ness on the part of the
Britannulists, I now proceed to tell.

I confess that I for one was not at first prepared to obey. We were
small, but we were independent, and owed no more of submission to
Great Britain than we do to the Salomon Islands or to Otaheite.
It was for us to make our own laws, and we had hitherto made them
in conformity with the institutions, and, I must say, with the
prejudices of so-called civilisation. We had now made a first attempt
at progress beyond these limits, and we were immediately stopped by
the fatuous darkness of the old men whom, had Great Britain known
her own interest, she would already have silenced by a Fixed Period
law on her own account. No greater instance of uncalled-for tyranny
is told of in the history of the world as already written. But my
brother Britannulists did not agree with me that, in the interest of
the coming races, it was our duty rather to die at our posts than
yield to the menaces of the Duke of Hatfield. One British gunboat,
they declared, in the harbour of Gladstonopolis, would reduce us--to
order. What order? A 250-ton steam-swiveller could no doubt crush
us, and bring our Fixed Period college in premature ruin about our
ears. But, as was said, the captain of the gunboat would never dare
to touch the wire that should commit so wide a destruction. An
Englishman would hesitate to fire a shot that would send perhaps five
thousand of his fellow-creatures to destruction before their Fixed
Period. But even in Britannula fear still remains. It was decided, I
will confess by the common voice of the island, that we should admit
this Governor, and swear fealty again to the British Crown. Sir
Ferdinando Brown was allowed to land, and by the rejoicing made at
the first Government House ball, as I have already learned since I
left the island, it appeared that the Britannulists rejoiced rather
than otherwise at their thraldom.

Two months have passed since that time, and I, being a worn-out old
man, and fitted only for the glory of the college, have nothing left
me but to write this story, so that coming ages may see how noble
were our efforts. But in truth, the difficulties which lay in our
way were very stern. The philosophical truth on which the system is
founded was too strong, too mighty, too divine, to be adopted by man
in the immediate age of its first appearance. But it has appeared;
and I perhaps should be contented and gratified, during the years
which I am doo