say, not
with a rod of iron, but very much after his own good will. He makes
us flowery speeches, and thinks that they will stand in lieu of
independence. He collects his revenue, and informs us that to be
taxed is the highest privilege of an ornate civilisation. He pointed
to the gunboat in the bay when it came, and called it the divine
depository of beneficent power. For a time, no doubt, British
"tenderness" will prevail. But I shall have wasted my thoughts, and
in vain poured out my eloquence as to the Fixed Period, if, in the
course of years, it does not again spring to the front, and prove
itself to be necessary before man can accomplish all that he is
destined to achieve.

CHAPTER II.

GABRIEL CRASWELLER.

I will now begin my tale. It is above thirty years since I commenced
my agitation in Britannula. We were a small people, and had not
then been blessed by separation; but we were, I think, peculiarly
intelligent. We were the very cream, as it were, that had been
skimmed from the milk-pail of the people of a wider colony,
themselves gifted with more than ordinary intelligence. We were the
_elite_ of the selected population of New Zealand. I think I may say
that no race so well informed ever before set itself down to form a
new nation. I am now nearly sixty years old,--very nearly fit for the
college which, alas! will never be open for me,--and I was nearly
thirty when I began to be in earnest as to the Fixed Period. At
that time my dearest friend and most trusted coadjutor was Gabriel
Crasweller. He was ten years my senior then, and is now therefore
fit for deposition in the college were the college there to receive
him. He was one of those who brought with them merino sheep into the
colony. At great labour and expense he exported from New Zealand a
small flock of choice animals, with which he was successful from the
first. He took possession of the lands of Little Christchurch, five
or six miles from Gladstonopolis, and showed great judgment in the
selection. A prettier spot, as it turned out, for the fattening of
both beef and mutton and for the growth of wool, it would have been
impossible to have found. Everything that human nature wants was
there at Little Christchurch. The streams which watered the land were
bright and rapid, and always running. The grasses were peculiarly
rich, and the old English fruit-trees, which we had brought with
us from New Zealand, throve there with an exuberant fertil