2.
I propose to drink to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the rest of the Royal Family. The younger members of the Royal Family are rapidly growing up. The Princess Royal has already become the founder of a new family, destined to mount the throne of Prussia. The Prince of Wales is following his academic course at Oxford, which he intends to complete at the sister University, Cambridge; while his younger brother has, by the prescribed apprenticeship, earned his rating as Midshipman, and serves zealously as such in the Fleet. It will be a curious coincidence, that nearly at the same time—a few weeks hence—though almost at the opposite poles, the Prince of Wales will inaugurate, in the Queen’s name, that stupendous work, the great bridge over the St. Lawrence in Canada, while Prince Alfred will lay the foundation stone of the breakwater for the harbour of Cape Town. What vast considerations, as regards our country, are brought to our minds in this simple fact! What present greatness! what past history! what future hopes! and how important and beneficent is the part given to the Royal Family of England to act in the development of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British Crown, and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with the mother country and with each other!