nkness to the Duke of
Newcastle, who was then Secretary of State. 'When your Grace and the
Prince of Wales,' he said, 'were employing yourselves so successfully
in conciliating the colonists, I thought that you were drawing closer
ties which might better be slackened, if there were any chance of
their slipping away altogether. I think that a policy which has regard
to a not very far off future should prepare facilities and
propensities for separation.... In my estimation the worst consequence
of the late dispute with the United States has been that of involving
this country and its North American provinces in closer relations and
a common cause.'[3] 'I have always believed,' wrote Sir Frederick
Rogers in 1885--'and the belief has so confirmed and consolidated
itself, that I can hardly realise the possibility of anyone seriously
thinking the contrary--that the destiny of our colonies is
independence; and that in this point of view the function of the
Colonial Office is to secure that our connection while it lasts shall
be as profitable to both parties, and our separation when it comes as
amicable as possible.'

I do not believe that opinions of this kind, though they were held by
a large and powerful section of English politicians, ever penetrated
very deeply into the English nation. One of the causes of Mr. Cobden's
'despair' was his conviction that the English people would never be
persuaded to surrender India except at the close of a disastrous and
exhausting war, and in his day the policy of national surrender was
certainly not that of the statesmen who led either party in
Parliament. No one would attribute it to Mr. Disraeli, in whose long
political life the note of Imperialism was perhaps that which sounded
with the clearest ring, and it was quite as repugnant to Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In an admirable speech which was
delivered in the beginning of 1850, Lord John Russell disclaimed all
sympathy with it, and I can well remember the indignation with which
in his latter days he was accustomed to speak of the views on the
subject which were then frequently expressed. 'When I was young,' he
once said to me, 'it was thought the mark of a wise statesman that he
had turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age it
appears to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a great
empire into a small kingdom.'

I do not think that anyone who has watched the current of English
opinion will doubt t