s have failed, private contribution
has volunteered its aid, and means are never wanting for any useful or
beneficial object.

"Our condition is a most enviable one. The history of the world has no
example to offer of such noble disinterestedness and such liberal rule,
as that exhibited by Great Britain to her colonies. If the policy of the
Colonial Office is not always good (which I fear is too much to say)
it is ever liberal; and if we do not mutually derive all the benefit
we might from the connexion, _we_, at least, reap more solid advantages
than we have a right to expect, and more, I am afraid, than our conduct
always deserves. I hope the Secretary for the Colonies may have the
advantage of making your acquaintance, Sir. Your experience is so great,
you might give him a vast deal of useful information, which he could
obtain from no one else.

"Minister," said Mr. Slick, who had just mounted the companion-ladder,
"will your honour," touching his hat, "jist look at your honour's
plunder, and see it's all right; remember me, Sir; thank your honour.
This way, Sir; let me help your honour down. Remember me again, Sir.
Thank your honour. Now you may go and break your neck, your honour, as
soon as you please; for I've got all out of you I can squeeze, that's a
fact. That's English, Squire--that's English servility, which they call
civility, and English meanness and beggin', which they call parquisite.
Who was that you wanted to see the Minister, that I heerd you a talkin'
of when I come on deck?"

"The Secretary of the Colonies," I said.

"Oh for goodness sake don't send that crittur to him," said he, "or
minister will have to pay him for his visit, more, p'raps, than he
can afford. John Russell, that had the ribbons afore him, appointed a
settler as a member of Legislative Council to Prince Edward's Island,
a berth that has no pay, that takes a feller three months a year from
home, and has a horrid sight to do; and what do you think he did? Now
jist guess. You give it up, do you? Well, you might as well, for if you
was five Yankees biled down to one, you wouldn't guess it. 'Remember
Secretary's clerk,' says he, a touchin' of his hat, 'give him a little
tip of thirty pound sterling, your honour.' Well, colonist had a drop of
Yankee blood in him, which was about one third molasses, and, of course,
one third more of a man than they commonly is, and so he jist ups and
says, 'I'll see you and your clerk to Jericho beyond