B.—l

16

times when it seemed to me that terrible reverses must infallibly overtake them, and again and again has the weakness of my judgment been rebuked, until I have learned to think that the logic of facts is in favour of recovery rather than of decline. The growth of these colonies has been so marvellously rapid that the mind is unable to retain the memory of the halting periods. As the past so the future, and in all humbleness of spirit I dare to predict that many generations will pass away before the colonies beneath the Southern Cross reach the culminating greatness of their destiny.