You will tell them
that we love our native country, and rejoice in our share of her
heritage of glory, that we offer our filial duty and manly affiance,
but, that we offer them on this condition, that we, and our children,
and their country, shall be _free_. This granted, every hour will
strengthen the relations already established between us; but should the
object of our League, so near to our hearts, fail us, should the British
public prove deaf or indifferent, or the minister prove inexorable, your
mission will have been discharged; and we must await, as best we may,
the development of those providential purposes which are often most
obscure when they are nearest the dawn. 'England has no right to cast
out amongst other nations, or upon naked shores, either her poverty or
her crime. This is not the way in which a great and wealthy people, a
MOTHER OF NATIONS, ought to colonize.'"

"Never has the question of transportation assumed a greater importance
than at the present moment. The colonists are fretted by the vacillation
of her Majesty's government, but they are anxious to know that their
honor and happiness are compatible with their present political
relations. The plantation of new colonies in our vicinity, the now
constant intercourse with the American continent, the discovery of gold
fields, large in extent and abundant in production, on the Western
Cordilleras of New South Wales, and the thence certain rapid influx of
population, all make the future an object of solicitude. It may be your
happiness to contribute to the achievement of this great moral victory,
to the removal of those intolerable burdens imposed by a despotic
minister, and permitted by the indifference of the British Nation,--and
thus to the establishment of a closer union between these colonies and
the parent state."

The chief reliance of the confederates, however, was on the approaching
elections. The new constitutional act demanded a fresh appeal to the
people. The constituencies of the Australian world were to decide its
fate. The issue was no longer doubtful, except where the right of voting
was conferred on few, and the influence of squatters paramount. Such
places, were however, comparatively numerous, and a hard and earnest
struggle was expected in the northern district of New South Wales. The
conference of the League terminated its sittings on the 1st of May. On
the 5th, the official corps of Victoria, the representatives and the
dele