defence), and have in all the provinces a large fund available for local services and internal improvements. But suppose this policy propounded and the appeal made, and that the response is a determined negative? Even in that case it would be wise to make it, because the public conscience of the mother country would then be clear, and the hands of her statesmen free to deal with the whole question of national defence in its broadest outlines or in its bearing on the case of any single province, or group of provinces, which might then be dealt with in a more independent manner. But I will not for a moment do my fellow-colonists the injustice to suspect that they will decline a fair compromise of a question which involves at once their own protection and the consolidation and security of the empire. At all events, if there are any communities of British origin anywhere who desire to enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the Queen's subjects without paying for and defending them, let us ascertain where and who they are let us measure the proportions of political repudiation now, in a season of tranquillity, when we have leisure to gauge the evil and to apply correctives, rather than wait till war finds us unprepared and leaning upon presumptions in which there is no reality. But, it may be asked, can such an empire as this, wanting the compactness of France, Russia, or the United States, ever be kept together, and so brought to yield to the guidance and control of any central authority, as to be strong in war, and in peaceful times mutually interested in a common name and in a simultaneous development? We may save our pains if this question cannot be answered; but, after much reflection on the subject, I think it can, with as much certainty as any question can be answered that includes so many elements of speculation to which no positive test can be applied. A nation of soldiers like the Romans or the French would hardly have known what to do with such an empire as ours had Providence bestowed it as a gift. But to a nation of merchants, manufacturers, planters, fishermen, and sailors, its very extent, expansion, and diversity of production and consumption are its chief attractions. All that the sun ripens or the seas produce is ours, without going beyond our own boundaries. If a Zollverein, such as the Germans have, or free trade between States, such as the Great Republic enjoys, be advantageous, we have them on the wider scale, and with a far larger population. The seas divide our possessions, it is true, but out of this very division grow our valuable fisheries, our mercantile marine, our lines of ocean steamers; and out of these our navy and the supremacy upon the sea, which, if we hold together, with cheaper iron, coal, timber, and labour than almost any maritime country, no other power can dispute. Besides, though in some respects our distant possessions are a source of weakness, on the whole they give strength and power. Through India we command the trade and almost control the policy of Asia; and even in America, which at this moment is held to be our weakest point, while we possess half the continent, with the provinces of British America and the West Indies, we control the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and have a power of offence, as well as the duty of defence, all along a frontier which no surveillance can possibly close against our trade; and so it is in every quarter of the globe, the risks and costs of empire are counterbalanced by the possession of political power and of great commercial advantages. While we act in concert these are the common property of us all, and I cannot believe that there is in a single province of the empire in which British settlers form a majority a disposition to break away from the honourable compact under which these advantages are mutually shared, or an indisposition to contribute towards their perpetual guardianship and protection. So important do we deem these suggestions, that we cannot avoid expressing our conviction that, legislatively united to the colonies as proposed, more especially to British America, Australia, the Cape, and New Zealand, the colonies wedded to us by the gift of representation in the national councils and a general armament at home and abroad, Great Britain would arise, in one moment, from a state of comparative despondency to be one of the greatest powers on the face of the earth. Hitherto our colonies have, from what occurred with regard to America, been almost generally looked upon as communities which must necessarily, and as a matter of course, grow up under the ægis of Great Britain, which has to supply population in the first instance, and protection, credit, and government in the second, until they have so increased in numbers and wealth as to be able to throw off the mother country, and go alone like an infant that has come of age. But under a system such as is here proposed, the colonies would ever form an integral portion of the empire, the whole empire would grow with their growth, and share in their extended power and prosperity; instead of being a source of weakness, as some proclaim them to be, they would be a source of everincreasing strength; Great Britain would have an interest in furthering the foundation of new centres of population, and there are plenty of sparse lands in every one of our colonies-British America, the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand. If in ages as yet unseen one of the colonies should far outstrip the others, it might become the central seat of government, and London be superseded by Sydney or Ottawa, Graham's Town or Wellington, or by some place as yet without a name, but it would still be Great Britain; and in the mean time, as the population and power of the colonies would be ever on the increase, so also would be that of the mother country under such a truly imperial system. Never had a country such a chance of peaceful aggrandisement as this empire has. Will it, as it did in the case of the United States, cast the chance to the winds for the want of unity, wisdom, enterprise, and decision? THE PRESENT HOUR. