OUR COLONIAL REFORMERS. 265 compliance of Lord North. More sensible rulers would doubtless have postponed, but they could hardly have averted the eventual conflict, which must have arisen from such jarring and discordant principles. In the confusion of our relative rights and powers, the provinces had a practical and permanent grievance, and they were tolerably certain to break the chain as soon as we gave them an intelligible opportunity. Their course would probably have been imitated before this by others of our more thriving and populous Colonies, but for the exertions of a body of gentlemen, who undertook to deal with this difficulty apart, and subsequently as a society for the Reform of our Colonial Government. The originators of this society had indoctrinated the public, for years previously, with the pressing necessity for exempting the Colonies from our gratuitous interference. At that time there was no question that Colonies were valuable possessions, and it was contended that all which was needed to preserve them was a clear demarcation of their rights from ours, a full exemption from all control in the matters which solely regarded them, with a supervision only on the part of the empire in matters strictly of Imperial concernment. This view was substantially accepted by Parliament, and was carried out in a timely and sufficient sense in the official acts of the Home Administration. It may be said to have rendered Canada loyal, and to have dissipated the very threatening temper which was rising against us at the Cape of Good Hope. It was urged again in 1850, on the occasion of the Bill for the better government of the Australian Colonies, and the extent to which at that time it prevailed with Parliament had, as we conceive, a salutary influence. That we have retained some of our Colonies down to this hour, and that most of them are now contented and loyal, is admittedly owing to our timely adoption of this very policy. At the same time, of late years a conviction has sprung up that it is not carried out to its legitimate consequences. In assigning to our Colonies full powers of self-government, we have omitted to assign them the obligation of self-defence, which is doubtless in many cases its proper corollary.* At present our Colonies devolve upon us the cost of defending them from the consequences of acts which are theirs and not ours. On the other hand, we are bound to defend them in other cases where they are threatened with war in consequence of our Imperial policy. It is here that we have to apply distinctions which are the counterparts of distinctions already admitted, and to carry them out in equity to both parties. There is a disputable ground of obligations as well as of rights, which requires separation into their province and ours, and, until this is done, our terms of connection are debateable, and the connection itself may be looked upon as precarious. A few have gone to the length of advising us to turn our Colonies adrift without further ceremony, as if in despair of a settlement of this question. Our instincts, however, have repelled this advice, while opinion was forming to an opposite determination. The better conclusion seems now to be, that the value of Colonies has been greatly underrated, that they help the prestige, and may add to the strength of the mother country in its difficulties with hostile powers, that it dignifies and strengthens the position of the Colonies also to be "The result has been, in many cases, the production of an unprecedented anomaly-the freest possible government, responsible to legislatures based on universal suffrage; yet equipped with the sinews of war, in some cases the means of internal police, and part of the cost of civil establishments from another community, in the distant centre of the empire. Complete democracy impels these Colonial Ministers in their course of local policy, while supplies from another quarter enable them to deal with wars and tumults, and even with governmental opposition, without reference to the people; having their defence provided, and the needful costs defrayed by A BETTER UNDERSTANDING INDISPENSABLE. 267 regarded as parts of a great empire, that reciprocal reliance and cherished sympathies beget mutual services and benefits, that "national affinities, commercial interests, and partnership in a great name" constitute a natural bond of union, and that this bond may be a bond which care may confirm instead of one which recklessness may destroy. To this possible future there is but one path only, and it lies along the line of a definite distinction and an equitable division of rights and obligations. Such is the moral pointed even by an event so ancient as the Declaration of Independence on the part of the United States. There is no valid reason, but rather the contrary, why this deplorable history should tend to repeat itself, if we simply avoid the errors which led to it, and of which we have indicated the chief source and origin. Let us remove, if we can, the last remnants of the "uncertainty,” to which Chalmers ascribed so many of the troubles of his time. We may agree to retain our Colonies on equitable terms, or we may let them go, if they so desire; but whether we keep them or let them go, we can only escape a scandalous divorce by coming betimes to a clear understanding on the questions still remaining between us. Such a definite understanding may save our Colonial Empire, while without it we may stumble on some fatal quarrel, such as that which converted the greatest of our Colonies into a rival and now an unfriendly Republic. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688, AND ITS HISTORIAN. Pertinacity of Lord Macaulay.—Origin of his Bias.—Imitates while he refutes Scott. His History a Bataviad.-Keeps in the Background William's Failings. Brings out those of Marlborough.-Caricature of James the Second-of the Scotch-of the Tory Ladies-of the Nonjurors of the Tory Men of Letters, especially Dryden.—Minor Instances of Exaggera tion.-William's Ingratitude to Schomberg.-Conclusion. ONE of the happiest characteristics of the late Lord Macaulay was the remarkable unity of his literary labours. He was discursive to a certain degree in his earlier essays, but even there we are conscious of his tendency to concentrate his thoughts upon a single subject, the rescue of our native English liberties from the futile and wearisome tyranny of the Stuarts, and the consolidation of these liberties by the settlement of the Revolution. It is curious to observe how strong was this tendency in the earliest of his writings, those contained in the miscellany published shortly after his death. His famous article on Milton is there anticipated in the dialogue between Mr. Milton and Mr. Cowley. Even his early lyrics show the strength of his predilection for the task which he afterwards made the labour of his life, and when he left this task unfinished, dropping, as it were, the pen from his hand, in the very climax of his great performance, he was strenuously pursuing the same intent which prompted the most fervent of his boyish compositions. It is a proof of the strength and tenacity of his mind that, during a life of which the engagements were varied, and its opportunities in other directions were tempting, he persisted to the end in ORIGIN OF LORD MACAULAY'S BIAS. 269 his original preference, and fulfilled as a veteran his aspirations as an undergraduate. Let us add that this phenomenon of a purpose so determined, from youth to age, has never been explained by anything in the nature of a personal statement, or by any of those hints which even the most reticent throw out as to the motives which constrain them to such special industry. Yet there was doubtless an object contemplated by Macaulay, apart from the display of a certain class of learning, and this object combined the vindication of the principles by which our liberties were established upon their present basis, with a recognition of our debt to the authors of the Revolution. We may observe that a great service was rendered by him in this sense, and that our notions on such fundamental topics are much clearer in consequence, without on the instant perceiving the reasons which made the work of the historian such a labour of enthusiasm. We are hardly conscious now that a vindication was required, for the reason that it is so complete and so generally accepted; and we must look back to the waverings of English opinion to estimate the opposition which Macaulay had in view. His very urgency shows that he was conscious of a question in debate, of a position to be made good, and a resistance to be overcome, and this resistance may not have been less appreciable because, as an opinion, it was vague and inexplicit. There was certainly no definite attempt in Macaulay's boyhood to challenge the guarantees of our lives and property, but there was even then a creeping, sentimental tendency to put a fresh gloss on their historical adversaries. We have since seen a direct demonstration to this effect, in the attempted resuscitation of the Church of Laud and Sacheverell, but even at that day there were symptoms of a growing preference for the submissive doctrines of the beaten Cavaliers. The Cavaliers are now left to the admirers of their vestments, who are not the choicest exhibitors of the Royal Academy, |