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It could not have been conveniently pigeon-holed, for it required
six men to carry it; but we may assume that it never got
farther than the Home Office, and that Her Majesty never heard of it,
and therefore never replied to it.
The petition was written by the truest friend the colonies have ever
had—one who died in harness while working in their cause—the late
C. W. Eddy, who informed the writer that the Disintegration party had
for a time so effectually “captured” the Royal Colonial Institute, of
which he was Secretary, that the Council refused to allow the petition
to lie on the table of the reading-room on the ground that it was
“revolutionary!” So unsatisfactory was their conduct as late as 1872,
that another colonial society would have been founded, had not the
colonial element gained the day in the Institute.
How far the petition was “revolutionary” may be seen from the
following extracts:
“We beg to represent to your Majesty that we have heard with
regret and alarm that your Majesty has been advised to consent to
give up the colonies, containing millions of acres of unoccupied land,
which might be employed profitably both to the colonies and to ourselves
as a field for emigration. We respectfully submit that your
Majesty’s colonial possessions were won for your Majesty, and settled
by the valor and enterprise and the treasure of the English people;
and that, having thus become part of the national freehold and inheritance
of your Majesty’s subjects, they are held in trust by your
Majesty, and ought not to be surrendered, but transmitted to your
Majesty’s successors, as they were received by your Majesty.”
The petition, after urging that by proclamation the mother country
and the colonies should be declared to be one Empire, adds, “we
would also submit that your Majesty might call to your Privy Council
representatives from the colonies for the purpose of consultation on
the affairs of the more distant parts of your Majesty’s dominion.”
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