas. On his
return to England he took his seat in the House of Lords, but he gave
very little attention to politics or legislation. On one occasion,
however, he expressed a serious doubt as to the wisdom of sending to
Canada large bodies of troops, which had come back from the Crimea, on
the ground that such a proceeding might complicate the relations of
the colony with the United States, and at the same time arrest its
progress towards self-independence in all matters affecting its
internal order and security.

This opinion was in unison with the sentiments which he had often
expressed to the secretary of state during his term of office in
America. While he always deprecated any hasty withdrawal of imperial
troops from the dependency as likely at that time to imperil its
connection with the mother country, he believed most thoroughly in
educating Canadians gradually to understand the large measure of
responsibility which attached to self-government. He was of opinion
"that the system of relieving colonists altogether from the duty of
self-defence must be attended with injurious effects upon themselves."
"It checks," he continued, "the growth of national and manly morals.
Men seldom think anything worth preserving for which they are never
asked to make a sacrifice." His view wa