ction,
poverty, and martyrdom? How many centuries has it taken in the
history of the world to induce it to denounce the not yet abolished
theory of slavery? A throne, a lord, and a bishop still remain to
encumber the earth! What right had I, then, as the first of the
Fixed-Periodists, to hope that I might live to see my scheme carried
out, or that I might be allowed to depart as among the first glorious
recipients of its advantages?

It would appear absurd to say that had there been such a law in
force in England, England would not have prevented its adoption in
Britannula. That is a matter of course. But it has been because the
old men are still alive in England that the young in Britannula are
to be afflicted,--the young and the old as well. The Prime Minister
in Downing Street was seventy-two when we were debarred from carrying
out our project, and the Secretary for the Colonies was sixty-nine.
Had they been among us, and had we been allowed to use our wisdom
without interference from effete old age, where would they have been?
I wish to speak with all respect of Sir William Gladstone. When we
named our metropolis after him, we were aware of his good qualities.
He has not the eloquence of his great-grandfather, but he is, they
tell us, a safe man. As to the Minister for the Crown Colonies,--of
which, alas! Britannula has again become one,--I do not, I own, look
upon him as a great statesman. The present Duke of Hatfield has none
of the dash, if he has more than the prudence, of his grandfather.
He was elected to the present Upper Chamber as a strong anti-Church
Liberal, but he never has had the spirit to be a true reformer. It is
now due to the "feelings" which fill no doubt the bosoms of these two
anti-Fixed-Period seniors, that the doctrine of the Fixed Period has
for a time been quenched in Britannula. It is sad to think that the
strength and intellect and spirit of manhood should thus be conquered
by that very imbecility which it is their desire to banish from the
world.

Two years since I had become the President of that which we gloried
to call the rising Empire of the South Pacific. And in spite of all
internal opposition, the college of the Fixed Period was already
completed. I then received violent notice from the British Government
that Britannula had ceased to be independent, and had again been
absorbed by the mother country among the Crown Colonies. How that
information was received, and with what weak