c regions, speak eloquently to the men of
our race of the spirit which carried them so far afield in the
nineteenth century. Thanks to its first bishop, the Church of Melanesia
shares their fame, opening its history with a glorious chapter enriched
by heroism, self-sacrifice, and martyrdom.

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT MORIER

From a drawing by William Richmond]

SIR ROBERT D. B. MORIER, G.C.B., P.C.

1826-93

1826. Born at Paris, March 31.
1832-9. Childhood in Switzerland.
1839-44. With private tutors.
1845-9. Balliol College, Oxford.
1850. Clerk in Education Office.
1853. Attache at Vienna Embassy.
1858. Attache at Berlin.
1861. Marriage with Alice, daughter of General Jonathan Peel.
1865. Commissioner at Vienna. Commercial Treaty. C.B. Charge
d'Affaires at Frankfort.
1866-71. Charge d'Affaires at Darmstadt.
1870. Tour in Alsace to test national feeling.
1871. Charge d'Affaires at Stuttgart.
1872-6. Charge d'Affaires at Munich.
1875. Danger of second Franco-German War.
1876. Minister at Lisbon.
1881. Minister at Madrid. 1882. K.C.B.
1884. Bismarck vetoes Morier as Ambassador to Berlin.
1885-93. Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
1886. Bulgaria, Batum, and Black Sea troubles.
1887. G.C.B. 1889. D.C.L., Oxford.
1891. Appointed Ambassador at Rome: retained at St. Petersburg.
1893. Death at Montreux. Funeral at Batchworth.

ROBERT MORIER

DIPLOMATIST

Diplomacy as a profession is a product of modern history. As Europe
emerged from the Middle Ages, the dividing walls between State and State
were broken down, and Governments found it necessary to have trained
agents resident at foreign courts to conduct the questions of growing
importance which arose between them. Churchmen were at first best
qualified to undertake such duties, and Nicholas Wotton, Dean of
Canterbury, who enjoyed the confidence of four Tudor sovereigns, came to
be as much at home in France or in the Netherlands as he was in his own
Deanery. It was his great nephew Sir Henry (who began his days as a
scholar at Winchester, and ended them as Provost at Eton) who did his
profession a notable disservice by indulging his humour at Augsburg when
acting as envoy for James I, defining the diplomatist as 'one who was
sent to lie abroad for his country'.[42] Since then many a politician
and writer has let fly his shafts at diplomacy, and fervent democrats
have come to regard diplomats as veritable children of the devil. But
this prejudice is chi