Colonial Ministers at home as actuated by every virtue which should glow within the capacious bosom of a British Statesman. I am sure that I have attributed no sinister motive, no evil idea, no blindness to honesty, no aptitude for craft to any Secretary of State. There are I think no less than eleven of them still living, all of whom the British public regards as honourable men who have deserved well of their country. I can remember almost as many more of whom the same may be said, who are now at peace beyond the troubles of the Native Question. I will endeavour to catalogue the higher public virtues by which they have endeared themselves to their country,—only remarking that those virtues have not, each of them, held the same respective places in the bosoms of all of them. A sensitiveness to the greatness and glory of England,—what we may perhaps call the Rule Britannia feeling,—which cannot endure the idea that the British foot should ever go back one inch! Is it not national ardour such as this which recommends our Statesmen to our love? And then there has been that well-weighed economy which has been acquired in the closet and used in the House of Commons, without which no minister can really be true to his country. To levy what taxes be needed, but to take care that no more is spent than is needed;—is not that the first duty of a Cabinet Minister? But it has been England's destiny to be the arbiter of the fate of hundreds of millions of dusky human beings,—black, but still brethren,—on distant shores. The Queen has a hundred coloured subjects to one that is white. It has been the peculiar duty of the Colonial Minister to look after and
