d the other members of the Royal Family." In
response to the toast, the Prince arose amidst great cheering, and
said:--

"My Lord Mayor, your Majesty, my Lords and Gentlemen,--For the
kind and remarkably flattering way in which you, my Lord Mayor,
have been good enough to propose this toast, and you, my lords
and gentlemen, for the kind and hearty way in which you have
received it, I beg to offer you my most sincere thanks. It is a
peculiar pleasure to me to come to the City, because I have the
honour of being one of its freemen. But this is, indeed, a very
special dinner, one of a kind that I do not suppose has ever
been given before; for we have here this evening representatives
of probably every Colony in the Empire. We have not only the
Secretary of the Colonies, but Governors past and present,
ministers, administrators, and agents are all, I think, to be
found here this evening. I regret that it has not been possible
for me to see half or one-third of the colonies which it has
been the good fortune of my brother the Duke of Edinburgh to
visit. In his voyages round the world he has had opportunities
more than once of seeing all our great colonies. Though I have
not been able personally to see them, or only a small portion of
them, you may rest assured it does not diminish in any way the
interest I take in them.

"It is, I am sorry to say, now going on for twenty-one years
since I visited our large North American colonies. Still, though
I was very young at the time, the remembrance of that visit is
as deeply imprinted on my memory now as it was at that time. I
shall never forget the public receptions which were accorded to
me in Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward
Island, and if it were possible for me at any time to repeat
that visit, I need not tell you, gentlemen, who now represent
here those great North American colonies, of the great pleasure
it would give me to do so. It affords me great gratification to
see an old friend, Sir John Macdonald, the Premier of Canada,
here this evening.

"It was a most pressing invitation, certainly, that I received
two years ago to visit the great Australasian Colonies, and
though at the time I was unable to give an answer, in the
affirmative or in the negative, still it soon became apparent
that my many duties