med to linger through impotent imbecility, to think
that I have been the first reformer of my time, though I shall be
doomed to perish without having enjoyed its fruits.

I must now explain before I begin my story certain details of our
plan, which created much schism among ourselves. In the first place,
what should be the Fixed Period? When a party of us, three or four
hundred in number, first emigrated from New Zealand to Britannula,
we were, almost all of us, young people. We would not consent to
measures in regard to their public debt which the Houses in New
Zealand threatened to take; and as this island had been discovered,
and a part of it cultivated, thither we determined to go. Our
resolution was very popular, not only with certain parties in New
Zealand, but also in the mother country. Others followed us, and we
settled ourselves with great prosperity. But we were essentially
a young community. There were not above ten among us who had then
reached any Fixed Period; and not above twenty others who could be
said to be approaching it. There never could arrive a time or a
people when, or among whom, the system could be tried with so good a
hope of success. It was so long before we had been allowed to stand
on our bottom, that the Fixed Period became a matter of common
conversation in Britannula. There were many who looked forward to
it as the creator of a new idea of wealth and comfort; and it was
in those days that the calculation was made as to the rivers and
railways. I think that in England they thought that a few, and but
a few, among us were dreamers of a dream. Had they believed that
the Fixed Period would ever have become law, they would not have
permitted us to be law-makers. I acknowledge that. But when we were
once independent, then again to reduce us to submission by a 250-ton
steam-swiveller was an act of gross tyranny.

What should be the Fixed Period? That was the first question which
demanded an immediate answer. Years were named absurd in their
intended leniency;--eighty and even eighty-five! Let us say a
hundred, said I, aloud, turning upon them all the battery of my
ridicule. I suggested sixty; but the term was received with silence.
I pointed out that the few old men now on the island might be
exempted, and that even those above fifty-five might be allowed to
drag out their existences if they were weak enough to select for
themselves so degrading a position. This latter proposition was
accep