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL. THE present hour-small fragment-speck of time! How many in luxurious rooms recline On couches soft, while lamps above them shine, How many, the same instant, on the wave Are toss'd by storms-they shriek, but none can save, E'en as these pulses beat, how many a sigh E'en as these pulses beat, the murderer steals THE HEIR OF NESTLEBY. A MYSTERIOUS TALE OF NEW YEAR'S EVE. CHAPTER I. A FAMILY HISTORY. "RALPH, you must go to college next term," said my father. "It is right that you should consort with your equals. I have written to have you entered at College, Oxford. The difficulties you will have to contend with will be great, for the allowance I can make you must, of necessity, be very small, but it will be sufficient to enable you to keep up the character of a gentleman, and, my boy, never forget your pride-your noble birth. The thought will enable you to stand aloof from the vain frivolities, the vices and follies of the age. A noble destiny is yet in store for our race. Nothing shall make me give up that hope, that firm belief. Do you firmly hold to it, my boy. Who knows but that it may be accomplished in you." My father's mind was, as the above remarks will have shown, thoroughly imbued with the belief that our ancestors were of high rank, and possessed of great wealth, and that we should some day recover the broad domains which were rightfully ours. This belief had as firmly been impressed on the mind of his father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather, as on his own; indeed, undoubtedly on the minds of our ancestors as far back as we could trace them. My father, Ralph Haggerstone, inherited a small property in a wild part of Cornwall, not far from the sea-coast. It had descended to him, neither enlarged nor decreased, from a Ralph Haggerstone, who was the possessor in the time of Charles II. The only documents we possessed showed that it had previously been purchased by a certain Andrew Ramsay, and had by him been legally transferred to our ancestor, the first Ralph Haggerstone. There could be little doubt that the impression as to the past greatness of the family, and our future destiny, was derived from this Andrew Ramsay. He had probably, impressed the idea on the mind of our ancestor, and charged him to transmit it with equal force to his successor, and thus it had been handed down to the present time. Though we lived in so remote a part of England, the name of Andrew Ramsay, as well as our own name, made us turn our eyes northward for the solution of the mystery; but we discovered so many families of Haggerstone on the Border, in Scotland, in Northumberland, and Yorkshire, that we considered it useless to attempt tracing a connexion with any of them. Before my father's time the means of communication between Cornwall and the north were so infrequent and difficult, that the task was looked upon as still more hopeless. There was an idea that certain papers which had been alluded to by Andrew Ramsay, which would have elucidated the mystery, were in existence; but though searched for in every direction they could not be found, nor could we discover that any attempt had been made by our ancestors to trace out the family from which they had descended. They seem all to have been remarkably steady, grave, upright men, highly respected by all around-their chief characteristic their conviction of their own noble lineage. The excess of their pride made them courteous and obliging to their neighbours. Although the property was scarcely larger than that possessed by an ordinary yeoman or small farmer, by the strictest economy and self-denial they had been enabled to hold their position as gentlemen, to accumulate a considerable amount of money, and to ally themselves in marriage with ladies of good family and education. It was a remarkable fact that only one son and one daughter from generation to generation had ever survived their infancy, and that son was the eldest, and named Ralph. The sons had received a liberal education, but had entered no profession, and returned to cultivate the paternal estate. The daughters had married well, or died highly respected old maids, not a whit behind their brothers in their belief of their noble ancestry, nor less anxious to support the dignity of the family. My generation formed no exception to the rule. My mother had died young, leaving my father, myself, and a daughter Margaret, or Margery, as she was invariably called. A very lovely dear little creature was my sister Margery. She was, however, like the rest of our race, proud of her supposed noble descent, and, I believe, had the most wealthy cotton lord, ironmaster, brewer or distiller in Great Britain or Ireland, made her an offer, she would disdainfully have refused him. That was Margery's chief fault, if fault it was. I loved my little sister very much, and thought her one of the sweetest creatures in existence. I must say a word about myself. I was of a somewhat romantic, fanciful temperament, which had contributed to make me keep aloof from my companions at school, besides that scarcely acknowledged feeling that they were my inferiors in birth and manners, which had been instilled into me from my earliest days. Had I not been taught at the same time to be courteous and kind to all persons of every degree, I should have been as generally disliked as I believe that I was liked by the majority of my acquaintance. I loved Nature under all circumstances-to wander alone through the woods, along the streams, across the hills, and over the green meadows; but more especially did I delight in her in her sterner mood, when I would hasten to the sea-shore to listen to the roar of the tempest, and to watch the wild waves dashing furiously on the stern rocks, which sent them back, baffled and confused, in showers of foam. I took no little interest in antiquarian lore, and would travel miles on foot to examine a newly opened barrow, or to visit a ruin. My knowledge might not have been very deep, but it was sufficient to make me humble, to desire to gain more information, and to comprehend what was said by those more deeply versed in the matter than I was. I had not been idle at school, and had read some time with a private tutor. Such were the qualifications I possessed when I went up to the university. The boy is the father of the man. I did not keep myself entirely aloof from the men of my own college, but I mixed very little with them in their amusements-indeed, in those which were productive of expense I could not join-consequently I got, I suspect, among many the character of being of a somewhat proud, |