board Captain
Murray's river-boat, the 'General Gordon,' whose course was so shaped
as to allow them the opportunity of seeing some of the most
picturesque scenery with which the Hawkesbury abounds. On the upper
deck arrangements had been made for the serving of a cold collation.
Mr. J.C. Carey presided.

The Right Hon. W.B. Dalley proposed the health of 'Our distinguished
guest, Lord Brassey.' In the course of his speech he said: 'Our hosts
on this occasion are men who have in the construction of the great
public works of this country expended about 14,000,000_l._ of the
public funds during the last ten years. Their guest is the son of a
man who had, by similar labours to those of their hosts on a gigantic
scale, by means of his vast and unparalleled industrial enterprise,
helped largely to change the face of the world; who had constructed
some of the greatest monuments of our later civilisation in England
and in India and in the British colonies, in France and in Germany, in
Belgium and in Italy, in Spain, Denmark, and Russia. He was in the
first rank of those benefactors of humanity, who perform prodigies of
power in the control and management of their own private affairs,
whose labours are extended over the whole world, and who leave on
every shore the monuments of their own genius and the memorials of the
power and resources of their country. For the greater portion of his
eventful life he was doing a large share of the peaceful business of
Europe, and nearly everywhere throughout the empire, in the erection
of gigantic public works, he was earning and dispensing tens of
millions, assembling in the construction of such great works the
representatives of many nationalities, so that it has been said that
the curious might have heard eleven different languages spoken in the
execution of the same contract. He was heightening and extending the
renown of Englishmen, upholding and increasing their reputation in the
eyes of foreigners, and teaching lessons of greatness and of justice
to the labouring millions of other nations. Here also in this colony
he constructed some of the greatest of our public works. To the son of
such a man, visiting our colony, it seemed right and fitting that our
own public contractors should show all the honour which they could
bestow upon him. In welcoming Lord Brassey to this company of men of
enterprise and of large undertakings, and in asking him to meet men of
representative character and